Obama’s new campaign talking point is to compare Mitt Romney to Richard Nixon in terms of secrecy.
The Board of Editors of The San Francisco Chronicle already has weighed in on the Nixonian quality of one of the presidential candidates:
The Obama White House’s restrictions on media access to its fundraising events makes a mockery of its claim to be the most transparent administration in history.
If anything, there is almost a Nixonian quality to the level of control, paranoia – and lack of credibility – this White House has demonstrated on the issue of media access to President Obama’s fundraisers.
Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post agreed with regard to Obama’s war on Fox News:
It makes the White House look childish and petty at best, and it has a distinct Nixonian — Agnewesque? — aroma at worst.
Ken Rudin of NPR made a similar comment, substituting “Nixonesque” for Nixonian:
Well, it’s not only aggressive, it’s almost Nixonesque. I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media and certainly Vice President Agnew’s constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s an infringement on the freedom of press, and now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing.
Related, from October 2009, A Clintonian Defense of Our Nixonian President:
We have seen this Nixonian tendency throughout Obama’s political career. Obama eliminated his state senate opponents through nominating petition challenges. He destroyed his U.S. Senate opponent by having his supporters gain access to divorce records (all the while claiming he didn’t think the records should be released). It is what John Kass of The Chicago Tribune calls the “Chicago Way.”….
There always seems to be an enemy against whom to campaign. Obama’s brief 10-month tenure has seen the permanent campaign shift to the drug companies, the insurance industry, Tea Party attendees, health care protesters, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others. If you oppose Obama’s policies and are willing to say so publicly, you will be demonized.
And Obama has not hesitated to use the threat of government regulatory power, much as Nixon used various government agencies as a coercive tool. During the campaign, a group of Missouri prosecutors aligned with the Obama campaign threatened prosecution against anyone who spread “lies” about Obama.
When the health care industry recently released a report claiming that Democratic proposals would raise insurance rates, the Department of Justice in conjunction with Congressional Democrats, announced an intention to examine whether to revoke a 60-year-old antitrust exemption for the insurance industry.
Everything about the history of Obama and this administration’s prior conduct culminated in the attempt to intimidate and isolate the only major news organization willing to take on this administration. Fox News was attacked because it has been the sole dissenting voice in the news media.
Since October 2009, it has become even worse, with Obama taking upon himself major legislative shifts through executive order, and rewarding political allies with federal funding of “green” jobs. The Department of Justice has become a political wing of the Obama campaign, refusing for clearly political reasons to defend legislation like DOMA it previously defended, and attacking attempts to prevent voter fraud by playing the race card, while the Attorney General gives political stump speeches to pro-Obama audiences.
Add in the suspicious invocation of Executive Privilege to shield documents regarding a program which killed a U.S. border guard, and right now Richard Nixon is looking pretty good compared to what we have.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“If anything, there is almost a Nixonian quality to the level of control, paranoia – and lack of credibility – this White House has demonstrated…”
No. They just can’t QUITE bring themselves to admit the truth.
Nixon was an ACLU hero compared to this guy.
Pres. Paracosm* is the full comic book version of Nixon, made flesh. He is a secretive man with a great deal to be secretive about, and his closest advisers are the same type of people.
*Yes, Rags learned a new word! http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/07/02/the-wild-the-innocent-and-the-e-street-paracosm/
“I’m not a crock.”
—B. Milhous Obama, circa fall, 2012
LukeHandCool (whose high school, Samohi (Santa Monica High), removed John Ehrlichman from its hall of fame. Luke wonders if Sean Penn, two years behind Luke at school, has been inducted into its hall of fame. If so, Luke hopes Sean’s cozying up to a South American dictator gets him removed, too).
It’s almost as if the Obama campaign “brain trust” read the papers to look for bad stuff on Obama, then project it onto Romney. So, what’s next ? Romney is black ?
Elemental Leftist Truth: If they are accusing you of doing it, they are already guilty of the same offense. e.g. voter fraud, voter intimidation, tampering with voting machines, etc. Count on it!
That’s exactly what I learned when the union I belonged to got into a fight between the local and the international. The local guys had to teach us all the dirty tricks to watch for so we could monitor elections. Don’t ever let them tell you their elections are clean.
Helluva good post, P’fessor!
I’ve been saying for a long time now, that if Obama keeps it up, we’re going to owe Nixon an apology.
The difference between then and now, of course, is the existence of a functioning Free Press. Today, the Fourth Estate has become nothing more than a Fifth Column ally of the Obama administration and the Democratic party.
“The difference between then and now, of course, is the existence of a functioning Free Press.”
I disagree. Nixon wasn’t the Nixon of the press memes of the time.
Your comment assumes a needle of press bias close to the middle. It was not then any closer to neutral than it is now. It WAS decidedly pegged in the opposite end of the scale.
(Not that I was or am remotely a fan of Mr. Nixon, who, like Obama, LOVED fascist economics.)
Are they REALLY this sad, pathetic, and desperate ? How can Mitt Romney be secretive like Nixon when he isn’t even holding office and has nothing relevant to offer ? Nixon’s secrecy was related to BEING president, not running for the office, and the only questions even raised about Romney are his finances. Meanwhile, even ignoring the utter contempt for the public the Obama administration demonstrates with their lack of transparency, where has Obama been as far as releasing documents about his past ?
AWOL. College transcripts ? Legislative record in Illinois ? We know almost nothing about Barrack Obama prior to 2007 and yet it is Romney that is secretive ?
Is the Obama campaign really this incompetent ?
And, of course, the very Nixonian Fast & Furious debacle and cover-up:
http://www.examiner.com/article/is-fast-and-furious-obama-s-nixonian-moment
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100166854/the-fast-and-furious-scandal-is-turning-into-president-obamas-watergate/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/06/25/rick-perry-calls-fast-and-furious-nixonian.html
We can’t forget that one, which is WORSE than Watergate in every way, and is the epitome of “Nixonian”, IMHO.
(Personally, I don’t believe that F&F could have ever been allowed WITHOUT a President’s approval, since it involved international and homeland security interests. And, no, I am NOT a conspiracy tinfoil-hat person! It is just logical……such a policy had to have been dictated to Holder and Justice. Check out Sipsy Street Irregulars for more on F&F (to the RIGHT of the main page panel).)
I think this is why Eric holder is using “executive privilege” to avoid getting Obama’s part in this revealed. I bet the president is going to pardon Eric Holder when he hopefully loses this fall. Eric Holder is going to take the fall for the administration in order to protect the big kahuna.
My Congressman, Ted Poe, revealed at a town hall meeting last week that the Mexican government is incensed at F&F. He even indicated that they want to extradite the person or persons responsible for up to 300 Mexican deaths caused by these weapons. He’s on the House Judiciary committee, so he would know. But I wonder why we haven’t heard about this in the media?
Imagine Eric Holder and the rest of the F&F conspiracy kickin’ it in a Mexican jail. You know, Holder has a lot more riding on this next election than almost anyone else, or so it seems!
By any chance,, has Poe written anything to that effect, that you could post a link? I have never read anything about the Mexican government’s stance on this. They seem curiously quiet that their neighbor to the north has been responsible for so many deaths and international arms smuggling.
Thank you!
Holder better hustle it up, then because Obama’s ability to issue him a pardon is T-6 months and counting.
Nixon has nothing on Obama. Nixon’s Watergate scandal didn’t end with people dead. Obama flouts the congress, the constitution, and the American people on a daily basis. Anybody remember Libya? How he just kept on fighting there with executive privilege or some other such nonsense. The same thing with the recent immigration improper (and it should be illegal) executive order.
The only thing different between Nixon and today is that Obama has a complicit media, a cowardly supreme court chief justice, and a beyond stupid and spineless congress. If this was George Bush, he would have been facing impeachment hearings.
I doubt the press would even care or even report it if Obama brought them all to dine on his dog at the white house while snorting cocaine on the side.
And they’re still going to vote for him!!
On the 40th Anniversary of Watergate—The Eerie Nixon-Obama Parallels:
NIXON: Invoked Executive Privilege to cover up his involvement in a scheme to subvert an election
OBOZO: Invoked Executive Privilege to cover up his involvement in a scheme to subvert the Second Amendment to the US Constitution which resulted in the deaths of two US border Patrol agents and thousands of mexican citizens.
NIXON: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson and Mitchell
OBOZO: Jarrett, Emanuel, Axelrod, van Jones, Ayers, Dorn, Wright, Holder, Rezko, Jennings….
NIXON: Appointed a political hack Attorney General who politicized ALL DOJ actions and became the SECOND WORST AG IN AMERICAN HISTORY
OBOZO: Appointed a racist political hack Attorney General who racially focused and politicized ALL DOJ actions and became the WORST AG IN AMERICAN HISTORY
NIXON: A lawyer who disrespected the law
OBOZO: A lawyer who disrespects the law, the US Constitution, American values, Catholics, free enterprise, Jews, job creators, American Exceptionalism, Israel, American citizens….
NIXON: Kissed butt of America’s enemy, the Chinese Communists
OBOZO: Kisses butt of each and every enemy of America
NIXON: A chronic LIAR
OBOZO: A chronic, habitual, pathological LIAR – to the billionth power
NIXON: Resigned is disgrace; pardoned by his dumb-@$$, incompetent, bumbling former VP
OBOZO: Hopefully resigns in disgrace or is thrown out of office in Nov. and takes his dumb-@$$, incompetent, bumbling VP with him.
“Richard Nixon is looking pretty good compared to what we have”
Compared to Obama, professor, Nixon was a choirboy.
[…] Forget Carter, you know its really bad when they think your administration is worse than…..Nixon’s. […]
“The Obama White House’s restrictions on media access to its fundraising events makes a mockery of its claim to be the most transparent administration in history.”
What, you believed him?
Rube.
It’s not just Nixon. Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan look pretty good compared to what we have.