The Nixonian Obama

Bill Clinton had his “I didn’t have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Richard Nixon had his “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

And Barack Obama has his “[Some voices will] warn that tyranny is always lurking around the corner. You should reject those voices.”

In a previous article I compared President Obama to Woodrow Wilson. In many way, especially in their views of the Constitution, both Wilson and Obama are two peas in a pod. But history, with its ironies, often introduces other strange bedfellows. And given the recently revealed, scandal-ridden White House, we might compare Obama to another president—Richard Nixon.

The Administration’s handling of the Benghazi scandal is in itself scandalous.

Their dismissive rhetoric of what happened on September 11, 2012, beginning with Hillary Clinton’s “What difference at this point does it make?” degenerated into a cynical and callous disregard for the dead and the truth. Clinton’s outburst was followed by claims that questions about who changed the talking points and sent Susan Rice out to tout a false narrative, who gave the stand down order to the military, and why justice hasn’t been brought to the terrorists who killed Christopher Stevens, our ambassador, as well as Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods, were somehow out of bounds.

We were told that the Benghazi issue happened “a long time ago”—that it’s a “distraction,” “a sideshow,” mere “ankle-biting.” Instead of seeking the truth of what actually happened, the American people should simply “get over it” or “let it go” because there’s “no there there.”

Poppycock!

It may sound like a cliché, but it is true nonetheless: Watergate was a two-bit break-in and no one died.

Benghazi was a first rate terrorists attack and four died.

We have a right to know what the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton knew and when she knew it. And we have a right to know what President Obama knew and when he knew it.

Taking into account the testimony of whistleblowers Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson, and Eric Nordstrom, we can thus far conclude that President Obama and his administration were incompetent in their handling of Benghazi when it counted most—in real time when they received the proverbial phone call at three o’clock in the morning. But since 9/11/12, Obama and his administration have proved themselves corrupt—fabricating, obfuscating, and pettifogging the facts and the truth.

This is a double whammy! Incompetence and corruption. But what more could we expect from the least prepared man to enter the White House in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries than the community organizer who learned his political philosophy at the feet of Bill Ayres and Saul Alinsky?

If it’s any consolation, Nixon was at least competent.

Obama’s double whammy is disconcerting because it’s dangerous. Dangerous not only because four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi; but also dangerous because it leads to tyranny. Obama would have us reject such a notion, just as Clinton would have had us disbelieve he actually had sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, and Nixon would have had us disbelieve he really knew anything about Watergate.

Yet, Clinton really was a two-timer and Nixon really was a crook and Obama really is a tyrant—at least if the other scandals that have bubbled up like sewage are to be believed.

On May 10, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service admitted it had targeted conservative and pro-Israel groups seeking tax exempt status during the political season of 2010 and 2012. The IRS held up files, required extraordinary documentation, including lists of donors, and engaged in intimidation against organizations that spoke out against Obama’s re-election. This scandal has all the earmarks of an enemies list, something perfected under Nixon’s IRS.

Three days after the IRS scandal, news broke that the Associated Press sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding a return of documents the Department of Justice gathered, without warrant or notification, from twenty AP phone lines. Though the DOJ was investigating a possible security leak, the manner in which the department went about it’s intelligence gathering was so broad in its scope it potentially violated the First Amendment.

Though different in intent, Nixon in his own day was no lover of the press and sought damning information on those who reported negatively on his administration.

This doesn’t mean that Obama is guilty of crimes, as was Nixon. But it could mean that Obama is guilty of tyranny, as was Nixon.

Consider this: after four years in office, the functionaries of the administration have been fully marinated in Obamaism—in his values, virtues, and views—and their decisions, whether at a low or high level, flavor everything with the limburger cheese of incompetence, if not outright Nixonian corruption.

Incompetence and corruption are a deadly combination. You can’t fix stupid, nor can you fix sleaze. Americans, the press, and Congress were correct in dismissing Nixon’s pleas of innocence. They are equally correct in dismissing Obama’s pleas to trust him.

Instead of rejecting the warnings some of us have been voicing since Obama was a candidate, many Americans are seeing tyranny peek around the corner. I’m glad they’re finally seeing what some of us have voiced. Unfortunately, they’re four years too late. We still have four more to go.

And unlike Nixon, it’ll be a cold day in the netherworld before Obama is impeached or forced to resign for his incompetence and corruption.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @derrickjeter and sign up for my monthly e-newsletter.

If you enjoyed this article you can find more like it at derrickjeter.com, where you’ll also find information about my books, O America! A Manifesto on Liberty, A 911 for 9/11: Finding Answers to the Evil of September 11, 2001, and Our Day of Dependence: A History Lesson from Thanksgiving.

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