GOP LESSONS LEARNED

Carl Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story in the Washington Post) has written an op/ed piece in USA TODAY that compares the Nixon administration during Watergate with the current G.W. Bush administration. Bernstein's editorial is a sharp analysis but leaves out the emotional undertone that has permeated GOP politics since Watergate.

The GOP have never forgiven their own or the Democrats who brought the Watergate scandal to light. They were completely demoralized when their leader was caught so dead to rights that he would've actually faced jail time had he not resigned. Like the south after the civil war they stewed and festered and vowed that they would rise again.

While the public analysis in the aftermath of Watergate came largely from the left -in private the GOP turned over every stone and looked in every crevice to find out what went wrong.

The Iran-Contra scandal illustrated this perfectly: while the OIC report found that knowledge of the operation went all the way up the chain of command, neither Regan nor Bush I could be pinned as having authorized the conduct of the sponge Oliver North. The creation of the Fall-guy, and the cutting off of the paper trail below Regan and Bush were lessons learned from Watergate.

Another lesson learned was the pre-trial pardoning of Caspar Weinberger after he was indicted for selling missiles to Iran. Ford had pardoned Nixon one month after he had announced his resignation, preventing any criminal or civil justice for his crimes, and Bush senior (probably to prevent info coming out that could lead to his own impeachment) pardoned Weinberger just before he left office in 1993.

The coverup of Iran Contra however only inflamed the GOP more - why didn't the Democrats have any scandal on their resume? Why should republicans be the only ones called to account for their criminal conspiracies? They stewed and festered more, and finally came up with a plan - crucify the next Democratic president no matter what the cost.

They were obliged by a president who was charismatic and who had had marital troubles in his past because he'd demonstrated a proclivity toward extra marital affairs. From the moment CLinton announced his candidacy they came out of the box with the Gennifer Flowers revelations, which were diffused when Clinton admitted on 60 minutes that any extramarital activities had been dealt within the privacy of his marriage.

This stymied the republican smear machine but did not dampen its spirit, and they came right back with the "draft dodger scandal" alleging that he'd manipulated the system to avoid Viet Nam service.

That failed so they instituted Whitewater against the first lady. That investigation gained them the majority in congress which led to the "Contract (on) America", but eventually failed to "get" the Clintons as well.

There were several other attempts at scandal making "Travel Gate", "Vince Foster's suicide was really a murder", "China-gate", but all of these fell flat so they went back into sex scandal mode with the Paula Jones debacle. This eventually failed as well.

Eventually they seized upon the Lewinsky affair and tried to twist it into Watergate-like proportions even impeaching Clinton in the house. This however finally failed as Clinton was not convicted in the Senate.

Even as Clinton left office they attacked with "pardon gate" a last pathetic attempt to create a scandal.

None of the "scandals" amounted to more than posturing from the GOP - but they succeeded in the short run because they'd soured the country so much that it stupidly elected another Republican president, even though Clinton had presided over the most robust peacetime economy in American history.

So what have the Republicans learned?

1. Deny everything.
2. Never leave a paper trail.
3. Cushion the president from the fallout.
4. Pardon anyone who can hurt you.
5. If you make enough noise eventually someone will listen to your lies.
6. Get in, make as much money as you can for yourself and your cronies, and get out.

What will they NEVER learn?
1. sex scandals don't work because every one has one- This was proven by the Henry Hyde, Newt, Bob Livingston triad of "scandals" in the House. Even the GOP had to back off of the sex scandals when some of their own were thrust into the light.

2. Revenge is for punks. They'll never "balance the scales" of scandal because they have to create more scandal to do it. Scandals are ugly for everyone and often blow up in their creator's face.

3. You can do your dirty deeds (or rather have someone do them for you) in secret, but eventually the truth will out -particularly in the "information age".

Now the Abu Ghraib scandal is festering into a cancer on both the military and govt. The Bush administration has known about it at the very least since January, but covered it up until the pictures came out. They're trying to blame it on the low level enlisted soldiers and bring it to a swift conclusion, but the situation is unraveling to reveal a systemic policy endorsed all the way up the chain. When the real story comes out look for Rumsfeld to take the fall for Bush, but be pardoned after Bush loses the election.