Associated Press
The Watergate in Washington, D.C.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), May 2010:
An e-mail from Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) campaign suggested Wednesday that the controversy over Rep. Joe Sestak's (D-Pa.) alleged administration job offer could be President Barack Obama's Watergate scandal.
[Issa sent] an e-mail with the subject line "The Sestak Affair - Obama's Watergate?"
The Weekly Standard, September 2011:
Will the 'Fast and Furious' Scandal Be Obama's Watergate?
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), November 2011:
Appearing Friday afternoon on Fox News, Michele Bachmann made a striking accusation against the Obama administration, presenting a severe conspiracy surrounding the government's involvement in the failed Solyndra solar power company.
"It just stinks on every level. This makes Watergate look like child's play," Bachmann declared.
The American Spectator, this morning:
Is Media Matters Obama's Watergate?
So far, these assorted controversies haven't amounted to much. In fact, some aren't even coherent controversies at all.
Put even putting that aside, can the right at least come up with a new touchstone to serve as a point of historical comparison?
Update: Nick Baumann let me know I missed a good one: when a Democratic activist was caught impersonating Iowa's Republican secretary of state, a conservative writer said the story is "like Watergate."
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Teapot Dome? Oh wait, Harding was a Republican, too.
Albert Fall was politically destroyed for life by the Teapot Dome scandal. Today he'd have his own show on Fox.
Iran contra? (Golly Ollie).
The mean old democrats kicked Nixon out of office with Watergate as the excuse! Ever since, the nice old republicans have just been looking for a Watergate excuse to use to kick a democratic president out of office.
If you do not accept that Watergate as an overall set of occurences was actual justification for Nixon to be impeached or resign; then Watergate can stand for any damn thing that can be used to damn a democratic president.
As republicans create their own reality and as republicans create their own science; then why cannot republicans create their own history? Actually, the republicans have demonstrated that their history does not need to have any correlation to the actual history. For reference - see Saint Ronald of Rayguns.
I have to agree that the trauma of Nixon is something the GOP has never recovered from, and its vitriol against Democrats -- and then against the law, real investigations, and finally against reason in discourse -- stems largely from their inability to heal that wound.
They tried healing it with Reagan "morning in America" as the bandage covering over it; they tried like hell to impeach Clinton and make a scandal equivalent to the horror of a president employing low-lifes to break the law for his political advantage ... to no avail.
I know you cannot offer psychoanalytic treatment to an entire political party, but it may be time for the GOP just to dissolve themselves as that party, and form some other one under a different name.
Turn the page, GOP! Soon! before you not only work yourselves into a total breakdown (of which you are on the verge) or before you become frighteningly violent.
Watergate was where Republicans started blaming the "liberal media" for their problems instead of their own behavior.
To be clear, Nixon resigned. He was not kicked out. When he was accused of actual crimes, Pres. Ford (a Republican) pardoned him.
To be even more clear, Nixon resigned after a group of Republican Senators visited the White House to inform him that, should he be impeached by the House, he wouldn't have enough Republican support in the Senate to acquit. That's something today's Republicans would prefer everyone forget: that in the end the Watergate affair was so damaging to Nixon that Republicans then in Congress no longer had his back.
Doesn't this just reinforce the notion that the Republicans had their own Watergate? I believe it was called Watergate?
Culture wars, manufactured controversies, fear mongering, red herrings - they got nuthin'.
They have FOX and a fan base of sheep. What else do they need? Diebolds? Five activist right winged Supremes?
Form not substance is key. Frame everything to evoke fear and then let the paranoid psychotics get you into office by limiting the turnout.Flyers will go up in September threatening poor people with arrest if they go to the polls, robo calls to poor parts of town will tell everyone that the election will be in december. You know the same crap all over but with voter ID and laws prohibiting voter registration drives.
How about, "The new 'snorting meth off a toaster oven?'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrdFVi03mEA
Geez, it took 8 pages to explain the 'scandal', and most of those were spent explaining Watergate. If it takes 8 pages to explain, no one is going to care.
How about the Issa earmarks that improved the street in front on one of his buildings?
Or how about the sweetheart deal he got on a foreclosed building from East West Bank. The banks who had the secondary financing sued because the building was not really marketed and their were other buyers who would have paid more than Issa. The story seemed to end without a decision from the court being recorded.
Doing a google of Issa east west bank will result in some info and background on Issa.
Yes, but it was a stroke of genius on the part of John Boner to put a known thief in charge of investigating the n!gger pretend president.
Oh, and in all that explanation, it appears that for Obama, there were no break-ins, nothing was stolen, and well, nothing else really resembling the actual Watergate scandal. Nixon resigned over the Watergate break-in and the cover-up, not the crap brought up in the article. Geez, talk about grasping at straws.
Obama's Blue Dress? Obama's Whitewater?
Doesn't have quite the same resonance, does it. Also dredges up memories of GOBP FAIL!
"Can the right at least come up with a new touchstone to serve as a point of historical comparison?"
That time that Obama put dijon mustard on his hamburger was his Archduke Ferdinand moment.
It's hard to come up with a touchstone when your hold on reality is so tenuous to begin with.
Watergate was training wheels compared to the criminality of the Reagan and Bush Cheney Administrations. The latter are especially egregious since the previous president had been impeached for crimes that did not involve torture, invasions of foreign countries under false pretenses, war profiteering, allowing corrupt private companies to dictate energy policies which resulted in rolling blackouts and poisoning of the environment, deregulating Wall Street and allowing the Enron Playbook to destroy the economy. All of which Bush and Cheney walked for.
Watergate was greasy kid stuff.
Personally, I think undermining our democratic process to hold onto power is a bit more significant than "kid stuff." No disagreement that the Reagan and Bush II administrations were guilty of some very serious crimes, though.
"Can the right come up with another touchstone....?"
How about, will this be worse than an administration deceiving the country to go to war?
Oh, that's right....!
Slow day, eh?
Look, it is too late-gate for any change-gate now.
Watergate led to Nixon's impeachment. The hard right has been talking about impeaching Obama for some time now. Just google obama impeach and see what I mean.
These statements are all code for "impeach Obama." They are intended to soften the public up for the impeachment proceedings (over what? who cares?) that are likely to ensue if Obama wins reelection but the Republicans take both houses of Congress.
This is standard Republican noise machine tactics - coordinate the message, it doesn't matter if what you are saying makes sense as long as everyone is moving the chosen narrative forward.
The desperation shows.
it KILLS THEM that POTUS and company have given them NOTHING in terms of scandals.
KILLS THEM.
GOP- goobery, ornery, pessimists! Any two year old could come up with better material than the Reps.
D. Issa needs his diapers changed, and they all need to be spanked!
To any educated, analytical and good problem-solving observer, Solyndra is chock full of questionable circumstances and relationships. Solyndra on the surface is generating smoke all on it's own and has the potential to be engulfed in flames when the 5 White House Employees are questioned by Issa in 2 weeks.
Placing Taxpayers behind investors violates the conditions of the DOE Loan Program, especially when the Loan was revised as such after it was obvious Solyndra was about to fail.
Solyndra and the White House corresponded in October of 2010 regarding Lay-offs at Solyndra. The White House and Solyndra were in agreement to keep lay-offs confidential from the Media until after the 2010 Election in November.
There are many factual events and actions that are in question regarding Obama, Chu, George Kaiser and Solyndra that very questionable regardless of political affiliation. Loses to the DOE Loan Program could exceed several billion dollars of Taxpayers Funds that were given to Solyndra, Beacon, Evergreen, ENER1 and others.
Solyndra stands out because of Obama's relationship with George Kaiser who is a oil-billionaire from Oklahoma and a big Donor to Obama. Most importantly, Bush refused to give Solyndra their loan while he was in office do to high risk, yet Obama owed George Kaiser for his generosity and Obama repayed George with Taxpayer funds.
Maybe so, but the Reps. are not investigating in good faith and with the country in mind. They are on a witch-hunt and have been since Obama got elected. Their sole purpose is not to make the country a better place but to remove the President. They won't do anything to fix problems but try to make things worse at the expense of all of us. They are basically duplicitous, sneaky, bastards! They are on a pity-pot the size of a cesspool!
"To any educated...observer..."
"...a oil-billionaire..."
"...do to high risk..."
"Obama repayed George..."
Don't tell me you claim to be one of those educated observers, TC.
TC probably doesn't mean us KJ. I'm ignoring the slight but good call!
Well to be fair to TC the Solyndra mixup is a big deal. But it wasn't anything catastrophic. I am not meaning this to justify what PBO did, but all politicians work out deals w/ the private sector when they start new lending programs like this. Cash for Clunkers did the same thing. And out of all the companies the loans assisted that are booming right now one of them was bound to fail. It's unfortunate that it happened to be Solyndra and especially that it happened to be one that PBO was so heavily involved in, especially against the advise of people running the program who consistently warned that the government needed to pull out of this deal. But was it criminal? No. Was it immoral? Well yes and no. We like to think that Washington is not giving preference to companies or making insider deals and ideally and ethically Washington should not be. However Washington always does this. I'm all for reforming the process and if we want to talk about what Solyndra signifies- it signifies the horrific need to get money out of politics. However calling this Watergate or an impeachable scandal? No and no. It's a scandal, yes, but it's not as huge as the right-wing likes to make it out to be. To be fair to the right: liberals made a huge stink when they found out about all the corporate funding that went on w/ Haliburton and Exxon. So I don't discredit the right from bringing the issue up. I do however discredit the right for acting like this is some smoking gun to finally get rid of PBO.
It's not like the Reps. have halos in this sphere. They are probably more guilty than Satan in this kind of wheeling and dealing.
And there is a big difference between keeping Washington on the straight and narrow and a witch hunt. Most of what the Reps. are doing is not an honest investigation it is basically a pogrom!
They really should wait until people start dying before they do, as was the case with Halliburton and the wars. Otherwise it is just tacky.
Furthermore, if the Reps. win any kind of points no matter how low they have to sink to get them they will lord it over the President and the Dems. It is called schadenfreude! That's what they are all about!
I found this written by some smart person and it is fitting, just and the perfect touchstone for the GOP:
"BREAKING NEWS: The Pity Train has just derailed at the
intersection of Suck It Up & Move On, and crashed into We All Have Problems,
before coming to a complete stop at Get the Hell Over It. Any complaints about
how we operate, can be forwarded to 1-800-waa-aaah with Dr. Sniffle Reporting
LIVE from Quitchurbichin'. If you like this, repost it. If you don't...suck it
up!!! Life doesn't revolve around you."
Just a glimpse at Issa would show us what happens when you waste your life putting your phantasm-agenda ahead of any real life as it meets you along the way!
The buckets under his eyes, the distempered constitution, the slouching in the chair, the swinging eye of whim and caprice, and that hideous streak of paranoia - all signs Mr. Issa is not a healthy human being, but rather a decrepit POS! -Kevo
Puh-lease, Republicans. Here be molehills of staggeringly immeasurable un-dimensions. Surely there is an Ayatollah out there somewhere in need of a birthday cake!