"Clarke, Watergate Echoes Prompt Rare Bush Reversal"

WASHINGTON - Tuesday's White House decision to permit National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly under oath before the so-called 9/11 Commission marks an unusual reversal by an administration that has fiercely resisted taking any moves that suggests it is capable of making mistakes.

It also signals recognition by President George W. Bush's political handlers that last week's testimony before the commission by the administration's former senior counter-terrorism official, Richard Clarke -- and, even more, its own ferocious efforts to discredit Clarke -- have inflicted serious damage to Bush's re-election campaign.
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0331-02.htm

Bush Puts a 'Cancer on the Presidency'
Watergate Insider calls this White House 'Scary'
"Worse Than Watergate," the title of a new book by John Dean, Richard Nixon's White House counsel, is a depressingly accurate measure of the chicanery of the Bush/Cheney cabal. According to Dean, who began his political life at the age of 29 as the Republican counsel on the House Judiciary Committee before being recruited by Nixon, "This administration is truly scary and, given the times we live in, frighteningly dangerous." And when it comes to lies and cover-up, the Bush crowd makes the Nixon administration look like amateurs. As Dean writes, they "have created the most secretive presidency of my lifetime … far worse than during Watergate."
www.commondreams.org/views04/0330-06.htm