Nobody knows more, both from first hand experience and legal expertise, about the abuse of presidential power and their dangers than John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon. In Worse Than Watergate, Dean delivers a stunning indictment of the current Bush administration, and issues an urgent alarm to the nation: the Bush team's obsession with secrecy and their willingness to deceive make them even more dangerous than Nixon's. Dean brilliantly explores Bush's emphasis on image over substance; his angry, mistrustful personality; his excessive fear of leaks; his reversing the work of his predecessors in opening up government; his imperial governing combined with deeply flawed decision making; and his serious abuses of national security secrecy. From refusing to explain the precarious health of the powerful vice president to hiding the identity of those setting the nation's energy policy, from obstructing 9/11 investigations to unprecedented secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, Dean exposes the dangers of a presidency that is using weapons of mass deception against the American public.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The most facile presidential comparison one could make for George W. Bush would be his father, who presided over a war in Iraq and a struggling economy. Some "neocons" reject the parallel and compare Bush to his father's predecessor, Ronald Reagan, citing a plainspoken quality and a belief in deep tax cuts. But John Dean goes further back, seeing in Bush all the secrecy and scandal of Dean's former boss, the notorious Richard Nixon. The difference, as the title of Dean's book indicates, is that Bush is a heck of a lot worse. While the book provides insightful snippets of the way Nixon used to do business, it offers them to shed light on the practices of Bush. In Dean's estimation, the secrecy with which Bush and Dick Cheney govern is not merely a preferred system of management but an obsessive strategy meant to conceal a deeply troubling agenda of corporate favoritism and a dramatic growth in unchecked power for the executive branch that put at risk the lives of American citizens, civil liberties, and the Constitution. Dean sets out to make his point by drawing attention to several areas about which Bush and Cheney have been tight-lipped: the revealing by a "senior White House official" of the identity of an undercover CIA operative whose husband questioned the administration, the health of Cheney, the identity of Cheney's energy task force, the information requested by the bi-partisan 9/11 commission, Bush's business dealings early in his career, the creation of a "shadow government", wartime prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, and scores more. He theorizes that the truth about these and many other situations, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, will eventually surface and that Bush and Cheney's secrecy is a thus far effective means of keep a lid on a rapidly multiplying set of lies and scandals that far outstrip the misdeeds that led directly to Dean's former employer resigning in disgrace. Dean's charges are impassioned and more severe than many of Bush's most persistent critics. But those charges are realized only after careful reasoning and steady logic by a man who knows his way around scandal and corruption. --John Moe
From Publishers Weekly
This title’s accusation bears particular weight coming from the man who warned the super-secretive Richard Nixon that there was a cancer on his presidency, and Dean, who was Nixon’s White House counsel, makes a strong argument that the secrecy of what he dubs the "Bush-Cheney presidency" is "not merely unjustified and excessive but obsessive," and consequently "frighteningly dangerous." Some of the subjects he touches on have been covered in detail elsewhere, and his chapter on the administration’s stonewalling of the September 11 commission isn’t fully up to date. But few critics have as effectively put the disparate pieces together, linking them to what Dean says is a broader pattern of secrecy from an administration that does its best to control the flow of information on every subject—even the vice president’s health—and uses executive privilege to circumvent congressional scrutiny. Dean’s probe extends back to Bush’s pre-presidential activities, such as his attempt to withhold his gubernatorial papers from public view, and Dean’s background as an investment banker adds welcome perspective on Bush’s business career (as well as Cheney’s). Dean ultimately identifies 11 issues (such as the secrecy around the forming of a national energy policy and what Dean calls Bush’s misleading of Congress about war with Iraq) on which the White House’s stance could lead to scandal, and warns that allowing the administration to continue its policy of secrecy may lead to a weakening of democracy. Despite occasional comments about Bush’s intelligence that will rankle presidential supporters, Dean (Blind Ambition) is generally levelheaded; his role in Watergate and the seriousness of his charge in the national media that Bush has committed impeachable offenses has popped this onto bestseller lists.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
223 of 232 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I received this book yesterday, started it last night and finished it in the wee hours this morning. I have read many of the current political tomes and a great deal of current reporting from many newspapers; I consider myself fairly well informed on our current state of affairs. "Worse than Watergate" is riveting, the scariest book of the bunch.
Dean does a good job at the outset of describing his purpose and motivation in writing the book; it started out as a concern that the current administration was either "blissful or naive" in its reliance on- bordering on obsession with- secrecy. As he realized that he couldn't even keep pace with reporting the administration's stonewalling, refusals to share information, and terminations of Freedom of Information rights, it dawned on him that this was not naivete, but purposeful and intentional.
Dean makes no bones or excuses for his participation in the Watergate fiasco, but brings to bear the insights one might hope a participant in that scandal had gained from the experience. Indeed, reflections on then versus now are a persistent and pervasive theme throughout. And as the title makes clear, Dean's conclusion is that the behaviour of this administration is worse than Nixon's following the Watergate break-in.
The central topic is the use and abuse of secrecy. Dean makes a compelling case that an over-reliance on secrecy is corrupting in and of itself, and that secrecy begets still more secrecy. In a number of places and in a number of ways, he contends and argues that secrecy is anathema to the democratic process, the democratic system, and to the functioning of democratically elected officials. In short, while certain secrets must be kept, and while officials have certain rights to privacy, secrecy can become a cancer in the body politic all too easily.
Dean ends with an interesting and I think fuctional definition of "scandal," and enumerates eleven particular issues that, in his view, could lead to scandals on the scale of- or greater than- Watergate. It is very disturbing to see all of these charges together, as one realizes just how many issues have been shunted out of the public eye.
There were not too many revelations in this book; most of the issues and instances Dean raises are ones I had read about before. The value of this book is to help the reader see the situation through the lens of a player in what was the greatest political crisis of the last Century. I am not a Bush fan, but I readily concede that many of the differences I have with our current president are more differences of degree or method than of substance. There are issues on which I agree wholeheartedly with Bush, and find Democrats just plain wrong. However, the tendency to hide behind a wall of secrecy has been disturbing to me. I absolutely do not believe this administration has anything to hide with respect to 9/11, but given this belief, it is distressing to see them acting- in public- AS IF they do.
Dean has composed a powerful, short and eminently readable book that can serve either as a wakeup call to this administration regarding its attitudes toward Congress and the public, or as a warning klaxon to people who care about the health of our constitution, our democracy and our country.
Dean does a good job at the outset of describing his purpose and motivation in writing the book; it started out as a concern that the current administration was either "blissful or naive" in its reliance on- bordering on obsession with- secrecy. As he realized that he couldn't even keep pace with reporting the administration's stonewalling, refusals to share information, and terminations of Freedom of Information rights, it dawned on him that this was not naivete, but purposeful and intentional.
Dean makes no bones or excuses for his participation in the Watergate fiasco, but brings to bear the insights one might hope a participant in that scandal had gained from the experience. Indeed, reflections on then versus now are a persistent and pervasive theme throughout. And as the title makes clear, Dean's conclusion is that the behaviour of this administration is worse than Nixon's following the Watergate break-in.
The central topic is the use and abuse of secrecy. Dean makes a compelling case that an over-reliance on secrecy is corrupting in and of itself, and that secrecy begets still more secrecy. In a number of places and in a number of ways, he contends and argues that secrecy is anathema to the democratic process, the democratic system, and to the functioning of democratically elected officials. In short, while certain secrets must be kept, and while officials have certain rights to privacy, secrecy can become a cancer in the body politic all too easily.
Dean ends with an interesting and I think fuctional definition of "scandal," and enumerates eleven particular issues that, in his view, could lead to scandals on the scale of- or greater than- Watergate. It is very disturbing to see all of these charges together, as one realizes just how many issues have been shunted out of the public eye.
There were not too many revelations in this book; most of the issues and instances Dean raises are ones I had read about before. The value of this book is to help the reader see the situation through the lens of a player in what was the greatest political crisis of the last Century. I am not a Bush fan, but I readily concede that many of the differences I have with our current president are more differences of degree or method than of substance. There are issues on which I agree wholeheartedly with Bush, and find Democrats just plain wrong. However, the tendency to hide behind a wall of secrecy has been disturbing to me. I absolutely do not believe this administration has anything to hide with respect to 9/11, but given this belief, it is distressing to see them acting- in public- AS IF they do.
Dean has composed a powerful, short and eminently readable book that can serve either as a wakeup call to this administration regarding its attitudes toward Congress and the public, or as a warning klaxon to people who care about the health of our constitution, our democracy and our country.
675 of 738 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
For a convicted felon, John Dean is an exceptional author. I remember reading his own recollections of the Watergate affair and his own association with the subsequent events that led both to his own denouement and the resignation of Richard Nixon in disgrace in "Blind Ambition" in the mid 1970s. Once again he weighs in impressively by building a very strong circumstantial case for the investigation and possible prosecution of President George W. Bush for criminal actions that Dean terms to be indeed, "worst than those of Watergate". Culling from public records and the recollections of other eye-witnesses, Dean shows how Mr. Bush has systematically exaggerated, embellished, and engineered a series of preverifications and outright lies to the American public in an effort to convince us of the need for military intervention in Iraq.
Dean argues that in asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American force in Iraq, President Bush made a number of "unequivocal public statements" regarding the reasons this country needed to pursue military force in pursuit of national interests. Dean, now an academic and noted author, shows how through tradition, presidential statements regarding issues of national security are held to an expectation of "the highest standard of truthfulness". Therefore, according to Dean, no president can simply "stretch, twist or distort" the facts of a case and then expect to avoid resulting consequences. Citing historical precedents, Dean shows how Lyndon Johnson's distortions regarding the truth about the war in Vietnam led to his own subsequent withdrawal for candidacy for re-election in 1968, and how Richard Nixon's attempted cover-up of the truth about Watergate forced his own resignation.
Dean contends that while President Bush should indeed receive the benefit of the doubt, he must also be held accountable for explaining how it is that he made such a string of unambiguous and confident pronouncements to the American people (and to the world as well) regarding the existence of WMD, none of which have been substantiated in the subsequent searches that have been conducted by either Untied Nations nor American Military investigators. Dean explains how the vetting process for any public staement is processed within the executive branch.
[...] Moreover, Dean contends, others such as Donald Rumsfeld were even more emphatic in claiming Saddam Hussein had WMD, even claiming to know the locations as being in the Tikrit and Baghdad areas. Finally, he concludes, given the huge implicit political risk to Mr. Bush, it would inconceivable that Mr. Bush would be so brazen as to make such statements without some intelligence to back them up.
Yet, according to Mr. Dean, we are left with a dilemma; either Mr. Bush's statements are grossly inaccurate, given the tons and tons of chemical agents he claimed Saddam possessed which can be neither located nor substantiated, or Mr. Bush has deliberately misled us. How do we reconcile what seem to be quite unequivocal statements from both the President and his agents and the evidence to date regarding the existence of WMD? According to Mr. Dean, there are two possibilities; first, that there is something devilishly wrong with the current administration's national security operations, a prospect Dean finds hard to swallow, or, second, the President has deliberately misled the American people and the world regarding the evidence supporting taking preemptive military action against the sovereign nation of Iraq.
Bluntly stated, if Mr. Bush led this country into war based on bogus intelligence data, he is liable under the Constitution for manipulation and deliberate misuse of that data under the "high crimes" statute of that document, given the fact it is a felony to defraud the United States through such a conspiratorial action. According to Mr. Dean, It is time for both Congress and the American people to demand of Mr. Bush the same kind of high-minded honesty he pledged to us under the oath of office. This is an important book, and one I urge you to read!
214 of 234 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What stuns me about the negative reviews of this book is that anyone who gives any credibility at all to Dean is dismissed as a Bush basher. Having been too young to remember Watergate, I kept an open mind about Dean's parallels and felt he made his case with good evidence, and felt the comparison to be accurate.
That said, here is my review (forgive its length!):
That said, here is my review (forgive its length!):
"Worse than Watergate" is an insightful look at the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy, and an ongoing comparison with the Nixon "imperialist" presidency that resonates at many levels. Dean, having been Nixon's counsel during his presidency and instrumental in the Watergate hearings, draws upon his vast experience and knowledge to first introduce the reader to both administrations before sketching his parallels. The title of the book is profoundly accurate, underscoring that as devious and ruthless as Nixon had been in his time, he is an altar boy in comparison to the Bush administration. For those without a decent knowledge of political players in the '70s, it will be a bit of a shock to see that Cheney and Rumsfeld featured prominently in Nixon's administration. Dean gives the impression that Cheney, as chief of staff then and maligned by the press as incompetent, grew preoccupied about controlling information. This has culminated into the present obsession that defines this presidency. Dean also portrays Cheney as a "co-president" rather than vice president, and supplies ample proof to make the label stick. Humorous passages reinforce this idea: one analogy states that if Bush is the equivalent of a chairman of the board, then Cheney is certainly the CEO; another remarks that if Cheney's health condition ever becomes fatal, then Bush might become president. Dean details no less than eleven different areas where the administration has been unnecessarily secretive, and any one of these, should information leak out, could become a full-blown scandal capable of destroying this presidency. Among these items are Cheney's energy task force (soon to be before the Supreme Court); both Bush and Cheney's earlier business dealings(both with implications much worse than Martha Stewart's misconduct); Bush's pre-9/11 approach to terrorism, now being approached by the commission; and most especially, the vindictive leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA status in revenge against Joseph Wilson's contradiction that Saddam received uranium from Niger.
Appendix 1 lists all the misleading (if not false) statements made by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union. Dean helpfully responds to several major claims with documented evidence all but disproving each bold statement made by Dubya. The research in general that Dean has done to produce this book is impressive, and his endnotes are a reading all their own. The latest in a series of Washington insiders to denounce this presidency, this book is a must-read for those interested in the clandestine activities of this White House.
(also of note: Dean separates his facts and his opinions wisely, and to his credit, he refrains from theorizing what the Bush agenda truly is; if they win a second term, he predicts that, like Nixon, Bush will show his true colors)
Most Recent Customer Reviews
cool one....
I like it......its not like a OMG book, but it does uncover some of the junk GB does.....I think you will like it too
Published 11 months ago by A Viewer
What would Dean say now?
A very interesting book. John Dean has been in politics as long as I can remember, and that's a long time. There are only a few dry parts but for the most part Mr. Read more
Published 13 months ago by S. DeGiorgio
Credible source for the theme of the book.
John W. Dean is an ex counsel to former, now disgraced, president Richard Nixon. Given his proximity to a previous secrecy steeped presidency his inbuilt warning alarm started to... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Bob Hoskins
Absolutely Scary
This book is scarier than any Stephen King novel. I still can not believe how someone -- along with his cronies -- committed so many acts of crimes and sleaziness while in the... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Ronald J. Bryant
The book is higher than a 1, but wanted to comment on the bottom...
Isn't it funny how all the right-wing conservative hyperbole that was written years ago against this book have all been shown to be false years later. Read the book.
Published 22 months ago by cltprogrammer
An Eye Opening Truth , Confirming Fears
This book provides information about how the Bush Presidency was really run. It is scary how many rumors seem to be confirmed by the insight of John Dean in reference to how... Read more
Published on May 6, 2010 by Donald F. Henry
A Fabulous, Well-Documented Indictment of the Bush Presidency
John Dean's work is a stinging rebuke of the state of the Republican Party and how far it has slid from a supposedly "pure" conservatism of an earlier era. Read more
Published on April 5, 2010 by Roger D. Launius
Excellent view of the Real Bush White House
I agree with many reviewers who rave about this book. If you want to know the truth about the Bush White House, this is the book to read. Read more
Published on March 3, 2010 by Dr. Watson
Worse Than Watergate
This book was absolutely riveting! Made me angry and frustrated that such incompetence could happen! Shamefull!
Published on April 30, 2009 by Kenneth F. Peterson
Not conspiracy theory but the "real deal."
As the last of the "Watergate rats" who got his tail caught in the Nixon trap, Professor John Dean has rehabilitated himself into one of our finest elder statesmen. Read more
Published on March 9, 2009 by Herbert L Calhoun
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Nothing about George W. Bush struck me as secretive, dangerous, or the slightest bit Nixonian when he first ambled onto the national political scene. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
presidential secrecy, gubernatorial papers, whereas clauses, presidential determination, asbestos claims, government secrecy, counsel investigation, executive privilege, excessive secrecy, joint inquiry, national security matters Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
White House, United States, New York Times, Dick Cheney, Supreme Court, Washington Post, Cold War, Karl Rove, United Nations, Secret Service, National Security Council, Richard Nixon, Pentagon Papers, State of the Union, Texas Rangers, World War, Judge Bates, President Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Karen Hughes, Patriot Act, President Clinton, President George, Espionage Act New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Nothing about George W. Bush struck me as secretive, dangerous, or the slightest bit Nixonian when he first ambled onto the national political scene. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
presidential secrecy, gubernatorial papers, whereas clauses, presidential determination, asbestos claims, government secrecy, counsel investigation, executive privilege, excessive secrecy, joint inquiry, national security matters Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
White House, United States, New York Times, Dick Cheney, Supreme Court, Washington Post, Cold War, Karl Rove, United Nations, Secret Service, National Security Council, Richard Nixon, Pentagon Papers, State of the Union, Texas Rangers, World War, Judge Bates, President Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Karen Hughes, Patriot Act, President Clinton, President George, Espionage Act New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 59
books:
See all 59 books this book cites
1
book
cites this book:
- A Charge to Keep by George W. Bush on page 6, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- It Sure Looks Different from the Inside by Ron Nessen in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Colin Powell (Welcome Books: Real People) by Mary Hill on page 37, page 113, and Back Matter
- Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind on page 61, page 73, and page 188
- Presidential Accountability: New and Recurring Problems (Contributions in Political Science) by John Orman on page 186, and Back Matter
See all 59 books this book cites
- Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President by Justin A. Frank on page 81, and Index
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