WP: The Bush White House v. the public's right to know how incompetent they are. They can either do that or fight terrorism, and they've chosen to devote a significant amount of resources to fighting the public's right to know and keep their operations, some of them arguably illegal, in the dark. And it's not just liberals saying it. Check out Bruce Bartlett, who says Bush's political heredity is pure Nixon. Even Bill Kristol is complaining about this administration's lack of competence.

More on this from Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum.

Update: And via ReddHedd, David Gergen tells Howard Kurtz he is also reminded of Nixon:

This administration has engaged in secrecy at a level we have not seen in over 30 years. Unfortunately, I have to bring up the name of Richard Nixon, because we haven't seen it since the days of Nixon. And now what they're doing -- and they're using the war on terror to justify -- is they're starting to target journalists who try to pierce the veil of secrecy and find things and put them in the newspapers.

Now, in the past what the government has always done is go after the people who leak, the inside people. That's the way they try to stop leaks. This is the first administration that I can remember, including Nixon's, that said -- and Porter Goss said this to Congress -- that we need to think about a law that would put journalists who print national security things to...bring them up in front of grand juries and put them in jail if they don't -- in effect, if they don't reveal their sources.

More from Crooks & Liars.

Posted by Laura at March 5, 2006 10:26 AM