John Dean

I saw John Dean speak at the LA Times Book Festival on Sunday, where he talked about his new book about the Bush administration, Worse than Watergate. And if anyone ought to know about whether or not something's worse than Watergate, it'd be him. His basic point was that secrecy in the Bush administration is dangerous to our democracy. (So shut up about it then! Stop telling everyone!) We know that these guys want everything in secret, from who they meet with to what information they reveal to what pictures they let out into the public. Dean mentioned that there was "a big break" in the Valerie Plame case (The latest here), and that "it's a lot like Watergate, there was a grand jury investigation all through 1972, through the election year, just like they're investigating now." He also said that if our government ever found out that a terrorist had obtained a weapon of mass destruction, that would basically be the end of all civil liberties as we know them. Some interesting stuff, I want to read the book.

Another recommendation: Frontline's The Man Who Knew, about John O'Neill, an FBI man who was so frustrated by the stonewalling of his attempts to go after al Qaeda before September 11 that he quit the bureau - to become head of security at the WTC. Every American should watch this. Many PBS stations rebroadcast it recently, you can also buy it at their site.