"Miss me, yet?!!!"
Posted on 05/15/2013 8:44:57 PM PDT by neverdem
The comparisons of the Obama and Nixon White Houses are suddenly coming—pardon the expression—fast and furious, and why not? The IRS investigations; the administration’s fixation on leaks and leakers and its obsession with enemies; the cover-ups, the blame-shifting to subordinates, the defiant chief executive, even the sweating, pathetically dissembling press secretary; it all has the odor of that earlier time. Again, it’s all happening early in the second term, following a triumphant reelection. Again, the operative terms are arrogance, contempt for law, and thuggery.
The growing awareness of administration malfeasance is evident in the numbers on Google: more than 59 million hits for “Obama and Nixon” and 24 million–plus for “Obama and Watergate.” For those interested, the 44th president’s face can already be found morphing into the 37th’s. Then there’s the rising tide of commentary. “Obama knee-deep in Nixon-esque scandal” runs the headline of columnist Joe Battenfield’s piece in the Boston Herald, which notes that Obama’s campaign slogan would have been more appropriate if it were not “Forward” but “Backward”—“All the way to, say, 1972.” “Benghazi, IRS—Son of Watergate?” asks Cal Thomas. “In IRS Scandal, Echoes of Watergate,” observes the Washington Post’s George Will.
Such talk is mostly confined to the Right so far, but a handful of principled liberals have also weighed in. “There’s no way in the world I’m going to defend that,” said U.S. Representative Michael Capuano of Massachusetts of the IRS’s going after the Tea Party. “Hell, I spent my youth vilifying the Nixon administration for doing the same thing.” Former Michigan Democratic congresswoman Lynn Rivers echoed him: “For anyone over 50, this news couldn’t help but stir memories of Richard Nixon’s Political Enemies Project. . . . To use Dan Rather’s ‘duck test,’ the IRS probe of ‘hostile’ ideological groups looks like, swims like, and quacks like government dirty tricks.” One of the heroes of Watergate weighed in, too. “This is outrageous, and it is totally inexcusable,” Carl Bernstein raged about the revelation that the Department of Justice had secretly seized the phone records of Associated Press journalists. “There is no reason that a presidency that is interested in a truly free press and its functioning should permit this to happen.”
Thus it is that questions that once seemed unfathomable take on unexpected plausibility. Where and how far will it all go? Is it remotely conceivable that where Richard Nixon led, Barack Obama might follow? The answer, of course, depends primarily on the nature and severity of the crimes committed—if, indeed, they are crimes—and whether presidential culpability can be established.
But such an observation instantly gives rise to two other considerations. Lest we forget, while Democrats led the congressional inquiries into the Nixonites’ misdeeds—Sam Ervin’s committee in the Senate, Peter Rodino’s in the House—in the end, it was principled Republicans, led by Barry Goldwater (who told Nixon he could count on no more than 15 Republican votes in the Senate), who forced the president’s resignation. Can we expect such nation-above-party behavior on the part of today’s Democrats? Can you imagine Patrick Leahy ever deserting Obama? Or Al Franken? Or Barbara Boxer?
Then there’s the role of the press. Unsurprisingly, the media on the far left have circled the wagons in defense of the president. “Desperate for a Scandal, Fox’s Dobbs Attacks Obama’s ‘Inner Nixon,’” read a dismissive headline on Media Matters for America, while DailyKos has harped on previous “GOP-Fabricated Non-Scandals” that went nowhere. And it’s true that, whether it was the president’s associations with his racist pastor or the Fast and Furious boondoggle, such allegations have gone nowhere—but primarily because the press has protected Obama. So it is a given that the media will again play a key role in determining whether the current scandals are pursued to their logical conclusion or are allowed to fizzle out.
Recent history suggests which outcome is more likely.
Benghazi? With a few notable exceptions, such as CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson and CNN’s Jake Tapper, reporters shrugged off the administration’s cover-up in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when it might have harmed Obama’s presidential fortunes. They have at last been forced by whistleblowers to start asking obvious questions, but their impulse to protect Obama is presumably undiminished. The IRS scandal? Reporters have as little sympathy for the Tea Party as other liberals do, but this story can’t be ignored, at least for the moment. Even administration apologist Joe Klein opines: “I don’t think Obama ever wanted to be on the same page as Richard Nixon. In this specific case, he now is.” But the “specific case” wording is telling; Klein’s piece is generally tepid, arguing that the IRS matter is an exception to what has been a generally scandal-free administration. It is a line that many in the media are apt to adopt.
As Bernstein’s outburst makes clear, the media generally saves its greatest outrage for government attacks on . . . the media. Thus, the DOJ/AP episode may be the most dangerous to the administration of the mushrooming scandals. It’s likely that a prominent head or two will roll, perhaps even Attorney General Eric Holder’s. Reporters are nothing if not creatures of the pack, and the pack has been dissed here, big-time. How hard will they go after the president? Probably not very. Think battered-woman syndrome: he may be an abuser, but he’s still their man—the one they covered for when he was caught with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, the one they played along with on the faux war on women and the anti-Islam video as the cause for the Benghazi attack. With Nixon, by contrast, once the media picked up the faintest scent of blood, they were relentless and increasingly joyous in pursuit.
As George Will writes: “Episodes like this separate the meritorious liberals from the meretricious. The day after the IRS story broke, The Post led the paper with it, and, with an institutional memory of Watergate, published a blistering editorial demanding an Obama apology. The New York Times consigned the story to page 10.” So it’s also the case that, amid all the stunning events of the past few days, the story that will likely prove the most relevant is this one, courtesy of hotair.com: “Top CBS, ABC, CNN execs all have relatives working as advisors for White House.”
I really grow weary of hearing everyone compared to Nixon.
Clinton was an out and out criminal. His uncle was a mob operator in Hot Spring. This is the same uncle Bill named his dog after, Buddy. And his uncle Buddy was who Bill Clinton thought of as his father.
Now we have a guy who was raised to hate the United States.
Both these men bent the rules so far they mutilated them.
Nixon was a shady character. There’s no doubt about it. But seriously folks, his actions came nowhere near the Clintons or Obama.
Jerry Parks and Vince Foster alone, are cause enough for the Clinton’s to be strung up.
Benghazi is enough alone to get Obama strung up.
These are just tips of the iceberg in both administrations. The lists are long, sordid, and demeaning not only to the office of the POTUS, but to the nation as a whole.
Nixon, guy..., you got the shaft fella. Schools across this nation teach kids to loathe Richard Nixon. And they teach kids to love Bill and Barack.
I will never forget what one famous writer said when stating why he went after Nixon. I did it for the good of the nation. Then when asked about Clinton crimes, he actually stated that Clinton’s crimes didn’t come anywhere near Nixon’s.
Fraud!
I’d suggest that just to claim a Secret Plan is perfidy.
http://prorev.com/2006/08/strange-death-of-jerry-parks-and-even.htm
How many journalists are old enough to remember Watergate, even as young adults? A janitor with a flashlight didn’t get anyone killed.
This statement by his son Gary is sad.
Myself, I think I might forgive Hillary her connection to these events. They were so long ago, she was hitched to Bill's horse. She's done a lot on her own since. She's been gutsy and strong on her own two feet. She has great presence. But I don't think we know all the facts about this case, and people are going to bring it up and ask about it. Real baggage.
Hillary never accomplished anything on her own. She was hired on at the Rose law firm after her husband became attorney general, then governor. She parlayed that into seats on boards all over, and shooting her mouth off when she had no business even commenting on things. Her work at the Rose law firm was extremely light. She wasn't gifted. She was gifted things, but she was a vile manipulator.
Hillary was chin deep in Foster's death and the subsequent cover-up. She is as evil as it gets. Gary should know. Sadly, he doesn't.
Hillary was the one pushing for the file Jerry stashed. Once he had been knocked off, his home was broken into and those files were the only things taken.
Hillary was on the way back from Hawaii when she heard Vince was dead. She was in constant contact with Maggie Williams in D. C., and stopped off at the Rose law firm, some say to do some shredding to calm her nerves.
Maggie Williams talked to Hillary, then spirited a box of papers out of the Foster office. Williams was so damaged that she took off after appearing at some hearing, fled to Europe and stayed over there for a number of years until the coast was clear.
Bill and Hillary were swingers, among other things. I still say Web Hubbel is the father of someone Hillary knows quite well.
Same facial structure. Same lips. Same eyes...
OK. I would just say that that is politics and let it go. But I discovered that I had 1968 confused with 1972 so I had to respond.
The 'secret plan' ploy - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune
Wow I had forgotten. That was the 1968 election. There the Communists' super weapon was the likes of Walter "North Viet Nam Communists Most Trusted Man in America" Cronkite; or as North VN General Giap said his most important guerrilla was the American press.
"The Twenty-Five-Year Century" by Lieutenant-General Lam Quang Thi, has the quote. To wit,
"General Thi believes that the media played a major role in the final downfall of South Vietnam. He quotes North Vietnam General Vo Nguyen Giap as stating in a French TV broadcast that Giap’s 'most important guerrilla during the Vietnam War was the American press.'"
Now back to the International Herald Tribune
"Even though Richard Nixon didn't have one, the notion that he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam war helped him win the presidency in 1968.
"Actually, 'secret plan' wasn't Nixon's term; a reporter on deadline used it as he covered Nixon's speech promising quick victory in that vastly unpopular war. But recognizing the power of those deceiving words, and politics being politics, Nixon never corrected the journalistic shortcut."
Nixon didn't even thank the guy. Hey! It's politics. Election 1968 had Nixon with 301 Electoral votes (almost 56 percent), Humphrey 191, and Wallace 46.
I still remember the issue but I had the year wrong. I didn't know anyone who really thought that a secret plan was needed. We were not quite aware in those days what Washington was doing to our troops. Then after the Communist Tet offensive General Giap's most important guerrillas did most of the fighting 24/7 here and helped end all promises of a quick U.S. victory.
The parallels are amazing - down to and including Bob Woodward taking on the Establishment. Almost 40 years to the day...
Oh, you mean reporters ‘falling’ out of windows?
“Just so long as O doesn’t start channeling his buddy Putin”
It’s happening already. Political prisoners like the video maker who was “responsible” for Benghaz to start with. And Christians who are being targeted for being “hostile” to the government of the US.
"Miss me, yet?!!!"
Anything to the thinking that Nixon’s support of tariff’s was seen as a threat to the NWO plans of the Globalist/Corporatist. Kissinger was the Inside Man for them.
Personally I do not recall much about that.
The Globalist/Corporatist would have to be the internationalist Rockefeller Republicans who declared in 1964 that in the words of Nelson Rockefeller's public relations head, Stuart Spencer, "We had to destroy Barry Goldwater as a member of the human race."
But I do not remember anything about a NWO back then beyond that other than the Soviet Union's efforts to establish one.
I recall thinking that Kissinger was likely the one behind the overtures to Red China. However at the time we were eager to thwart any Soviet Union and Red China union.
I have no doubt that Kissinger was a Rockefeller Republican and opposed Nixon on things that mattered to them.
I’m not sure of the reliability but here’s a bit of b/g I read: “Flashback: Watergate, Nazis, Nixon, Rockefeller”, http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/
Nixon: “I am not a crook”
obama: “I am not a bolshevik”
nuff said.
I am positive that the Rockefeller Republicans favored international trade to the max. For example I recall that many of them, et al claimed that if we did not help the Soviet Union economically the hardliners over there would grow stronger, there would be war, and it would be our fault.
I would put Nixon in the Rockefeller Republican Party but as was mentioned in the article Nixon as president did not always follow their script.
I have no problem believing that the Rockefeller Republican Party participated in the destruction of Nixon. I know what Nelson Rockefeller, Scranton, Romney, et al did to Goldwater and how they maligned us as "purveyors of hate."
I did not read the whole thing. Anything is possible.
Hillary is the she in bolshevik and shenanigans. She can only reply “I do not recall” or “What difference does it make?”
the administration’s fixation on leaks and leakers and
its obsession with enemies;
the cover-ups,
the blame-shifting to subordinates,
the defiant chief executive,
even the sweating, pathetically dissembling press secretary...
The press trashing Woodward when he started seeing the truth... the IRS being used against 'enemies'... the paranoia... useful idiots marched out for defense...
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