WORSE THAN WATERGATE

The previously noted piece by Davidson and Rollins had a shocking revelation buried deep in the article.

Our own confidential donor list was illegally leaked by the IRS last year and wound up in the hands of the Texas Observer, a far-left statewide magazine, which promptly published it. It’s no surprise, then, that the Guardian shared its SPN documents with the Observer last week for dissemination in Texas, just as it did for the Portland Press Herald in Maine.

This is not an isolated event: the IRS also illegally leaked the donor list of other conservative groups in order to embarrass the Left’s political opponents. Then, of course, there is the systematic, assault on Tea Party groups, which, contra NPR fangirl Brooke Gladstone, is a serious scandal of still unknown scope.

Once again, let’s remember the words of Auric Goldfinger:

Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.'

On 10 October, 1972, the Washington Post published Woodward and Bernstein’s magnum opus on Watergate on its front page:

FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats

FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.

The activities, according to information in FBI and Department of Justice files, were aimed at all the major Democratic presidential contenders and -- since 1971 -- represented a basic strategy of the Nixon re-election effort.

It was this story which prompted Walter Cronkite to devote two broadcasts of the Evening News to the Watergate. The Post’s “roadmap” of scandal also inspired Judge John Sirica to pass out heavy sentences to the Watergate burglars to break the coverup he believed took place in his court room.

Three things stand out about the Woodward and Bernstein story. First, they got a lot of stuff wrong. They jumped on a false trail of dirty tricks and “fifty Segrettis” that had almost nothing to do with the Watergate break-in and cover-up. (See here).

Second, most of the dirty tricks alleged in the story were just that: political pranks carried to the level of misdemeanors.

Finally, most of the illegal and immoral actions at the heart of Watergate were carried out the Nixon campaign: i. e. private citizens with no legal power nor any special protections.

With the IRS scandals we have something far, far worse. Here are government employees breaking the law and wielding their enormous power on behalf of one political party. Further, we have the incontrovertible fact that the party which benefited from this abuse of power has obstructed any and all attempts to ascertain the scope of the abuse and to punish those who did wrong, covered for the wrong-doers, or were negligent in preventing the wrong-doing.

Perhaps worst of all, we have a media which is unconcerned with this scandal.