Watching Obama Morph Into Nixon

Commentary Magazine ^ | 10.13.2011 | Peter Wehner

[nickcarraway]

A few months ago, I had dinner with a journalist who knows President Obama somewhat well and admires him in several respects. He told me something that didn’t particularly surprise me – but which was useful to have confirmed. This person’ said Obama is enormously thin-skinned, he remembers and keeps track of negative things said and written about him, and he is a person filled with many more grievances and resentments than one might imagine. He feels sorry for himself – and he is inclined to lash out, in his own emotionally contained way, at even slight criticisms.

I was reminded of that conversation in hearing this exchange between Ed Henry of Fox News and the president.

Henry asked Obama a question related to Iran and, in the course of it, quoted a critical comment about Obama made by Mitt Romney. To which the president responded, with a faux smile, “I didn’t know you were the spokesperson for Mitt Romney.”

For a reporter to ask a president a question that includes a quote from a person from the opposite party is about as common as the sun rising in the east. So what explains the president’s snarky response?

The answer, I think, goes back to what my dinner companions said: Obama is exceedingly thin-skinned. Beyond that, he expects to be coddled by, if not worshiped by, the press. And of course Obama carries a particular resentment for Fox News, which doesn’t treat him as the world-historical, Lincoln-like figure Obama sees himself as.

In their book The Battle for America 2008, Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz wrote this:

[Chief political aide David] Axelrod also warned that Obama’s confessions of youthful drug use, described in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, would be used against him. “This is more than an unpleasant inconvenience,” he wrote. “It goes to your willingness and ability to put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained basis: criticism. At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don’t know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don’t relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched,” he said of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate opponent.

Obama has flinched ever since – and he’s flinching now more than ever.

I have commented several times before that as Obama’s presidency collapses, he will have a terrible time processing it. He is becoming increasingly petulant and exasperated, blaming others for his own failures, and even seeing conspiracies (Ed Henry is carrying water for Mitt Romney) where none exist.

It’s a sad thing to watch Barack Obama morph into Richard Nixon.

[discostu]

He’d have to gain a lot of competence to morph into Nixon... and that’s not compliment to Nixon.

[rolling_stone]

Whats the difference between Nixon and Obama?

Nixon was not a crook and did not go to jail.
Obama is a crook and will go to jail.

[Former Proud Canadian]

"It’s a sad thing to watch Barack Obama morph into Richard Nixon."

Why is that?

[Truth is a Weapon]

At least Nixon started from the point having the right position on a lot of issues. Is there anything worse than a paranoid commie? I guess it would be one who has complete police powers.

[TigersEye]

“The people have a right to know if their president is a crook.” - R. M. Nixon

[Jeff Head]

Nah...he’s not morphing into Richard Nixon, he’s just reverting back to Barry Soetoro.

[subterfuge]

Obama is the black Forrest Gump—without all the accomplishments.

[cruise_missile]

Barack Husseinouse Obamanixon

[ken21]

is he on anti-depressants?

[Doc Savage]

“He likes his blackness even if he is a mulatto because he hates whites; he likes his ideology,marxism and the overthrow of the USA; he likes his homosexuality, just like his own; he likes transsexuals just like the first wookie; he hates Jews, just Obama....” Do get the underlying thread of the first sentence??????????????????????????????

[Joe Boucher]

While Dick had his paranoia problems he at least had a grip on foreign affairs.
This weenie hasn’t a clue

[tet68]

Nixon knew enough to resign, even LBJ knew enough
to get out while he could. Obama will fight to
the last bunker and go down buried by his own
delusions.

[aces]

folks at his meetings need to start yelling you are a lying commie....

[nascarnation]

Obama is a crook and will go to jail.

I think the most we can hope for is deportation if he cannot provide substantive proof of citizenship after Jan 2013.

His two career opportunities will be as a MSNBC personality (reporting from the Havana studio) or run for president of Kenya.

[goseminoles]

Nixon was golden compared to this destructive jerk.

[lacrew]

I think, if he loses, he will have a very hard time processing it. For the rest of his days, he will spout off about how tough it was...because of what Bush left him. Blame Bush will be his legacy.

[CrazyIvan]

Well put.

[lacrew]

“folks at his meetings need to start yelling you are a lying commie....”

Calling him a liar doesn’t bother him one bit...a badge of honor. What I would like to see, in a ‘townhall’ setting, is somebody get up and question his intelligence. He would become unglued.

[x]

“He likes his blackness even if he is a mulatto because he hates whites; he likes his ideology,marxism and the overthrow of the USA; he likes his homosexuality, just like his own; he likes transsexuals just like the first wookie; he hates Jews, just Obama....” Do get the underlying thread of the first sentence??????????????????????????????

Is there one?

[milwguy]

I think the Nixon analogy is weak. I think he is morphing into Captain Queeg right before out eyes. I can already imagine Barry walking around the White House saying..........”Ahh, but the strawberries that’s... that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I’d have produced that key if they hadn’t of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers”

[Argus]

I see Obama as more like Pinochet or Ceaucescu than Nixon.

[tet68]

Obama will fight to
the last bunker and go down buried by his own
delusions.

I expect that like the little corporal he will
declare that the nation failed him by not living
up to his expectations and thus deserves what
ever happens.

I won’t be surprised to see some kind of a tantrum
at some point.

[Argus]

Make that more like Allende or Ceaucescu. I got my dictators mixed up. Pinochet was actually admirable compared to the other two.

[nopardons]

You're correct!

President Nixon wasn't always paranoid. He was gone after, tooth and nail, by lefties, from the time he went after stinking Commies, whilst in the House and with full,never ending throttle, once he ran against Helen Gahagan Douglas and beat her ( using pink....standing for PINKO, which she was )for the Senate. That kind of vilification wears a person down, after many decades of pillorying.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Nixon did a lot of damage to the country with the EPA and the DOE.

Obama is doing a lot of damage to the country with the EPA and the DOE.

Yeah, I can see the resemblance.

Nixon was smarter though.

[magslinger]

folks at his meetings need to start resume yelling "you are a lying commie...."

Go, Joe Wilson, go.

[Joe Boucher]

Just went on weather underground to check out Chicagos weather tonight.
Ugly.

[buccaneer81]

Nixon knew enough to resign,

Only after being confronted by the Republican leadership, who informed him that they were not going down with the ship he captained.

[Candor7]

It’s a sad thing to watch Barack Obama morph into Richard Nixon.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

He is morphing into something far less than Nixon ever was, and it is NOT a sad thing.

Obama made his own destiny and the country rejects it. ( Good Read)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2.009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html

[mrsmith]

‘The Emperor Jones’ is a good look inside Obama’s character and administration IMO. (Or any one in way over their head, of course.) Public relations and the voodoo of the play are a very close analogy too.

I wonder if the play is banned now.

[ETL]

Nixon was undermined by anti-American communists. Obama IS an anti-American communist.

"Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
_____________________________________________________________

"As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides Egil Krogh and David Young under John Ehrlichman's supervision created the 'White House Plumbers,' which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fallout
_____________________________________________________________

So what is Daniel Ellsberg up to these days? Well, for one thing, he is an endorser of the Revolutionary Communist Party's "World Can't Wait" movement...

Click on the 'World Can't Wait' link just below and see: "Endorsers of the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Include" You may recognize a few other names as well, including the democrat chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr. Conyers' name appears right after Ward Churchill's.
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2
_____________________________________________________________

Endorsers of the [World Can't Wait] Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Include:

James Abourezk, Aris Anagnos, Rocky Anderson, Anti-Flag, Edward Asner, Russell Banks, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Belafonte, St. Clair Bourne, Gabriel Byrne, Margaret Cho, Ward Churchill, Paulette Cole, US Rep John Conyers Jr., John Densmore, Jesse Diaz Jr., Michael Eric Dyson, Steve Earle, Niles Eldredge, Daniel Ellsberg, Eve Ensler, Laura Flanders, Jane Fonda, Martin Garbus, Senator Mike Gravel, Andre Gregory, Sam Hamill, Suheir Hammad, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rickie Lee Jones, Sarah Jones, Brig. Gen. (Ret) Janis Karpinski, Jonathan Kozol, Rabbi Michael Lerner, US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Robin Meyers, Mark Crispin Miller, Tom Morello, Viggo Mortensen, John Nichols, US Rep. Major Owens, Grace Paley, Harvey Pekar, Sean Penn, Michelle Phillips, Harold Pinter, Michael Ratner, Mark Ruffalo, US Rep. Bobby Rush, Susan Sarandon, Richard Serra, Jeff Sharlet, Rev. Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Nancy Spero, Gloria Steinem, Lynne Stewart, Serj Tankian, Sunsara Taylor, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Naomi Wallace, US Rep. Maxine Waters, Cornel West, Ann Wright, Howard Zinn, and thousands more who have already joined us.

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2
_____________________________________________________________

World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime is a Maoist-revolutionary movement organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party. (scroll down the list that appears (after clicking link) to find the World Can't Wait organization --rwor.org is the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party):
http://rwor.org/a/rwlink/links.htm
_____________________________________________________________

From David Horowitz's FrontpageMag.com /DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: World Can't Wait (WCW)

*Revolutionary communist movement that stages protests against the Bush administration

*Organizes college and high-school students

*Founded in June 2005 by Charles Clark Kissinger, a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7213
_____________________________________________________________

The RCP calls for the armed overthrow of the U.S. government...

From the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party (revcom.us or rwor.org) :

"Create Public Opinion, Seize Power: We are preparing minds and organizing forces for the time when there is a major crack in the system, whenever it comes and wherever it comes from: an opening that makes it possible to bring the future Revolutionary Army of the Proletariat (R.A.P.) into the field and wage a revolutionary armed struggle that actually has a chance of winning.

And we have said that building our party itself is the most important part of organizing forces for revolution. This is true now, and it is true looking forward to the creation of that future R.A.P. and the waging of that armed struggle.":

http://revcom.us/a/v20/1000-1009/1000/barw.htm

[katiedidit1]

would take Nixon anyday over Obama and a lot of other presidents past, present and future

[katiedidit1]

would take Nixon anyday over Obama and a lot of other presidents past, present and future

[9YearLurker]

Obama will go to jail?

Ha ha ha!!! That’s a good one!!

[newfrpr04]

Nixon was golden compared to this destructive jerk.

Ah, for those days of tricky Dick.

[ETL]

"This president can be a transformative leader (he has that potential in my view), but only if he embraces and fights for a transformative agenda."--Sam Webb, Chairman Communist Party USA

Obama State of the Union: He got the ball rolling:
http://cpusa.org/obama-state-of-the-union-he-got-the-ball-rolling
________________________________________________________________________________

"We are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America"
--B.H.Obama, 2008

Yahoo search results for "Fundamentally Transforming The United States Of America":
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35&p=%22Fundamentally+Transforming+The+United+States+Of+America%22&SpellState=n-2204099546_q-bsN.LA3I3%2F%2FdGaQgkeauogAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-top
_____________________________________________________

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek"-- BARACK OBAMA
_____________________________________________________

From the website of the Communist Party, USA...
(prior to the election)

"The Communist Party USA views the 2008 elections as a tremendous opportunity to defeat the policies of the right-wing Republicans and to move our country in a new progressive direction.

The record turnout in the Democratic Presidential primary races shows that millions of voters, including millions of new voters, are using this election to bring about real change. We wholeheartedly agree with them."

http://cpusa.org/cpusa-2008-electoral-policy/
_____________________________________________________

After the election....

A Landslide Mandate For Change

A breakthrough election
Congratulations on an extraordinary history making election!

We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward our strategic goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress. That all people’s movement has come to life, it is dynamic and it has the potential to keep growing.

The election of Barack Obama and a strengthened Congress creates new conditions in our country. There is now the possibility to shift gears and move forward. This new day requires us to further develop our tactics in order to continue to deepen and broaden labor and people’s unity.

There are thousands of experiences that we all have had in these momentous days, some large, some small, all of which express the enormity of change in thinking and readiness for involvement that is underway and that steels us for the battles ahead.

The tears of joy we all shared as crowds gathered to watch the election results here and throughout the world dramatize the new moment we are in.

http://cpusa.org/a-landslide-mandate-for-change-report-to-the-national-committee-meeting-11-15-08/
_____________________________________________________

July 1, 2009...

Change is Here, Change is Coming

Sam Webb, National Chair, Communist Party, USA:

Let me begin with a simple observation: If the last 30 years were an era of reaction, then the coming decade could turn into an era of reform, even radical reform. Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation, and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead.

We can visualize passing tough regulatory reforms on the financial industry, which brought the economy to ruin.

We can imagine the troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan while U.S. representatives participate in a regional process that brings peace and stability to the entire region.

In the current political climate, the expansion of union rights becomes a real possibility.

Much the same can be said about winning a second stimulus bill, and we sure need one, given the still-rising rate, and likely long term persistence, of unemployment.

Isn’t it possible in the Obama era to create millions of green jobs in manufacturing and other sectors of the economy in tandem with an attack on global warming?

Can’t we envision taking new strides in the long journey for racial and gender equality in this new era, marked at its beginning by the election of the first African American to the presidency?

And isn’t the overhaul of the criminal justice and prison system – a system steeped in racism – no longer pie-in-the sky, but something that can be done in the foreseeable future?

All these things are within reach now!

http://cpusa.org/change-is-here-change-is-coming/
_____________________________________________________

"Barack Obama told supporters that
'change has come to America' as he
claimed victory in a historic presidential election."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html

[tet68]

Will the democrat party do the same to Obama,
or is the cult of personality too ingrained
for them to do anything? I suppose it
would be different if they saw another path
but they are in agreement with his goals.

[ETL]

Obama State of the Union: He got the ball rolling:
http://cpusa.org/obama-state-of-the-union-he-got-the-ball-rolling

[fantail 1952]

"Obama will fight to the last bunker and go down buried by his own delusions."

The most comparable political figure of the 20th Century would be Adolf Hitler who demanded that his country be totally destroyed since its losing the war (or in O's case the 2012 election)it did not deserve to survive.

It may be that the most dangerous 75 days in this countries history will be from next Nov. 6th until January 20, 2013.

[buccaneer81]

Spot on. They agree will the goals, but realize Obama is the wrong figurehead. They’ll stick with him, at a distance, unless Hillary jumps in.

[tet68]

It may be that the most dangerous 75 days in this countries history will be from next Nov. 6th until January 20, 2013.

How right you are.

[ml/nj]

Obama is enormously thin-skinned, he remembers and keeps track of negative things said and written about him

He must REALLY hate Rush!

ML/NJ

[pepsi_junkie]

Come on, this is not news. The high water mark of the McCain campaign was when they issued all the Youtube videos mocking Obama as a celebrity, comparing him to Paris Hilton, and laughing at his pompous comments about his nomination being the moment the oceans receded by showing clips of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea. It worked because it got under Obama's skin and it was obvious. He lashed out at these silly videos in a disproportionate way and it made him look petty and weak. McCain rose, then he selected Palin who really started laying the wood and again, Obama was really irritated by it.

Then McCain stopped it all and endorsed Obama, told us we might as well vote for him since we have nothing to fear from him. But that's another story.

[Zeppo]

This person’ said Obama is enormously thin-skinned, he remembers and keeps track of negative things said and written about him, and he is a person filled with many more grievances and resentments than one might imagine.

One word:

FUBO

[CrazyIvan]

Just went on weather underground to check out Chicagos weather tonight.
Ugly.

By January, it will be shirtsleeve weather for us northern
Illinoisans.

[Bobalu]

It may be that the most dangerous 75 days in this countries history will be from next Nov. 6th until January 20, 2013

According to ancient legend, Doomsday is December 21 2012...interesting ain't it!?

[Windflier]

"Nixon knew enough to resign"

Only after being confronted by the Republican leadership, who informed him that they were not going down with the ship he captained.

And that is one of the more curious aspects about the current state of the Democrats (which is dire beyond belief, for a political party).

I made a prediction well over a year ago, that the old guard in the Dim party would, at some point, make it clear to Obama that he was taking the party over a cliff, and that they would not allow him to do that. I fully expected them to give him 'an offer he couldn't refuse', but it appears that the old guard is either too cowed by the Obama cabal, or too clueless, to do that.

I can't believe that they've let this situation fester this long into the 2012 campaign season without moving him out of the way for a new challenger. Perhaps they're resigned to their fate, and are ready to face their long wandering in the political wilderness.

[buccaneer81]

The Democrats are now trapped by that which they used to their advantage in the past: Race.

[fantail 1952]

That thought had crossed my mind...........