Something Nixonian about the Obama Campaign

In May and June of 1972, thieves paid by Richard Nixon illegally entered the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate building. Their mission: to wiretap the private telephone conversations of Lawrence O’Brien, chairman of the Democratic National Convention and his deputy, R. Spencer Oliver, Jr. We know how that affair ended: with 43 people in prison and the resignation of President Nixon.

May 2012: An informant partial to President Barack Obama records Mitt Romney’s private comments in front of potential donors meeting in a private residence. Florida law prohibits the recording of conversations without the knowledge of the people involved. The name of the informant: no one knows.

The very left-leaning press outlet Mother Jones obtained the tape and made it available to the public. Everyone thinks this is fine, and with good reason: On the tape, we hear Mitt Romney explain that over half of Americans are victims who will always vote for Obama because they don’t truly want to take charge of their lives. [Editor’s note: Romney spoke of 47 percent of Americans, not “over half.”]

Until recently, I found this to be ironic. Mitt Romney was trapped. He said ridiculous and partially incorrect things. He tried alternately to explain, and to excuse himself. I found the method to be not very clean, but good. This is war.

On Sept. 30, 2012, during the Redskins vs. Buccaneers football game on Fox, I see an ad for Barack Obama. We hear the president stating: “I approve this message.” The rest of the ad consists of an extract from the Mother Jones tape. By way of illustration: photos of veterans, workers, and middle class Americans were supposed to represent the “victims” of whom Mitt Romney spoke.

American politics is beautiful, isn’t it?

I knew that the Democratic campaign and friends of the president would rejoice in this clandestine and illegal recording, but I never thought that Barack Obama himself would approve its distribution with his own campaign funds in order to weaken his opponent. In doing so, he falls very low.

That’s nothing, you’ll tell me; what matters is stopping the enemies of the middle class in their tracks. Any means are probably good means for stopping this dangerous Republican from being elected. Dangerous Republican? Excuse my redundancy.

I find, however, that there is something Nixonian in this conception of politics. Behind his grand airs, Barack Obama in fact remains something of a “Chicago politician,” referring to a city whose politics had been, for a long time, considered a bad example.

Meanwhile, we still don’t know what program the president will put into place to get America out of its crisis. Except, of course, his promise to raise taxes for the rich, and to not reduce public expenditures in the short term.

Though above all, we mustn’t say this, for it is politically incorrect.

I can imagine what the well-meaning press would have said if a Republican had secretly recorded Barack Obama: what a crime!

I understand that, contrary to Richard Nixon, Barack Obama did not order the recording of Mitt Romney, but the result of this espionage does seem to delight him.