No, Obama is not Nixon
ANALYSIS - A series of controversies, mostly notably the IRS specifically using terms like 'Tea Party' as a trigger for audits, have caused some to liken President Obama to Richard Nixon...
A series of controversies, mostly notably the IRS specifically using terms like “Tea Party” as a trigger for audits, have caused some to liken President Obama to Richard Nixon, who famously used the IRS to target political enemies and had an “enemies list” that included journalists.
The comparison speaks to the urge to liken contemporary controversies with those from the past. But at least from what we know now, the behavior of Obama and his team in these incidents bares almost zero similarity to Nixon and his top aides, who were intimately involved in the controversies that later brought down his administration. No one in the entire White House appears to have been consulted on two of the controversies, as the career employees at the IRS opted to examine the tax status of conservative groups and the Department of Justice on its own chose to prosecute a leaks case by obtaining the phone records of journalists from the Associated Press. The IRS audits appear to be a clumsy attempt to target newly-formed non-profit groups that the agency suspected might have been more involved in political activity than they are allowed if they want to be tax exempt.
In the AP situation, Obama, while not signing off on each investigation individually, has allowed the Justice Department to pursue leaks of national security information. DOJ has pressed these investigations more than prior administrations, and the president could have stopped this pattern if he chose to. But this was nothing like punishing reporters because they were enemies of the administration.
In fact, Obama publicly supported the leaks probes in part because because Republicans were urging him to do so. In the run-up to last year’s election, Republicans urged probes into national security leaks, arguing some of the stories that resulted from the disclosures, such as details of the drone program, were deliberate attempts by Obama aides to make the president seem tougher on terrorism and help him win over swing voters.
In short, until recently, the Republicans were casting these journalists as not enemies of Obama, but too friendly to him.
The White House, including some top presidential aides, was more involved than it first acknowledged in the initial casting of the Benghazi attacks as the result of a demonstration instead of a planned terrorist attack. But this was hardly a major cover-up, as the administration eventually described it as terrorism, well before Election Day last November.
In all three of these instances, the administration, if not Obama specifically, deserves some criticism. Obama accepted the head of the IRS’ resignation Wednesday, acknowledging the problem with the agency’s audits. It’s unlikely the Justice Department in the future will so broadly grab the phone records of a respected news organization like the Associated Press. And Susan Rice’s initial comments about the Benghazi attack were more dismissive of the role of the terrorism than they should have been.
But somehow casting Obama as the unifying villain here simplifies these controversies. It’s part of a broader urge by many in the public and the press to cast the president as the hero when things go right (lots of people beyond Barack Obama were involved in the passage of the health care bill and the killing of Osama Bin Laden) and the problem when things (the gun control that the Senate blocked) don’t.
Broader challenges for the president
These incidents do bring two broader challenges for the president. Republicans were already blocking much of his agenda on Capitol Hill, from Cabinet picks to Obama’s universal pre-kindergarten education proposal. Will these three controversies now sink even the bi-partisan parts of Obama’s agenda, like immigration reform, by hardening conservative opposition to anything the president wants to do? Obama, before announcing the head of the IRS had stepped down, held a meeting with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of his allies on immigration, to illustrate his determination in carrying that issue forward.
Secondly, can Obama, who has led an administration that been essentially scandal-free, maintain that reputation? Iran-Contra dominated Ronald Reagan’s second term, Bill Clinton was impeached, George W. Bush and his administration were accused of making up the case for war in Iraq and later for blowing the cover of a CIA agent in an incident that lead the Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff to be convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Follow Perry Bacon on Twitter at @perrybaconjr.
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