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It looks like Tom Ridge's lastest revelations in his book have given Keith a chance to say he was correct when he did his series on the Nexus of Politics and Terror. John Dean weighs in on the criminality of what Ridge has admitted to in his book. He thinks Ridge gave himself some wiggle room since he said he only believed the terrorist threat level was being manipulated for political reasons, and did not say he knew it to be a fact.

It's so nice to see all the dirty f@%#king hippies were right about this, huh? It will be interesting to watch the Villagers try to explain why they didn't report on something as plain as the noses on their faces back when this was going on. Other than Keith, I don't recall any of them speaking out about it other than to repeat the government propaganda. I'd also like someone to ask Tom Ridge why he didn't resign when he first knew this was happening.

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From Countdown April 30, 2009. Keith reports on Condoleeza Rice's run in with a group of Stanford students. From that exchange:

Student: Is waterboarding torture?

Rice: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture. So that’s — And by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department’s clearance. That’s what I did.

Student: Okay. Is waterboarding torture in your opinion?

Rice: I just said, the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

John Dean feels that Condoleeza Rice just admitted to being part of a conspiracy to commit torture.

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Keith talks to John Dean about the release of nine Bush era memorandum. From The New York Times:

The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants.

That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency.

The opinions reflected a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants.

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Keith talks to John Dean about Karl Rove's recent subpeona to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. Dean feels that it's likely Rove will get little help from the Obama administration in supporting his claims of executive privilege. He also cites the ongoing court cases involving Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton and notes that in the past the courts have only protected ex-Presidents and not their advisors when claims of executive privilege have been made. He feels it's likely all of them will eventually end up being forced to testify before Congress and hopes that under the Obama administration we will return to following the rule of law.

I just want a non-Photoshopped version of this if he refuses to show up this time.

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Keith talks to John Dean about whether we might ever see prosecutions for war crimes after Cheney's public admissions and the findings from the Senate Armed Services Committee. He rightfully notes that a commission to determine if there were any crimes committed is just a way to kick the can down the road and make sure no one is prosecuted for anything before the statute of limitations runs out. It's a sad state of affairs when we have to be wondering yet again if this country is going to allow crimes to go unpunished for political reasons rather than caring about the rule of law. We still have a two tiered system of justice in America. One for the rich and politically connected and another one for everyone else.

(co-blogged with Heather)

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With the news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering not letting the Senate out for holiday recess to prevent Bush from making recess appointments of egregious candidates like Dr. James Holsinger for Surgeon General, Keith continues his series of interviews with John Dean, author of Broken Government exploring the themes of his recent book.

Partial transcript below the fold:

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Glenn Greenwald is hosting FDL's book Salon with John Dean today. He's online and chatting about his new book, "Conservatives Without Conscience"

Join in...

Keith Olbermann had John Dean on last night to get his views of the Rumsfeld comments this week.

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Dean hits on a great point. By Rumsfeld and Bush associating terrorism to fascism implies that terrorism is more state based than ideological based, a definition that goes against all other definitions of terrorism. Since it does conflict with other, more appropriate definitions, it proves more so that Rumsfeld and the other administration officials are out using such statements as pure attacks against critics.

You can pick up his book here.

O'Reilly had John Dean on to discuss his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience, and as usual O'Reilly really didn't want to talk about the book.

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O'Reilly goes on the old line of debate asking Dean if his rights have been violated in anyway by Bush's policies. Of course, like any American, how would Dean actually know? When someone taps your phones, they don't send you a singing telegram to announce it.

The best part comes towards the end when O'Reilly criticizes Dean for making personal attacks in his book (yet Ann Coulter does a great job at speaking the truth in the eyes of people like O'Reilly). You can tell O'Reilly gets upset that Dean had some criticism for Newt and couldn't resist coming to his defense.

John Dean joined Jon Stewart to discuss his new book "Conservatives Without Conscience"

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Transcript by The Third Path

Dean: Unfortunately, it could happen here, and it hasn't happened here — we don't typically talk about authoritarianism in democracy — but indeed there is an authoritarian strain that has gotten into the conservative movement. It's sort of a reversion —

Stewart: Isn't the point of those — and I was a psychology major in college, so I've had at least two hours of training in this — wasn't the point of all those experiments where they showed that people would give an electric jolt to strangers just because a guy in a white coat told them to, wasn't the idea based on that we are all closer to falling under the spell of authority than we think, even regular people? Is it fair to say it's a conservative trait, or is it fair to say it's in some ways a human trait?

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John Dean joined Keith Olbermann Monday to explain the theories in his new book, "Conservatives Without Conscience," which explains a lot of the behavior we see today. 

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To put it simply, Dean makes the case (with data he uncovered) that many conservatives of today need an authoritarian figure to guide them and they willingly do whatever it takes to please that figure. Dean cites G. Gordon Liddy as the perfect example of a guy willing to be shot in the street to indulge his master. He highlights the fear mongering that this administration has been using for years now as a model that allows the concept to be implemented. The way Tom Delay controlled the House is another perfect illustration of this behavior. Dean is a Barry Goldwater conservative.

Grab a copy. I just ordered mine. 

A Kos Diary has more on Dean's new book ... 

Review from Booklist's Vannesa:

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John Dean at FindLaw:

Given the growing importance of "conservatism" in American politics and government, it seems worth posing a basic question: What does the term mean, exactly?

The public position of political conservatism is certainly clear. But consider the wide variety of organizations and persons who call themselves "conservative": economic conservatives, religious conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, neo-conservatives, and the traditional conservatives (such as my former colleague Pat Buchanan) who are now sometimes called paleo-conservatives.

Among them, there are many philosophical and practical conflicts. But what is it that they have in common? Why are they all under the same tent, and (for now, anyway) in the Republican Party?   Read more...