Kindred Spirits

Barack Obama and Richard Nixon. Both presidents of the United States. Polar opposites politically. Kindred spirits when it comes to their desire to use the federal government against their enemies and their propensity to cover up key facts when a congressional committee investigates.

James Taranto comments on the strange similarities between these two presidents:

... on Friday, a new development in the Internal Revenue Service scandal drew comparisons to the Wategate coverup. The IRS informed the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the panels investigating the scandal, "that they have lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009-April 2011," Chairman Dave Camp announced:

Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame. The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC [Federal Election Commission], or Democrat [congressional] offices.

The missing emails could be crucial in determining the degree to which other agencies and politicians directed or cooperated with the IRS's efforts to suppress opposition to President Obama. "Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies," said Camp. "Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone."

Only three days ago we learned of the highly suspicious claim that two years of emails have been lost to investigators. Today, we learn that the IRS claims to have "lost" emails for six other employees under investigation in the same scandal. The Left and many on the right used the "18-minute gap" (correctly, I think) to indict Richard Nixon as a corrupt and mendacious president. I wonder if the Left will talk about the two years of missing emails in the same manner?

Ironically, most people think the Richard Nixon was forced from office because of Watergate. In fact, he was forced from office because of the threat of impeachment for something else. And what was that something else? Richard Nixon tried and failed to use the IRS against his political enemies. That's a criminal offense.

Obama and Nixon. There's only two real differences. Richard Nixon actually had a few foreign policy successes (opening up China comes to mind). Based on a growing body of circumstantial evidence coupled with a massive cover-up, Barack Obama and/or his political operatives not only tried, but succeeded in using the IRS against his enemies.