Tag: Watergate

Following the Trail Nixon Blazed

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Obama shows the same Orwellian disregard for the Constitution.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

What would a president do if he were furious over criticism, or felt that his noble aims justified Nixon_while_in_US_Congressmost means of attaining them?

Answer that by comparing the behavior of Richard Nixon to that of an increasingly similar Barack Obama.

Nixon tried to use the Internal Revenue Service to go after his political enemies — although his IRS chiefs at least refused his orders to focus on liberals.

Nixon ignored settled law and picked and chose which statutes he would enforce — from denying funds for the Clean Water Act to ignoring congressional subpoenas.

Nixon attacked TV networks and got into personal arguments with journalists such as CBS’s Dan Rather.

Nixon wanted the Federal Communications Commission to hold up the licensing of some television stations on the basis of their political views.

Nixon went after “enemies.” He ordered surveillance to hound his suspected political opponents and was paranoid about leaks. Continue reading “Following the Trail Nixon Blazed” →

Obama’s Credibility Gap

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The former hope-and-change president no longer gets a pass.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

By 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was finally done in by his “credibility gap” — the growing abyss between what he said about, and what was actually happening inside, Vietnam.

800px-Barack_Obama_in_the_Oval_Office,_April_2010“Modified limited hangout” and “inoperative” were infamous euphemisms that Nixon-administration officials used to mask lies about the Watergate scandal. After a while, few believed any of the initial Reagan-administration disavowals that it was not trading “arms for hostages” in the Iran–Contra scandal.

George H. W. Bush thundered during his campaign that voters should “read my lips: no new taxes,” only to agree later to raise them. Bill Clinton’s infamous assertion that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” was followed by proof that he did just that with Monica Lewinsky.

The George W. Bush administration warned the nation about stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and never quite recovered its credibility after the WMD were not found. No one believed Bush when he told incompetent FEMA deputy director Michael Brown that in the midst of the Katrina mess he was doing a “heck of a job.” Continue reading “Obama’s Credibility Gap” →

Obama’s Watergates

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Denial, evasion, “Let me be perfectly clear”–is this 2013 or 1973?

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

The truth about Benghazi, the Associated Press/James Rosen monitoring, the IRS corruption, the NSA octopus, and Fast and Furious is still not exactly known. Almost a year after the attacks on our Benghazi facilities, we are only now learning details of CIA gun-running, military stand-down orders, aliases of those involved who are still hard to locate, massaged talking points, and the weird jailing of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Continue reading “Obama’s Watergates” →

The President Won–Sort Of

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The administration spent the last six months of the campaign in cover-up mode.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

On September 11, 2012, Barack Obama was 1 point ahead of Mitt Romney in the ABC and Washington Post polls. Continue reading “The President Won–Sort Of” →

The Scandal of Our Age

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by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Like Nothing Before

In the Watergate scandal, no one died, at least that we know of. Richard Nixon tried systematically to subvert institutions. Yet most of his unconstitutional efforts were domestic in nature — and an adversarial press [1] soon went to war against his abuses and won, as Congress held impeachment hearings. Continue reading “The Scandal of Our Age” →

Securitygate Is Not Going Away

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by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

They Shall Not Pass

Securitygate has Nixonian trademarks all over it and is far more injurious to the republic than all the previous Obama administration-era scandals combined. Attorney General Holder simply cannot select an attorney to investigate key players in the administration who was both a recent appointee of Obama and a campaign contributor to and political supporter of him. Continue reading “Securitygate Is Not Going Away” →

Obama’s 1979

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by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights, finger-to-the-wind, “I can’t believe this is happening to me” initial reaction to the Mubarak implosion has eerie precedents. Continue reading “Obama’s 1979” →