This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Top Constitutional Experts: Obama Is Worse than Nixon
In the wake of the twin scandals of the IRS targeting conservative groups and the Department of Justice spying on AP reporters, the comparisons between Obama and Nixon are everywhere.
But what do experts say?
Former New York Times general counsel James Goodale – who represented the paper during its Pentagon Papers fight with the Nixon administration – said in an interview yesterday that Obama is worse than Nixon when it comes to press freedoms. And see this.
Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last year:
We supposedly learned important lessons from the abuses of power of the Nixon administration, and then of the Bush administration: namely, that we don’t trust government officials to exercise power in the dark, with no judicial oversight, with no obligation to prove their accusations. Yet now we hear exactly this same mentality issuing from Obama, his officials and defenders to justify a far more extreme power than either Nixon or Bush dreamed of asserting: he’s only killing The Bad Citizens, so there’s no reason to object!
Jonathan Turley – perhaps the top constitutional law expert in the United States (and a liberal) – writes:
The painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be.
Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. Consider a few examples:
Warrantless surveillance
Nixon’s use of warrantless surveillance led to the creation of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). But the reform turned out to be more form than substance. The secret court turned “probable cause” into a meaningless standard, virtually guaranteeing any surveillance the government wanted. After hundreds of thousands of applications over decades, only a couple have ever been denied.
Last month, the Supreme Court crushed any remaining illusions regarding FISA when it sided with the Obama administration in ruling that potential targets of such spying had to have proof they were spied upon before filing lawsuits, even if the government has declared such evidence to be secret. That’s only the latest among dozens of lawsuits the administration has blocked while surveillance expands exponentially.
Unilateral military action
Nixon’s impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress’ sole authority to declare war by invading Cambodia. In the Libyan “mission,” Obama announced that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a “war” and that so long as he called it something different, no congressional approval or even consultation was necessary. He proceeded to bomb a nation’s capital, destroy military units and spend more than a billion dollars in support of one side in a civil war.
Kill lists
Nixon ordered a burglary to find evidence to use against Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the famed Pentagon Papers to the press, and later tried to imprison him. Ellsberg was later told of a secret plot by the White House “plumbers” to “incapacitate” him in a physical attack. It was a shocking revelation. That’s nothing compared with Obama’s assertion of the right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction, based on his sole authority. A recently leaked memo argues that the president has a right to kill a citizen even when he lacks “clear evidence (of) a specific attack” being planned.
Attacking whistle-blowers
Nixon was known for his attacks on whistle-blowers. He used the Espionage Act of 1917 to bring a rare criminal case against Ellsberg. Nixon was vilified for the abuse of the law. Obama has brought twice as many such prosecutions as all prior presidents combined [and see this]. While refusing to prosecute anyone for actual torture, the Obama administration has prosecuted former CIA employee John Kiriakou for disclosing the torture program.
Other Nixonesque areas include Obama’s overuse of classification laws and withholding material from Congress. There are even missing tapes. In the torture scandal, CIA officials admitted to destroying tapes that they feared could be used against them in criminal cases. Of course, Nixon had missing tapes, but Rose Mary Woods claimed to have erased them by mistake, as opposed to current officials who openly admit to intentional destruction.
Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon’s impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement. By coming out of the Democratic Party and assuming an iconic position, Obama has ripped the movement in half. Many Democrats and progressive activists find themselves unable to oppose Obama for the authoritarian powers he has assumed. It is not simply a case of personality trumping principle; it is a cult of personality.
Long after Watergate, not only has the presidency changed. We have changed. We have become accustomed to elements of a security state such as massive surveillance and executive authority without judicial oversight. We have finally answered a question left by Benjamin Franklin in 1787, when a Mrs. Powel confronted him after the Constitutional Convention and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His chilling response: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
We appear to have grown weary of the republic and traded it for promises of security from a shining political personality. Somewhere, Nixon must be wondering how it could have been this easy.
Nixon’s “Enemies List” is famous, and the former head of the National Security Agency’s global digital data gathering program says that Obama also has an enemies list … which has been used to take down a wide variety of people, including the head of the CIA. The Washington Post’s Ed Rogers notes:
Obama doesn’t need a traditional Nixonian enemies list. In the digital age, with the Obama machine’s much-celebrated technological capabilities, the president can sort his enemies by keywords.
You’ve heard about the AP spying scandal, and the head of the Department of Justice implies that the government has spied on many other reporters.
Reporters who criticize those in power are being smeared by the government and targeted for arrest (and see this).
Indeed, the Obama administration is treating real reporters as potential terrorists.
After Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge.
Wikileaks’ head Julian Assange could face the death penalty for his heinous crime of leaking whistleblower information which make those in power uncomfortable … i.e. being a reporter.
Daniel Ellsberg notes that Obama's claimed power to indefinitely detain people without charges or access to a lawyer or the courts is a power that even King George didn't claim. Former judge and adjunct professor of constitutional law Andrew Napolitano points out that Obama's claim that he can indefinitely detain prisoners even after they are acquitted of their crimes is a power that even Hitler and Stalin didn’t claim.
Indeed, Obama has turned America into the most spied upon nation in world history, and has rolled back liberties to the time of the enactment of the Magna Carta in 1215.
»
- advertisements -
Have you considered asking Chris Stevens if he agrees with that assessment?
Hussein Obama has been waging a personal jihad against Western civilization for most of his life. Why would he magically get the urge to stop now?
I don't know...Nixon created the EPA.
That's the gift that keeps on giving.
It will take the IRS/Affordable Care Act a few years yet to create that much mayhem.
before Nixon, the USD was as good as gold and after every war budget surpluses were used to pay back the incurred debt... without calling it Austerity or Sequester
Obama is just continuing the programs established under Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. They are all doing the bidding of the banksters. None of them halted the growth of runaway government or enhanced American freedom, despite their promises to do so. When we have so many crooks and clowns working openly, then you know it is a banana republic already. Follow the money.
Pathetically true. As this place goes to hell, each player will get worse.
And the Constitution is always the first victim.
The founders understood the Bill of Rights as the bedrock of a free society
and so do the criminals
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
The Jam
Don't vote, it only encourages the bastards
You forgot the discretionary spending increase under Reagan as well as the expansion of the Executive. He was a good guy and definitely a conservative, but his hands are not clean either. I think the last real president was Ike, who warned us of the military industrial complex.
Reagan was a banker blowing piece of shit! He smuggled weapons to third world douchebags in Iran, Nicaragua and Honduras on the taxpayer dime, ran drugs into the country as payment for those weapons, cracked down on Americans who dared use those same drugs he smuggled into the country, quadrupled the national debt, invited the Soviets to design the American education system and his VP Bush got to assfuck young kidnapped boys at late night parties in the White House.
You need to get a REAL role model, not a sphincter nugget who used to be called 'Red Ronnie' in his Hollywood acting days...
IT says it on the job application provided by the cartel. THe biggest bullshitter job in the country built by blood, sweat and tears.
Are you able to lead people to abeyance and self destruction?
Are you a D actor or better?
Can you openly lie, constantly and genuinely?
Have you committed multiple crimes and escaped unscathed?
Hussein Obama is a delusional marxist.
Using that frame of reference makes his actions, decisions, motives, and words extremely predictable.
Perhaps he'll become Hussein "Stalin" Obama.
IQ minus 67.
You obviously have no idea what Marxism is. If Obama is a Marxist, so was Bush. That is nonsense. Our leaders are capitalists, members of and supporters of the bourgeoisie. Besides, there is nothing wrong with studying Marx, who understood economics and society more than most people ever will. Unfortunately, it's true capitalism, socialism, and communism are all failures. The reasons for which can be discussed some other time. Just don't call a fascist a Marxist.
Actually he's a Kautskyist. Socialist to the bone wanting to legislate wealth redistribution while cozying up to the Bourgeoisie. The O man's not about violent revolution but about legislating reform.
And he's a dip shit fascist worse than Nixon, the latest greatest installment of the Imperial Presidency...
Both fascists and Marxists are statist. Fascists as far as Economics goes can be successful as gauged by Hilter's appearance as Time Magizine's man of the year 1938 for having achieved an economic miracle in Germany having relied on the financial genius of Schacht. Marx was an economic idiot and Marxists are similarly impared.
I'll meekly offer that Obama is not a capitalist. He is an elitist, or perhaps a fascist. How would a true capitalist deal with a collapsing economy? Ask Andrew Mellon:" liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
I'm not suggesting Mellon was right - just that his advice is pure capitalism (with perhaps a touch of John Calvin's theology mixed in).
A number of folks confuse the gifting Obama did for the banks (AIG) and the car companies with socialism. The fact that these actions were gifts, not takeovers is underscored by this quote from Mr. Obama, ""I don't want to run auto companies, and I don't want to run banks," A true socialist leader would never say such things.
+1. I've never understood how anybody intelligent could consider Obama a Marxist, when he's so obviously a Fascist. But I suppose the word "Marxist" has a more negative connotation in our culture than the word "Fascist," frighteningly enough. Of course the people who mix their terms and call Obama a "Socialist Fascist Nazi Marxist" are just being silly.
Lots of people might think this is picking nits, and who cares what you call the guy as long as it's negative. But I think it's important to call things by their right names, so thanks for your comment.
Delusional Marxists/Socialist narcissist.
Pretty much the same thing, IMO.
Maoist, not Marxist.
Wasn't it claimed that BHO taught constitutional law for a semester. I'm convinced that most who study constitutional law do so to figure out the weak points so they can be exploited.
Community activist
Lawyer
Liberal college professior
Politician
Used car salesman
Question #1: Which US President was 4 out of five?
Quest #2: Which of the above would you say has the most credibility?
Would you want your daughter to marry any of the above? At least, with the used car salesman you get a family discount, the others just screw you.
I figured he was also a used car salesman, since he was never a professor (just a visiting lecturer).
I am not a petty crook
HA, HA....LOL WAY COOL - WELL DONE!
bILL
Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, wrote extensively about the delusional nature of many of the mulattoes he had encountered.
There's nothing new under the sun, I suppose.
Whoa!
I like it.
Pretty weird, but I like it!
"Pretty weird, but I like it!"
That's because he's got a better tan than Nixon!
Seriously, folks, Nixon deserves a lot better than to be compared to this creep.
I could not agree more. I have a hard time singing Nixon's praises, but he did ink a lot of "progressive" legislation - Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Endangered Species Act, and while he was very aristocratic (believed in rule by the best and brightest), I believe that he truly believed he was acting for the good of the country most of the time. Obama is an elitist megalomaniac who cannot stand being questioned, not obeyed. He could care less about the American people and he has a silver tongue. He is much more evil than Tricky Dick and one hell of a lot more dangerous to our future.
P.S. Mr. Bonzai, your portait of Dorian Grey scares the living shit outta me.
Nah, Obama is a histrionic narcissist who really does not believe he has done anything wrong.
Fantastic article!
Just like Rome when the Republic was mortally wounded from within. Obama is the new Caesar, an imperial president for the surveillance state where the individual citizen has become a serf.
And this is the prophesy:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His chilling response: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
We appear to have grown weary of the republic and traded it for promises of security from a shining political personality.