John Dean's Open Letter to Obama: 'Change Way Presidents Deal With Scandals-Tell Public Everything'

[kpete]

Open Letter to President-Elect Obama
By John Dean - December 13, 2008, 1:14AM

John Dean's Open Letter to President-elect Obama:
Change the Nature of the Response to the Blagojevich Scandal

December 12, 2008

President-Elect Barack Obama
Office of the President-Elect
Chicago, IL

Dear President-Elect Obama:

I am writing with a suggestion that might help to remove you and your new administration from the still metastasizing scandal of Governor Blagojevich trying to sell your senate seat. Needless to say, until the news media is satisfied that you and your new administration have no complicity in this matter, they will continue to focus on it. Because of my own personal experience with Watergate, the mother of modern presidential scandals, not to mention being a student of scandals that followed, I speak as someone who learned the hard way by making mistakes and then watched as others made their own similar and unnecessary blunders. .............

......................

There has never been a better moment than now for you to take decisive action by proceeding aggressively, proactively, and in the process change the way presidents deal with scandals. According to the New York Times transcript of your December 11, 2008 news conference you were again asked a series of questions about Blagojevich. When responding, you stated: "What I want to do is to gather all the facts about any staff contacts that I might -- may have -- that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor's office. And we'll have those in the next few days, and we'll present them. But what I'm absolutely certain about is that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat. That I'm absolutely certain of." Presumably that material is being gathered at this time, and the sooner it is released the better for events are unfolding.

What is not clear is that you have all the information you need, but you should insist that your staff provide it. Following your press conference, the Chicago Sun Times published a story of the refusal of Rahm Emanuel, your designated White House chief of staff, to respond to questions about his involvement with Blagojevich, and a Chicago television station is reporting Emanuel did, in fact, meet with Blagojevich to discuss filling your vacate senate seat. If true, as I read the transcript of the press conference, you have misspoken; if not true, in a post-Watergate world the burden is on you to prove it is not true - and you can only do this by having information from Emanuel explaining his actions in full. No one would be surprised if Emanuel or others did have discussions with Blagojevich or his office about your successor, but denying that such discussions took place will be the start of a cover-up. You should place the burden on your staff to give you all the information for cover-ups only compound problems, and if anyone withholds information, they should suffer the consequences.

No president (or president-elect) can operate in a fish-bowl. On the other hand, when it comes to scandals, there is an exception and a need for extraordinary transparency. Thus, if you truly want to change the scandal paradigm, you should operate in a fish-bowl to show you have absolutely nothing to hide. Accordingly, I offer this suggestion for your consideration: Email all your past and present staff, all designated appointees, and any others with whom you have an informal relationship if they could have had contact with Blagojevich about your senate seat, and request they all report to you any and all such information that in any manner relates to the appointment to fill your senate seat. Instruct everyone to err on the side of too much information. In addition, tell everyone than when responding to you that they should also post their responses at your website to make them public. In short, you should insist that the public be told everything that you are told, and you should make it all available at you website - www.change.gov. Such action by you would forever change the standards of presidents in dealing with potential presidential scandals and nip this one before it can cause any more problems for your new administration. This would be a change everyone could believe in.


Respectfully yours,


John W. Dean

more at:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/13/open_letter_to_president-elect/

[Faygo Kid]

1. Good advice.

Get the information out now. I don't think there's any meat to this, but whatever contacts there were, disclose them fully. Can't leave it in Blagojevich's hands; the man's a psychotic, and could spin some wild tales.

[merh]

2. I believe that is what he intends to do, but first he has to find

out the information - he has to find out who talked to blago, if anyone, he has to find out if anyone on his staff is referenced in the complaint in any way - if any promises were made.

Dean does himself no favor writing this open letter - he just slapped Obama (if it were me, I'd take it as a slap).

[Mojorabbit]

7. There has been more than enough

time for Obama to get the facts. It should not have taken more than 24 hours. It is weird to me that it has not been done already as he has shown expertise in the past in handling sticky situations. I agree with Dean. Get it all out in the open and move on.

[countingbluecars]

3. Dean should read the transcript again.

Where does Obama misspeak? Meeting with Blagojevich or presenting a list of preferences for the seat is not deal making.

[nevergiveup]

4. Absolutely a must

Blago not only hates Obama but he is desperate and at any moment could start spreading false accusations and the press will be all over it. It is almost impossible to believe that someone somewhere connected with Obama did not make some sort of indirect or direct contact with Blago regarding the Senate seat. I think this would be normal under the circumstances. Obama needs to get out the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth now.

[IsItJustMe]

5. I think John Dean is not paying attention to what Obama actually said and thus John is coming to

erroneous conclusions and assumptions.

Obama said, "I'm absolutely certain about is that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat."

Deal making, in my mind, refers to an active on going negotiation process (tit-for-tat or prid pro que). If Emanuel simply gave Blog a list of candidates that Obama would like to fill that Senate seat or even if Blog spelled out to Emanuel what he expected in return for appointing someone of Obama's liking, and Emanuel walked away from it or said no dice, then there was no deal making.

I think John Dean should wait for the facts to be known before he comes to the conclusion that Obama has mis spoke.

[CTyankee]

6. His advice is good but Obama's openness will take him only so far.

Think about the other "scandals" that were completely made up, such as the Swift Boat Veterans claims. Same thing with the Dan Rather episode. Obama's openness in such scenarios wouldn't have much effect. The right wing has gotten away with so much because the media has gone along with them, printing lies and never following up. Then people believe it and then it is too late.

We've also got to hold the media more accountable than they have been in the past.

[ProSense]

8. Dean is being completely over the top comparing this to Watergate.

There is absolutely no similarity between the two and making the comparison is ludicrous. The only purpose this serves is to give assholes and wingnuts more fodder for innuendo.

What is it about the US Attorney's statement that Obama is not involved that's hard to understand?

[Cha]

9. Too bad the "corporatemedia" didn't

investigate the bushits' War On Iraq until they were completely satisfied there were no lies.

A of People would still be alive today and others would not be maimed.

The media is too selective in their investigations. They make shit up outta thin air with Dems and the repukes can fooking start wars and steal the presidency, twice.

[ProSense]

10. Here's the problem with Dean's letter,

innuendo:

It is trite but true that the best antidote to a growing scandal is transparency, and that making all relevant information, both good and bad, public sooner rather than later is vital, as is releasing more information rather than less, for all these actions help resolve matters more quickly - presuming innocence or, at worst, innocent mistakes. If, however, you or your aides are guilty, up to your ears in dealing with Blagojevich, I still recommend that you ignore the Nixon presidency precedents - for we wrote the book on what not to do. If Blagojevich has poisoned your presidency, you might confer with Vice President Dick Cheney, who has taken "stonewalling" to new heights and shown that cover-ups can actually work if you do not mind having a thirteen percent public approval rating. But this is exactly the type of behavior in Washington that you have promised to change. I submit that the lessons of Watergate remain relevant to this day and apply to the Blagojevich situation, as a few examples might suggest.

Nixon had many opportunities to prevent the disaster that befell his presidency, none more than at the outset of Watergate. If following the arrests of burglars at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex on June 17, 1972 Nixon had issued a memorandum to his White House and reelection campaign staffs demanding that anyone with any direct or indirect knowledge or involvement with the matter immediately submit a full written explanation to him, an explanation which in turn would be released by the press office, or if not willing to do so submit their resignation, there would have been no Watergate cover-up. In fact, if I learned anything from Watergate it was that in the interest of the nation presidents (which would include presidents-elect) must openly and aggressively confront any and all scandals that affect them. The more innocent they are the more aggressively they should address the problem to end it before it grows. You might speak with President Carter, whose passivity let several scandals unnecessarily get out of hand during his term in office (e.g. Lancegate, and Billygate). While Nixon would have been confronted with his complicity in some nasty national security decisions because of the earlier work of the Watergate burglars for the White House, and he would have received several high-level resignations, there would have been no cover up and nothing that would have haunted and unraveled his presidency.

link

(emphasis added)

First of all, Watergate was Nixon's doing:

The Watergate scandals were a series of American political scandals during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon's closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974, after his announcement in an address on August 8.

The scandals began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. Investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later by the Senate Watergate Committee, House Judiciary Committee and the press revealed that this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and carried out by Nixon's staff. They also revealed the immense scope of crimes and abuses, which included campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations.<1> This secret fund was also used as hush money to buy silence of the seven men who were indicted for the June 17 break-in.<2><3>

Nixon and his staff conspired to cover up the break-in as early as six days after it occurred.<4> After two years of mounting evidence against the President and his staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in a Senate investigation, it was revealed that Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.<5><6> Recordings from these tapes revealed that he had obstructed justice and attempted to cover up the break-in.<4><7> This recorded conversation later became known as the Smoking Gun. After a series of court battles, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that the President had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied.

Second, Dean isn't merely giving advice, he's drawing parallels (Obama to Nixon; Obama to Cheney) that do not exist.

Again, what is it about the US Attorney's statement that Obama is not involved that Dean doesn't understand?

[firedupdem]

11. agree! He can buzz off! n/t

[depakid]

12. What Dean understands is that the public perception of unethical behavior

can be quite independent of whether any ethical misbehavior actually occurred- whether by Obama or by members of his staff.

In this regard, Rahm's little hissy fit with reporters was a classic example of how NOT to deal with a situation like this. Aside from appearing arrogant- and looking like a drama queen, his behavior resembled and reinforced peoples' perceptions of how politicians behave when they get caught.

Moreover the reality is that the corporate media will run with innuendo, make comparisons- or even make up facts with respect to Democratic presidents (or presidents elect). That leaves Obama and his staff in the unenviable position of having to prove a negative, namely that nothing untoward occurred in their Blago meetings and conversations.

Of course, the nascent Obama administration is in much better stead at the moment than Jesse Jackson Jr. -who's downright radioactive, despite scant evidence that he's involved or approved of unethical actions on his behalf.

[ProSense]

13. Dean isn't the only one who understands that, but

that doesn't explain the innuendo in his letter. The US Attorney already stated unequivocally that Obama is not involved. Dean went out of his way to shroud his advice about dealing with public perception and the media in a ridiculous comparison to Watergate.

[depakid]

14. A better comparison might have been Whitewater

though Dean wasn't actively involved in that fiasco (which might also have been mitigated to some extent by his advice).

Rather than having a nefarious motive, I suspect Dean was just covering the bases and writing about what he knew (and paid a major price for).

[uponit7771]

15. XActly, also Dean is lowering the standard of conviction for Obama by using the word "involved" as..

...if a senator for the state of Ill isn't going to talk to at any one time in a year with the governor of said state.

Dean and now the corporate media are witch hunting. It's a good time for Obama to sit back, be quite and see those who are eager to attack him and then...."..keep them closer".

[BlooInBloo]

16. Best concern-troll EVER.