The Brown & White

John Dean, White House counsel to former President Richard Nixon is known for his voice and testimony during the Watergate Scandal and on Thursday in Baker Hall he voiced his opinion on other matters - current political affairs.

Dean's speech, "Executive Power: From Nixon to Bush … and Beyond," was this year's Tresolini lecture, an endowed lecture series focusing on law.

"There's always about a quarter of the American people who won't leave their president," He said.

Dean said this is particularly evident today with loyalty to President George W. Bush. He said Nixon's position was not threatened until his last days when congress was controlled by democrats.

"Given the fact that Bush had a Republican congress," he said, "they weren't about to start an impeachment process."

Dean said Bush's stay in power has led to some mistakes in policy.

"I've never before felt embarrassed by some of the things we're doing," he said. "Torture, preemptive invading; how could we jam democracy down their throats when they may not want it?"

The Nixon regime was corrupted by intellectual dishonesty, Dean said, and he believes Bush's terms have had similar problems.

Two of Dean's books, "Conservatives Without Conscience" and "Broken Government," touch on intellectual dishonesty in the White House.

According to Dean, the Bush administration relied too heavily on the work of John Yoo, assistant to the attorney general in advising Bush from 2001 to 2003.

"We went to war based on his memos," Dean said. "I de-constructed a lot of John Yoo's stuff to show how outrageous it was and yet the Bush administration was relying on it."

This type of decision making is a sign of academic dishonesty, Dean said.

"You can always pick an argument," he said. "[That] doesn't mean it's the right one, but there's always a good one."

Dean highlighted the unitary executive theory, one he said Yoo has contributed to, which claims the president's war powers place him above the law.

An all powerful president does not belong in a democracy, he said.

"The authoritarian conservatives took over the republican party," he said.

He said the leaders of the conservative-authoritarian groups are making their presence felt and he believes this is most evident in the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court.

Justices are aging, he said, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, if elected, will appoint the same kind of people.

Dean said recently appointed Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, for example, could be dangerous with more company.

"[They've been] chipping away at the effectiveness of precedent," he said.

Dean said the country's goal should be to stray from Bush, who according to Dean, has shown an utter disrespect for his constitutional co-equals.

"[Washington is] in a whole other league of secrecy," he said. "I thought we wrote the book on what not to do and apparently nobody read it."

Dean said he considers himself a Goldwater conservative, referring to a belief in personal liberty and freedom to choose.

However, he said, "The democrats are going to be tough this fall."

Dean noticeably struggled to get laughs at times, but the lecture's organizer was satisfied with the event.

"Dean delivered precisely what we'd hoped he would: some commentary on the past, from which to draw some conclusions for the future," Political Science Professor Brian Pinaire said.

But others weren't as pleased with the event.

"I was a little disappointed with it," Political Science Professor Ed Morgan said. "I thought his speaking style wasn't very effective and his level of analysis wasn't very enlightening."

Dean served in Washington from 1970 to 1973 under Nixon.