Ghost of Nixon Haunts Capo Schools

The beauty of Watergate as a political thriller was that the story that couldn’t possibly be true actually was true. And that Richard Nixon, reviled by his opponents but impervious to their electoral efforts to oust him, eventually handed them the one sword that could fell him.

So, I confess to enjoying a nostalgic deja vu when one of the opponents of James Fleming, the besieged Capistrano Unified School District superintendent, recently alluded to him as Nixonian. In one fell swoop, a whole briefcase full of analogies sprang forth.

The critic referred to reports that Fleming, who announced his resignation this week, had access to a large list of the names of parents and Capo employees possibly involved in an effort to recall school board members and, by extension, come after him. And that, to gild the lily, two of his subordinates gave him a shorter list of key people involved in the actual signature-gathering petitions after they’d visited the Orange County registrar of voters office.

The large list became the “enemies list.” A key former subordinate first covered up, then couldn’t take it any longer and turned on his erstwhile boss. Meanwhile, Fleming’s supporters rallied to him, chastised the media and vilified his opponents.

If Fleming had only a bit more sense of historic flair and waited a mere three weeks and announced his resignation Aug. 8, as Nixon did in 1974, we’d have the perfect symmetry.

As with the post-Nixon presidency, there’s more investigating to be done about Fleming’s final days. How involved was he in the effort to gain access to petition-signers? What, if anything, did he do with the “enemies list” that has galvanized his opponents?

Nixon’s list wasn’t just for petty enjoyment. His White House counsel, John Dean (who later helped bring him down) wrote that the next step was to figure “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Some Capo parents allege the district did just that. Of course, that would mean the district had done something harmful not to the parents on the list, but their children. We should insist on a stringent set of facts to prove those kind of allegations, including proof that individuals were specifically targeted by school officials, as opposed to just being receivers of decisions with which they disagreed.

With this kind of ethics cloud hanging over the district, what have we heard from the school board? As an elected body beholden to every student and parent in the district, has it taken the high ground and not automatically sided with the superintendent it has so strongly supported and compensated?

I have a general sense the trustees had been too quiet. I hadn’t read statements of indignation or demands that Fleming set the record straight. Board president Marlene Draper says I’m misreading things.

“If anything was illegally done, I’m upset,” she told me Friday. She said Susan McGill, an assistant superintendent who recently retired, was the “contact person” between the district and the registrar’s office. Draper said McGill “doesn’t have an evil bone in her body” and said she’s not seen proof that Fleming sanctioned the visit to gather information.

Knowing that Fleming’s detractors are just as harsh toward the trustees, I asked Draper if, given that, she could distance herself from the administration and judge its actions objectively.

She said she thought the board has already sent that signal by allowing critics more than ample time at the July 11 meeting. But it’s clear there’s no love lost. “I think the board has risen above their [the critics’] anger and their presentation to truly get to the bottom of it and look at the issues,” Draper said. “And to try to separate fact from fiction and from emotion.”

At least on paper, her intentions aren’t vastly different than what recall spokesman Tom Russell told me the day earlier. “Whatever the facts are, we need to find out by an independent investigation,” Russell said. “If there’s something between the district and the registrar, then we need to know that.”

Draper said she has told parents that if there’s proof that they or their children or any teachers had been “retaliated against,” the board would take action. She’s somewhat skeptical, however, about nefarious purposes of any targeted lists, she said, because “the district has a huge amount of data and the people that are involved with the recall were well known ... their identities were not a secret.”

The mere presence of a list or seeing names of recall leaders doesn’t automatically bother her, Draper said, but quickly added, “Was a list or data used against people? That would bother me.”

Fleming, 63, hasn’t announced a date for his retirement. The board will discuss it at a special meeting next Saturday.

It’s best to beware of loose analogies, but Watergate eventually couldn’t be contained.

I don’t know if there are such things as independent counsels to investigate outgoing school superintendents, but if there’s a latter-day Archibald Cox out there, keep yourself available.

CORRECTION: In Thursday’s column, I wrote that the ill-fated Phoenix, the paddle-wheel boat that sunk last month on a trip to Northern California, had been used for decades to ferry passengers from the mainland to Santa Catalina Island. Actually, the boat was used to ferry people around Catalina to view marine life.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.