By Kimberly Chin
When we flash back to 1972, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporters of The Washington Post, had begun their investigations on the break-in of the National Democratic Party headquarters. The articles the two Post reporters would print following the break-in would lead to one of the biggest scandals in American politics, Watergate. Several top executives and intelligence officials with the nod from President Richard Nixon were implicated for conspiracy, extortion, political espionage, sabotage and campaign fraud.
You don't see those kinds of exposés these days. President George H.W. Bush and his administration has ridden a clear path on the war-horse for close to eight years to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. They recently tried to clear their way to Iran. They stood untested for the most part, invoking the "Patriot Police" to crush opposition, silencing those critical of their administration's claims to combat terrorism as being "unpatriotic" and not in line with the "moral values" of Americans.
By "moral values," we assume the administration means we have the get-go to start a war against a country that has not directly threatened us or wage a campaign against terrorists that gives us unprecedented power to pick someone off the street and throw them in a detention center in Cuba without a fair trial or even precedence.
The media has been placid on the administration's war on terrorism. The claims that Iran was developing a uranium-enriching nuclear program, seemed like information that would strike down skeptics.
The administration was willing to impose sanctions on Iran, which defended the program as a peaceful civilian program. After all, oil prices don't seem to be getting any lower.
The Bush Administration would have had a clear path to Iran had it not been for one hurdle that stood in their path-the media. A recent report conducted by the National Intelligence Agencies was published in The New York Times on Tuesday that contradicted the administration's claims that Iran was in the process of developing a uranium-enriching program.
Whoever or whatever woke the media up, it's about time. On a front-page, top-of-the-crease spread of one of the most prominent newspapers in the nation was the kind of block needed to stop this dictatorial administration from gaining too much power.
Several comparisons can be made to Nixon's administration and our current one.
They tried to plant stories in the form of official leaks that would elicit sympathy from the public. The government leaked false information that Iraq was buying aluminum tubes to make weapons of mass destruction. That wasn't true. They claimed that Iran had the capability of building nuclear power. As shown in the Times article, not anytime soon.
In Nixon's case, one of his cabinet members leaked a letter to the press discrediting Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Democrat, for using racial slurs. Both presidents had bad fiscal spending. Nixon's Committee for the re-election of the President made a slush fund which was not accounted for, and distributed money from it to key players who would help Nixon get re-elected.
Some checks went into the bank accounts of two of the burglars included in the Watergate break-in, which led to Nixon and top officials being implicated for many charges of campaign fraud. Nixon didn't know how to manage his money, and Bush doesn't either.
Bush's war in Iraq and Afghanistan has put the military budget at well over $600 billion, more than all of our presidents combined.
They have used their "executive privilege" time and time again. When Nixon was asked to surrender illegal tapes from wiretapping done in his office, he claimed that he had executive privilege to engage in illegal activity.
While Bush hasn't used those exact terms, he has basically been given that authority by the support of the Senate and a placid media.
However, Bush is trying to find a way out, and quickly. With only have 410 days left to the end of his second term of presidency, he has a little over a year to wage another war with Iran and still convince the detached public that he is winning in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The media has finally taken a step away from the shadow of the administration and has completed its job-to be the government watchdog. It happened in 1974, with the Watergate scandals. It ended in the resignation of Nixon. Will history repeat itself?
Kimberly Chin is a sophomore print journalism and political science student. You may e-mail her at kchin5@pride.hofstra.edu.