Free Republic

CHARLIE ROSE: You have seen lots of second terms. This one came in on a big political victory, wanting to do things. And you have this picture, one, of intrusive government and yet a president who seems like a bystander in his own government. BOB SCHIEFFER: People were talking in Washington about -- some people were saying, "Are we back to the Nixon administration? This is what they did in the Nixon administration." This is not the Nixon administration, where you had burglars and people talking about blowing up the Brookings Institution. This is more of a case, is anybody...

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...

Of all the scandals, mini-scandals, and scandals-in-waiting circling the White House these days, the one that should set off the most alarms in the Oval Office is the AP phone records affair. It’s not so much its relative placement on the egregious overreach scale; it’s the fact that it involves the mainstream press. This is an assemblage of men and women that has been vital to the political success of the President. This is the group that collectively decides whether an event, or series of events, constitutes a scandal or, for that matter, even a story. When scandal engulfs an...