In the midst of numerous scandals that have walloped President Obama in the last several weeks, the GOP is now comparing Obama to former president Richard Nixon. Scandals revolving around Obama and Nixon are similar only on the most superficial of levels, it’s something to do with the IRS and journalists. But the true nuts and bolts of which are anything but similar.
Putting aside for the moment the AP scandal . . . we’re at least seeing that these were all through legal channels. We may find them inappropriate, we may find them . . . encroaching on the first amendment, . . but it was all done legally,” said The Majority Report host and Ring of Fire Radio co-host Sam Seder. “When we talk about the scandals that Richard Nixon was involved in . . . we’re talking about real lawbreaking,” to which Nixon was privy.
Rather than the IRS of today supposedly giving Tea Party groups extra scrutiny for trying to manipulate non-profit tax codes, the Nixon administration used the IRS “as a weapon . . . against their political opponents.” Nixon and his White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman created a “Special Services” group to directly target “1,000 liberal groups and 4,000 individuals” including Ted Kennedy.
This scheme was an eventual segue to the formation of the “Plumbers,” which was Nixon’s own personal anti-journalism group, who targeted Walter Cronkite among others, turned hit-squad that had plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson. Anderson, who outed the CIA for being in bed with the Mafia and the infamous savings and loan scandal, was placed at the top of an actual “enemies list” put together by Nixon’s camp.
The Nixon Administration had set up plans to intentionally misuse a government agency and even plotted to have a journalist killed, and the GOP thinks that Obama is a clear reflection of Nixon, who is a Republican.
Joshua de Leon is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire.
