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H2O Man

(73,309 posts)
Mon May 20, 2013, 03:10 PM May 2013

Write On, RFK, Jr. !


For once with good reason, the GOP is exorcised with the scandals involving the IRS targeting political groups and the FBI's spying on A.P. reporters. The broader public is legitimately concerned. However, in its classic overblown breathlessness at all things Obama, the gleeful Republican leadership is already calling for impeachment and dragging out desperate comparisons to Nixon's Watergate. This, despite caveats from its own sages not to overplay Republican good fortune. "We overreached in 1998," Newt Gingrich admitted recently. He counseled restraint to the Tea Party jihadists he helped spawn. Gingrich recalled how the GOP's scandal mongering against Clinton had only amplified Clinton's popularity and cost Republicans the 1998 mid-terms and Gingrich his speakership. But this new generation of hysterical House members immune to that wisdom, are headed straight for the feinting couch in fits of anti-Obama hysteria.

In a characteristic spasm of partisan apoplexy, Iowa Congressman Steve King offered a shrill algorithm: "add Watergate and Iran Contra together and multiply by ten" to calculate the tyrannical evil of the Obama scandals.

As usual, the Fox-fueled GOP narrative swayed the mainstream press. On May 16, Reuters' Jeff Mason interrupted Obama's press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to ask the President, "How do you feel about the comparisons by some of your critics with the scandals of the Nixon Administration?" Obama responded with calm contempt; he would leave those comparisons to the journalists. But he urged Mason to "read some history." If Mason takes that advice, here are some of the historical tidbits he might consider.

President Richard Nixon was aware that the IRS had audited him in 1961 and 1962 and presumed those audits were politically motivated by the Kennedy White House. When, early in his Administration, Nixon learned that his friends and political allies John Wayne and Rev. Billy Graham had endured recent audits by his own IRS, Nixon boiled over. He ordered White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, "Get the word out, down to the IRS that I want them to conduct field audits on those who are our opponents." Perhaps recalling the Kennedy era audits, Nixon ordered that its investigator begin with my Uncle's, John F. Kennedy's, former campaign manager and White House aide, then Democratic Committee Chairman, Lawrence O'Brien.

.......


More at:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17511-focus-obama-and-nixon-a-historical-perspective


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H2O Man

(73,309 posts)
6. Is that the same
Mon May 20, 2013, 09:41 PM
May 2013

old saying that is about "casting pearls"? For some reason, your response reminds me of that old saying.

Archae

(46,261 posts)
9. No, it has to do with RFK Jr and his anti-vaxx hysteria.
Mon May 20, 2013, 09:53 PM
May 2013

"With the scientific evidence so solidly against the mercury hypothesis of autism, proponents maintain their belief largely through the generous application of conspiracy thinking. The conspiracy claim has been made the loudest by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in two conspiracy-mongering articles: Deadly Immunity published on Salon.com in 2005 (Kennedy 2005), and more recently Attack on Mothers (Kennedy 2007). In these articles, RFK Jr. completely misrepresents and selectively quotes the scientific evidence, dismisses inconvenient evidence as fraudulent, accuses the government, doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry of conspiring to neurologically damage America’s children, and accuses scientists who are skeptical of the mercury claims of attacking the mothers of children with autism."

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/anti-vaccination_movement

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
2. The GOP has had a hard-on to impeach a Democratic president ever since Watergate and as revenge.....
Mon May 20, 2013, 03:35 PM
May 2013

.....for forcing Tricky Dick into resigning to escape impeachment. There were Republicans joining the call for an impeachment trial before the whole affair played out; but, the right wing of the party has held on to their hate and desire for revenge. As the right wing has become dominant in the party, they've been able to act out their darkest fantasies.

They tried to impeach Bill Clinton and made him more popular than ever, and made themselves into a laughingstock.

They're doing the same thing for Barack Obama, making him more popular, and, and..........well, do I have to say it?

They'll do the same thing to Hillary, or whoever wins in 2016. The Republican party is making itself politically irrelevant and a joke!!!!!

H2O Man

(73,309 posts)
3. I agree.
Mon May 20, 2013, 03:48 PM
May 2013

The democratic leadership in Washington tried to make peace with the rabid republicans, by not impeaching Reagan for Iran-Contra. It didn't work in their favor -- in fact, quite the opposite, it was viewed as a sign of weakness.

Clinton was impeached, but not convicted in the Senate's trial. I'm not implying that I approved of all of Bill Clinton's behaviors, but the republican party hardly seems in a position to point fingers at a sex "scandal."

The talk by most of the republicans in Washington about impeachment is simply an attempt to rally their base -- those angry dimwits with no grasp of reality. A few may believe their own nonsense, but it is nothing more than a fantasy.

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
4. Just finished reading the original article. Dick Nixon comes out sounding more paranoid and evil...
Mon May 20, 2013, 04:14 PM
May 2013

......every time some new revelation comes out!

I remember when Madame Tussaud's (The wax museum in London!) conducted a poll asking: "Who are the ten most hated people in history?" Hitler and Stalin topped the list, of course; but, Tricky Dick came close!

I also remember the last few years of his life, when the Republicans, aided and abetted by the media, were trying to rehabilitate his image and portray him as "an elder statesman!" God, what a travesty! Jimmy Carter is an elder statesman; Bill Clinton can be regarded as an elder statesman. Nixon was a unindicted traitor and war criminal.

When he died, the Clinton administration asked for flags to be flown at half-mast for 30 days in tribute. My response to this: "I just hope they remembered to drive a stake through his heart!"

H2O Man

(73,309 posts)
7. Nixon was one of
Mon May 20, 2013, 09:44 PM
May 2013

two US Presidents to have a mental breakdown while in office. LBJ was the other.

The difference between the two men was that while LBJ was often a bad person, Nixon always was.

Me.

(35,454 posts)
5. To Your Point, The Hysteria Has Not Affected Obama's Poll Numbers One Bit
Mon May 20, 2013, 05:49 PM
May 2013

These people remind me of children who have had way too much sugar or need a nap. Mark my words, there will come a time when they will implode to such a degree that it will destroy them in quite the same manner as they have been trying to destroy the country and Obama. They are the little foxes who spoil the vines..

H2O Man

(73,309 posts)
8. I suspect that they
Mon May 20, 2013, 09:46 PM
May 2013

think yelling "scandal!" loudly, over and over, will help deflect attention from themselves in 2014, and help other republicans get elected. Instead, I believe it will have the opposite effect.

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