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Posted on 11/03/2016 5:38:26 AM PDT by randita
Has Clinton Topped Nixon?
The former secretary of state has been exposed as a ruthless politician following a playbook similar to Tricky Dick’s.
By Victor Davis Hanson — November 3, 2016
Another day, another Hillary Clinton bombshell disclosure.
This time the scandal comes from disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, bringing more suggestions of Clinton’s sloppy attitude about U.S. intelligence law. Meanwhile, seemingly every day WikiLeaks produces more evidence of the Clinton Foundation leveraging the Clinton State Department for pay-for-play profiteering.
At this point, Clinton has trumped former president Richard Nixon’s skullduggery — but without the offset of Nixon’s foreign-policy accomplishments.
Even before the most recent scandals, Clinton’s campaign had an eerie resemblance to the Nixon playbook.
Compare the election of 2016 to the election of 1972. The favored Nixon re-election juggernaut (dubbed CREEP, or the “The Committee for the Re-election of the President”) squeezed corporations and wealthy individuals for millions in donations, in much the same way that Clinton’s multi-million-dollar cash machine has vastly outspent her opponent, Donald Trump.
The Watergate tapes later revealed an entirely cynical Nixon campaign team and a hard-nosed White House cadre led by H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman — plus a host of lesser toadies, such as the conniving John Dean. They all took for granted that Washington functioned on a quid pro quo and pay-for-play basis.
In that regard, the Clinton campaign under chairman John Podesta (the new Haldeman) has become Nixonian to the core, thanks to Podesta’s ruthlessness.
The WikiLeaks/Podesta e-mail trove reveals that Hillary’s consultants have no moral compass. They lampoon Latinos as “needy.” Catholics are written off as being stuck in medieval times. Aides bartered with plutocrats for Secretary of State Clinton’s face time on the basis of cash donations. A primary debate question was tipped off by CNN contributor and Democratic operative Donna Brazile.
The nickname “Tricky Dick” referred to Nixon’s perceived anything-goes campaign style and his “flexibility” on issues. CREEP’s “plumbers” staged break-ins to look for leaked information. Petty activists supposedly tried to disrupt rallies for Nixon’s 1972 opponent, George McGovern. Clinton is using similar tactics. In the ambush tapes of Project Veritas, Clinton’s for-hire thugs bragged on film of provoking violence at Trump rallies and bringing in voters by bus to cast illegal ballots.
The anti-communist and free-marketer Nixon turned out to be a wheeler-dealer who had no problem wooing communist China or imposing socialist wage and price controls. From hacked e-mails, it is clear that Hillary’s positions on fracking, trade deals, the Keystone XL pipeline, immigration, and foreign policy hinged on whatever best served her political self-interest.
Most loyal aides who served Nixon ended up disgraced, jailed, or humiliated. Does anyone think that Podesta, Cheryl Mills, or Huma Abedin — the fixers so prominent in the WikiLeaks scandal — will have a political future, given their aiding and abetting of Clinton knavery and profiteering?
We know that Nixon lied about what he had known about the cover-up of the Watergate break-in. And now we know from the WikiLeaks e-mail dumps and the FBI investigation that Clinton likewise has never told the truth about her e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-for-play schemes, or the catalysts for the Benghazi killings. Nixon always attacked the messenger in hopes of discrediting the message — and now Clinton is going after FBI director James Comey.
Nixon professed that he never knew the sordid details of his campaign’s dirty tricks. Clinton has resorted to the same defense with regard to the shady activities of the now-disgraced subordinates who resigned after being caught trying to disrupt Trump rallies. Stonewalling was a Nixon specialty. Clinton told FBI investigators 27 times that she could not remember key details about the e-mail scandal.
A Democratic operative from a political action committee bragged on tape that Clinton herself liked the operative’s idea of having protestors decked out in Donald Duck costumes provoke Trump supporters at his rallies. (“In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground,” the operative said on tape.)
Abedin wrote in an e-mail to Podesta and Clinton aide Robby Mook that the idea of accepting $12 million to speak at an event held by a Moroccan-government-owned mining company (which had received a $92 million loan guarantee from the U.S.-financed Export-Import Bank) was Clinton’s: “This was HRC’s idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request.”
A Clinton family advisor described shakedown efforts to reap millions of dollars for former President Bill Clinton as being the work of “Bill Clinton Inc.”
There remains, however, one disconnect.
Nixon covered up misdeeds long enough to be re-elected in a 1972 landslide — only later to resign before his looming impeachment, when even his administration flunkies could no longer mask his past misdeeds.
Would an elected President Hillary Clinton eventually meet the same fate?
This time around, there is not the same sort of investigative reporting that there was in 1973–1974. Much of the media is backing, rather than investigating, Clinton.
Does the death of independent journalism ensure that Clinton’s hubris will never earn a Nixonian comeuppance — or at least not until after the election?
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Nixon did not let our enemies acquire our state secrets. This cost the death of Americans in Benghazi and no doubt others that we don’t know about. Hillary should be in prison.
Nixon was a saint compared to Hillary!.
He didn’t leave a trail of dead bodies and ruined lives behind him like the Clinton Crime Family.
He didn’t sell the policies of the State Department for cash.
He was not accessory to rape.
Nixon’s one crime was to try to protect the people who worked for him when they were caught.
Mr. Hanson is not just ‘mistaken,’ he is an idiot for even considering the comparison.
This is orders of magnitude beyond Nixon.
Times certainly do change.
The extreme criminality of both Obama and Hillary make Dick Nixon’s transgressions look about as serious as a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Nixon barely did anything wrong. He got a rotten deal.
Clinton is pure evil. She’s totally outside the American tradition of patriotism, civic duty and adherence to the rule of law.
Related: People sometimes imply that Obama might be able to pardon himself. I am not so sure. Nixon didn’t pardon himself. He stepped down and Ford went ahead and issued the pardon. I think Obama cannot pardon himself and would have to hope that Trump would pardon him. I think Trump might consider pardoning Obama — but perhaps NOT if Obama pardons Hillary before leaving office. I think we all need Hillary’s scalp. I can see Obama and Trump possibly striking a deal.
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.” John Harington
He doesn't go far enough, however, While VDH touches on the Moroccan pay for play corruption, he ignores the breathtaking personal enrichment the Clintons achieved by selling the Office of SOS. He fails to cover the selling of US uranium deposits to the Russians. He fails to excoriate her for running a completely unsecured personal email server that was full of the highest state secrets and was undoubtedly hacked by our enemies. He fails to expose the fact that Obama was in on the scheme and lied about his knowledge of it — this all leads straight to the current POTUS. He fails to expose how her insecure server exposed our human intelligence assets (i.e., spies) worldwide and has probably caused entire spy networks,to be rolled up. I wouldn't not be a bit surprised to learn lots of sympathetic local spies have been executed as,a result of her server.
Frankly, I consider what she and her husband have done to be ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE worse than Nixon. VDH held his punches too more for me. He should be screaming how this is far, far worse than Watergate.
The remarkable thing is that any of the skullduggery got exposed with a captive press actively working to get her elected. The future of citizen action to expose this corruption will probably be seriously threatened or destroyed by all the actions Obama has taken to heavily regulate or even abolish a free and open Internet.
A friend posted this and I wanted to share. This was written by a very witty person...
Sung to “Folsom Prison” by Johnny Cash...
I hear that train a comin’, It’s rollin’ round the bend.
Gonna pick up Mrs. Clinton And take her to the pen.
They’ll have her coronation, Make her cell block queen
Hillary for prison two thousand and sixteen
They’ve got an orange pants suit, Hangin’ on the wall
And a cell for Bubba Willie, Just a little down the hall.
We’ll put ‘em in the big house, Lock them up inside.
Unless a whole lot of witnesses, Commit suicide.
Remember James McDougal, And 20 or 30 more
About to testify, they found ‘em dead upon the floor.
Now they’re pilin’ up the bodies, Like they did back then
They want back in the White House, Here we go again.
Glue the china to the table, Nail the table to the floor
Lock up all the silver, ‘fore they haul it out the door
White trash in the White House, Beats all I’ve ever seen.
Hillary for prison, two thousand and sixteen
You think about how they crucified David Petraeus for a little pillow talk with his mistress.
I agree. I appreciate most of what VDH writes, but other than the fact that Nixon lied and that they both "put their pants on one leg at a time", there is no comparison between either the type or the magnitude of their evil deeds.
Especially the damage to the country.
Yes, Decades ago......................
This article is shockingly brazen in it’s attempt to lower Nixon to Clinton’s level.
Nixon’s major fault in all this was to stand by his men, whether he knew of their activity in advance or not.
Hillary Clinton has sold out every person she ever came into contact with.
I will come back to this later, because Nixon isn’t here to defend himself and this offering is just plain pathetic.
Wasn’t thrilled to see VDH’s name pop up as one of the board members of one of the friends of Hillery organizations. Would like to hear his explanation of it. I generally like his take on things.
Like a hyena tops a mouse.
Bill & Hillary were “Co-Presidents” according to their own proclamation.
Ruby Ridge
Waco
Vince Foster
Ron Brown
The Rapes
Kathleen Willey’s kitten
Their ties to all of the behind the scenes “muscle” who did the “wet work” going back to Arkansas/Mena days
Ties to or being controlled by Soros.
Assisting Obama in the infiltration of the government by Muslim Brotherhood
Financial bribery from Cattle Futures thru Clinton Foundation
The childish antics of Watergate are minuscule compared to the corruption at the highest levels here
Not even close
Bill topped Nixon, Hillary has topped Bill. Don’t forget to mention current Pres.
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