ED DRISCOLL: From Watergate To The Pizza Wars. “The lamps are indeed going out all over the world.”
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IN LIGHT OF ALL THE BEN BRADLEE WATERGATE HOOPLA, I should note two things: First, this Watergate mythbusting by Prof. Joseph Campbell, and second, that I doubt Bradlee would have done the same to a Democratic President.
ED MORRISSEY: Watergate and the Abuse of Power: A Lesson Unlearned.
The familiarity of these events, coupled with the increasing impulse of Obama to abandon constitutional limits, shows that America largely ignored the lessons of Watergate. It’s not enough to be wary of executive power when the opposition party controls the White House, as Republicans belatedly learned in 1974; to defend and protect constitutional government and the rule of law, that vigilance has to exist at all times.
Some of the same voices that shrieked with horror at the threat of the “unitary executive” under George W. Bush seem perfectly comfortable now with Obama ruling by executive fiat rather than governing under the rule of law, as long as it’s only their bêtes noires that get targeted.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the anniversaries of Watergate and the Great World War are so close together, as we seem to have difficulty learning from either.
Apparently so.
SO TWO WATERGATE-ERA HEROES DIED TODAY. Howard Baker, who famously asked “what did the President know and when did he know it?” and Johnnie Walters, the IRS Commissioner who refused to go along with Nixon’s efforts to target his enemies. Both were Republicans who stood up for the rule of law.
Where are the Democrats willing to stand up for it under this Administration?
IT’S WORSE THAN WATERGATE, BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT TURNED ITS POWER AGAINST ORDINARY PEOPLE: Kim Strassel and the WSJ on the Lost IRS Emails.
WELL, NOT WITH A DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE, ANYWAY: “Watergate wouldn’t make page three today.”
RICHARD BENEDETTO: On Benghazi, Which Democrat Will Play the Role Howard Baker Played In Watergate? My guess: None. Howard Baker had scruples.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: George Will: IRS targeting scandal on par with Watergate, Iran-Contra.
TOM MAGUIRE: So How Many Died At Watergate? “And do let’s note – a standard lib talking point during the promotion of Obamacare was that access to health insurance saves lives. Dare we presume that failure to implement Obamacare thereby costs lives, eventually if not by this weekend? Ezra Klein was talking about 15,000 to 20,000 lives per year, which dwarfs the 1,833 who died at Katrina.”
Dude. Those talking points are only applicable against Republicans.
MCCLATCHY: NSA having flashbacks to Watergate era. “The National Security Agency is facing its worst crisis since the domestic spying scandals four decades ago led to the first formal oversight and overhaul of U.S. intelligence operations.”
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE? Were the Watergate coverup defendants denied due process? “It turns out that the notion that no man is above the law’ somehow didn’t apply to judges or prosecutors involved in the cover-up trial. Documents I have uncovered indicate that the efforts to punish the wrongdoings of Watergate led to further wrongdoing by the very officials given the task of bringing the Watergate defendants to justice. . . . The new documents suggest that defendants in the Watergate cover-up trial, held before Judge John Sirica, received anything but a fair trial. Indeed, they suggest prosecutorial and judicial misconduct so serious –- secret meetings, secret documents, secret collusion — that their disclosure at the time either would have prevented Sirica from presiding over the trial or would have resulted in the reversal of the convictions and the cases being remanded for new trials.”
REMEMBERING THE NEW DEAL WITCH HUNT:
Watergate has become the default historical template for the Obama scandals, as charges about enemies lists, executive-agency politicization, and high-handed federal snooping dominate the discussion. But those hunting for historical analogies would do well to consider the even closer parallels between these events and occurrences during the New Deal and Fair Deal.
Franklin D. Roosevelt routinely audited the income taxes of such critics as Representative Hamilton Fish, a Republican who represented the president’s hometown of Hyde Park, N.Y. Democrats of that era not only found creative ways to intimidate conservative and libertarian organizations, but also, like their modern counterparts, eventually attracted charges of witch-hunting.
The modern Tea Party, however, has yet to find a more effective symbol of defiance than Edward A. Rumely. Though he is largely forgotten today, the publisher’s appearance in June 1950 before a special House committee to investigate lobbying was a defining moment.
When Rumely showed up to testify, nobody was quite sure what he would say. For the most part, he answered the committee’s questions, but he stood his ground on one issue: He refused to name the Americans who had purchased a book critical of the New Deal. Pointing to the First Amendment, he asserted that the committee had “no power to go into a newspaper publisher and say, ‘Give me your subscription list.’ And you have no power to come to us.” If the House wanted to cite him for contempt, then he promised to give it “an education on the Bill of Rights.” Chairman Frank Buchanan warned that the unfriendly witness risked a contempt resolution, and vowed not to “divert this hearing into an argument over constitutional rights.” . . .
Rumely had the last laugh in his legal case. In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the contempt-of-Congress resolution. In a concurring opinion, the Court’s most liberal members, William O. Douglas and Hugo Black, endorsed Rumely’s free-speech and privacy rights in no uncertain terms. They described the Buchanan committee’s demands as “the beginning of surveillance of the press.”
Somebody should write a book on this kind of thing.
UPDATE: Response? Tea Partiers should visit the homes of government officials and leave copies of the Constitution.
21ST CENTURY WATERGATE? CBS News confirms multiple breaches of Sharyl Attkisson’s computer. “A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.”
Say, if they can do that, couldn’t they plant incriminating stuff on your computer, too? More undermining of trust. . . .
ED DRISCOLL: Obama And The IRS: Worse Than Watergate.
Fortunately, the Washington Post, which sometimes simplifies the events of the 1970s down to thinking of itself as the Paper That Brought You Watergate, is equally hard on Mr. Obama’s men and women as it was on All the President’s Men who served under Mr. Nixon. For example, check out these two recent headlines:
“A White House counsel known for her shoes”
“White House press secretary Jay Carney discusses favorite band, Guided by Voices”In the 1920s, H.L. Mencken, described his vision of journalism as a fundamentally adversarial one, no matter who was in charge. “It is the prime function of a really first-rate newspaper to serve as a sort of permanent opposition in politics.”
And then there’s whatever the Washington Post is. Journalism, baby.
Ouch.
GEORGE WILL: In IRS Scandal, Echoes Of Watergate.
Hey, even Massachusetts Democrats are saying that.
THE TRUTH ABOUT BOB WOODWARD: At NRO, Conrad Black writes, “Forty years after Watergate, the myth is unraveling.”
The myth had certainly gotten inflated over the years — I did a double-take of the seventies-era photo atop Black’s article, just to make sure it actually was Woodward and Bernstein, and not Redford and Hoffman. And Victor Lasky tried 35 years ago to help bring it down to earth. But it’s telling that the people who really began the demolition job on Woodward’s rep this year were his own successors at the Washington Post. (With Robert Redford piling on earlier this week in an effort to help finish the job.)
AN INCONVENIENT BOOK: Praise for Max Holland’s book on Watergate “Deep Throat” source Mark Felt — who, remember, turned out to be a disgruntled bureaucrat trying to advance his career, not a high-minded whistleblower.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Doug Reed, Watergate Fiction.
Also, from John Henry, Packaging Machinery Handbook: The complete guide to automated packaging machinery including packaging line design.
BENGHAZI: McCain Suggests Response To Benghazi Attack Was Worse Than Watergate. “It is now the worst cover-up or incompetence I have ever observed in my life.”
WELL, BUT NOBODY DIED IN WATERGATE: With 2 words, Drudge evokes Watergate for Obama’s Libya troubles.
Related: White House e-mails blow up its Libya cover story.
And why haven’t we heard from General Petraeus?
WATERGATE, IRAN-CONTRA, BENGHAZI — AND THE DEBATE QUESTIONS: “So what’s a moderator to do? If the 90 questions contain 9 or 10 about Libya and various aspects of what is emerging as a cover-up, there is a very good case for allowing them all to be asked,” Hugh Hewitt writes. “As they would have been if the issue was the break-in and the president was Nixon.”
WELL, NOBODY DIED IN WATERGATE: What’s the difference between Watergate and Benghazigate?
Also, the press didn’t try to help with the coverup.
EXCEPT NOBODY DIED AT WATERGATE: Jennifer Rubin on Watergate Redux — “In hearing, the Libya scandal boils over:”
So where is the president? He’s not come forward to explain any of this, although his vice president will be on the hot seat at the debate tomorrow night. After all, Jay Carney’s dissembling, Susan Rice’s misleading TV appearances, and the president’s own assertions, including his Setpember 25 speech to the UN (“a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world”) have left an evidence trail a mile wide.
Whether incompetent or dishonest or a combination of the two, Obama needs to face the American people and be held accountable. And the media, both reporters and pundits, who have tried studiously to downplay or ignore a scandal that in a GOP administration would be compared to Watergate, have their chance to show they are more than apologists for a president whose stature is shrinking by the minute.
Rubin writes for the Washington Post. If only that paper had some experience in exposing presidential scandals…
(Well, Democratic scandals at least.)
UPDATE: Video: Mother of State Dep’t worker killed in Benghazi begs White House to stop stonewalling her.