Craig Crawford Warns of Bush’s Imperial Presidency

Craig Crawford shows discusses the dangers Bush faces in taking on the media and appearing overly eager to keep his own actions secret:

The last time we saw a president conduct an all-out war on leaks, we later watched him resign in disgrace. And yet George W. Bush, in his zeal to impose his will on every facet of governing, is taking on the very thing that undermined Richard M. Nixon: the news media.

Sure, the times are different for Bush. He is charged with protecting national security in a time of war. And the news media have nowhere near the clout they did when Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, as played by Jason Robards in the film “All The President’s Men,” admonished his reporters to stick with the Watergate story, saying, “Nothing’s riding on you except the First Amendment of the Constitution.”

The First Amendment was a better ride during the Watergate days, before the courts and prosecutors had refined the power they now unequivocally wield to jail reporters who do not reveal their sources. Even Bob Woodward, the hero of journalists in the unraveling of Nixon’s presidency, recently slid into a grand jury courtroom to reveal his sources in the CIA leak case.

Although it’s armed with a legal hammer that Nixon did not enjoy, the Bush administration is courting danger in what The Washington Post recently labeled “the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation.” The Justice Department has dispatched FBI investigators to question intelligence officials, and it has issued letters prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified matters with reporters. And in their own contacts with members of the press corps, FBI agents are not shy about noting that reporters can go to jail for not revealing sources.

The risk for Bush in this enterprise is that he will be seen as protecting his own hide, not national security. The administration is close to getting tagged as an imperial presidency, an image that could turn even more Americans against Bush at a time when his approval ratings are at new lows for him. The spying without court supervision, which the president once specifically denied was happening, is being taken seriously on Capitol Hill as a potential violation of law. The Bush White House is determined to make the revelation into the crime — not what was revealed.