The Conscience of a Conservative
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John Dean in the Watergate Era - Picture courtesy Wikipedia Commons
by blogSpotter
I’m now listening to John Dean's book, "Conservatives without Conscience". For younger readers, Dean was Nixon's White House Counsel back in 1972 when the Watergate scandal broke. There are many details I didn't catch at the time, though it dominated TV for several years. Dean was a decent fellow, who was caught in a moral dilemma of sorts -- defend a scoundrel boss (Nixon), or blow the whistle on what is known. Dean took the latter course, becoming primary witness for the prosecution and receiving a much reduced sentence (9 months in minimum security) for a charge of obstructing justice. It appeared at the time that Liddy and Nixon were going to try to make Dean a scapegoat, so his reaction might be more understandable in that light. Since Watergate, Dean has lowered his political profile and he claims now to be an independent. Some of his views are decidedly left of center, especially his feelings about Bush and Cheney now.
In "CwC", Dean discusses how conservatism has evolved in recent years. It's splintered into as many as 10 subgroups such as neo-, paleo- cato,- social and Christian conservatism. Each brand has a slightly different emphasis and shade of meaning, though several overlap. One observation that he shares is that conservatism has become, acidic, mean-spirited and nasty in recent years. He sites flame-throwers like Anne Coulter and Bill O'Reilly as media people who give it a bad name.
Dean further goes on to talk about a "right wing authoritarian" personality type that frequently correlates to conservatism. You can be a RWA follower or leader, according to Dean. Both types are blindly beholden to authority, although leaders have a dominant character. Dean cites the compliant German citizens during the Holocaust as one example of the follower type. Dean provides W. Bush as the leader type, and holds that Bush has used his RWA ‘dominant prerogative’ to commit acts worse than Watergate or anything from the Monica Lewinsky scandal: invading Iraq on false pretenses, using Patriot Act as a mechanism for tapping citizen’s phones, and torturing Iraqi prisoners.
I’m only halfway thru the book now, but I must say that I’m surprised that Dean, a former Nixon counsel and Goldwater conservative, has such great insights into the conservative mind. As a former unabashed Republican, Dean probably knows the territory.
© 2006 blogSpotter.
Labels: Book Reviews, Politics
posted by blogspotter @ 12:09 PM
2 Comments:
I saw John Dean on "The O'Reilly Factor" recently and I am surprised that he would refer to O'Reilly as a "conservative flame thrower" since they both treated each other with respect.
I have discovered that most people who dislike O'Reilly have never actually watched his TV program or heard his radio show. That is a common habit these days and beside the point. But I believe I did hear Dean refer to Michael Savage as a "flame thrower" during that interview in which case he would be correct.
I'm not sure what Dean's motives are these days. He has always come across a little self-righteous in my opinion and I've never warmed up to that type of semi-pious personality.
More importantly, I think he has a weak argument in trying to create something sinister in the word "authoritarian" and its relationship to leadership. Don't leaders of all kinds display some type of authoritarianism? Is it possible to be a true leader and not have authoritarian traits?
Is it just as bad to be an LWA as an RWA or is that okay? Could Howard Dean be considered authoritarian? How about Hillary? Bill? John Kerry (patricianally authoriatarian)? John Edwards? John McCain? Al "No operating authority" Gore? Is the Democrat Party becoming authoritarian in the "jihad" against Joseph Lieberman? Where does one draw the line between authoritarian and leadership?
Non-authoritarian sounds squishy, touchy, feely, and wanting to please everybody. In other words, a recipe for failure.
Dean's premise is a non-starter. The book is currently 103 on Amazon's inventory list, but I doubt if enough copies sell to cover the cost of publishing it.
It was very considerate of O'Reilly to invite Dean on "The Factor" and remind "Factor" viewers who John Dean once was.
Wow! Both barrels. :-)
I do get an impression that Dean might have some kind of axe to grind -- particularly against Liddy and others who wrote a smear book back in the 90's called "Silent Coup". Also, CwC's terminology gets confusing; they use Right Wing Authoritarian even to describe left wing people like Castro. They say it means that you adhere to status quo, whatever that is.
We do have some left wing flame throwers like Al Franken -- no particular wing has a monopoly on that.
Nevertheless, Dean's take on it all is interesting considering his dealings w/ Nixon & Watergate.
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