Nixon and Obama

[Keyser Soze]

You'd think there would be little in common...I remember Obama campaigning on transparency...I remember Nixon being secretive and believing in the Imperial Presidency.

Nixon's long-secret Watergate testimony coming out -- despite Obama's wishes.

Nixon testified. Obama wanted to keep it sealed.

Personally, I don't think secret government works.

Nixon's long-secret Watergate testimony coming out

Nov 10, 6:39 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Richard Nixon's grand jury testimony about the Watergate scandal that destroyed his presidency is finally coming to light.

Four months after a judge ordered the June 1975 records unsealed, the government's Nixon Presidential Library was making them available online and at the California facility Thursday. Historians dared hope that the testimony would form Nixon's most truthful and thorough account of the circumstances that led to his extraordinary resignation 10 months earlier under threat of impeachment.

"This is Nixon unplugged," said historian Stanley Kutler, a principal figure in the lawsuit that pried open the records. Still, he said, "I have no illusions. Richard Nixon knew how to dodge questions with the best of them. I am sure that he danced, skipped, around a number of things."

Nixon was interviewed near his California home for 11 hours over two days, when a pardon granted by his successor, Gerald Ford, protected him from prosecution for any past crimes. Despite that shield, he risked consequences for perjury if he lied under oath.

It was the first time an ex-president had testified before a grand jury and it is rare for any grand jury testimony to be made public. Historians won public access to the transcript over the objections of the Obama administration, which argued in part that too many officials from that era are still alive for secret testimony involving them to be made public.

The library is also releasing thousands of pages of other Watergate-era documents, several oral histories from that time and 45 minutes of recordings made by Nixon with a dictating machine.

The recordings include his dictated recollections of an odd episode late one night in May 1970 when Nixon impulsively had the Secret Service take him to the Lincoln Memorial so he could meet anti-war protesters there. He lingered with the astonished crowd and, according to accounts of that time, asked the protesters to "keep it peaceful. Have a good time in Washington, and don't go away bitter."

CONTINUED...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...11-10-03-15-28

Here's the chilling part: Secret Government is not history. And the current Administration also has little desire in sharing its workings with We the People.

Nixon secret Watergate testimony unsealed

Politico

EXCERPT...

One of the topics covered during the grand jury investigation was the infamous 18 1/2 minute gap in a tape recording between the president and his chief of staff three days after the break-in at Democratic Party offices at the Watergate. Although he had been granted a pardon by his successor, President Ford, Nixon was still liable for perjury if he lied during the testimony.

The Nixon Presidential Library said it will make the records accessible online.

Grand jury testimonies generally remain sealed and private. While the Obama administration argued that too many people mentioned in the testimony were still alive, the secret testimony was ordered to be released after a judge determined that its historical value trumped any privacy concerns.

CONTINUED:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1dJbIn0YV

To preserve democracy in its republican form, The United States of America codified transparancy in government in writing: It's called the Constitution.

We knew that the powers of the 'Imperial Presidency' would never be given up voluntarily...why did we believe Obama would set it right?

[BlackAsCoal]

You'd think there would be little in common...I remember Obama campaigning on transparency...I remember Nixon being secretive and believing in the Imperial Presidency.



We knew that the powers of the 'Imperial Presidency' would never be given up voluntarily...why did we believe Obama would set it right?

He's hoping that future presidents will keep his shit secret.

The moment he stepped in the door it was "Hope and Change" out the window and back to business as usual.

That should be the defining statement of his presidency .. BUSINESS AS USUAL

[CosmicRocker]

You'd think there would be little in common...I remember Obama campaigning on transparency...I remember Nixon being secretive and believing in the Imperial Presidency.



We knew that the powers of the 'Imperial Presidency' would never be given up voluntarily...why did we believe Obama would set it right?

I don't know if it's just Obama, seems the less Congress wants to provide oversight, the more powers the Executive will gladly glom up.

Thing is Obama is like a car salesman, that you really like to talk to.
Take him with a test drive -he says all the right things, and the "old brand name" you were driving is obviously full of shit ( GWB).

Then you buy the car, and wonder why it's the same crappy shit your old car was.

You're still displeased with the car - but you figure they're all pieces of crap.
You're dissapointed, but expecting dimished expectations.

You DO get angry with the car salesman, who sold you on hope and change.

But you're the one who bought his crap in the first place.

[Keyser Soze]

I didn't 'buy his crap' I was hopeful that he would honor his pledge, It became obvious that wasn't going to happen very early on...inauguration day with his choice for the invocation...and I started to question everything. Or were you using the 'you' in a general way?

[Cookie Parker]

I have to agree. I didn't think it was crap.

But he is a neoliberal just like Bush and Reagan and Clinton...and we have to send him a REAL LIBERAL congress to be in his face and slap his pro upper 1% in the face.