{"id":1995,"date":"2008-01-21T09:03:01","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T14:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1995"},"modified":"2008-01-21T09:03:01","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T14:03:01","slug":"every-bit-as-qualified-as-nixon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1995","title":{"rendered":"Every Bit As Qualified As Nixon"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest, nastiest indictments against Richard Nixon’s legacy is that he used the apparatus of the Federal government – including the FBI – to gather information about his political opponents (although to be fair, so had LBJ and JFK, to one extent or another).\u00a0 It was supposed to have been a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

It’s a very <\/em>dangerous thing.\u00a0 It’s the sort of thing that President Bush’s critics carp about endlessly (although those critics seem to have trouble distinguishing between “internal political” enemies and “foreign terrorists arrested overseas”, but Bush Derangement isnt’ about distinctions).<\/p>\n

So I’d like to make sure the whole world – or at least the part of it that reads this blog – knows that Hillary wants to do the same thing<\/a>.\u00a0 If you haven’t read the linked piece, from my radio colleague Ed Morrissey, then do:<\/p>\n

In other words, the White House would basically run their sales pitch through the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The federal government, rather than making its case through the normal legislative process, would instead deputize the DNC to run its publicity campaign, further politicizing the entire process. They would also use the DNC to “help keep the Democratic base groups pumped up and excited”, which gives readers an insight into the purpose of the entire program.<\/p>\n

All of that falls into the category of “politicizing” the White House, and much more than having Karl Rove as deputy chief of staff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it gets worse:<\/p>\n

But this goes beyond mere politicization. The HCTF foresaw using the DNC to “gather intelligence” on political opposition — a way to gain information to intimidate or extort their critics. It’s bad enough when electoral campaigns do this, but having the White House use the DNC for these purposes doesn’t border on abuse of power but invades it with a vengeance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It gets into Communist and Fascist turf; using the Party as a de facto <\/em>arm of government, as a web of informants gathering information not just to further the party’s legitimate election efforts, but as an adjunct to furthering government policy. It’d turn the Tic party into a domestic political surveillance operation reporting directly to the President.<\/p>\n

I’d love to know what actual Democrats think about this.<\/p>\n

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One of the biggest, nastiest indictments against Richard Nixon’s legacy is that he used the apparatus of the Federal government – including the FBI – to gather information about his political opponents (although to be fair, so had LBJ and JFK, to one extent or another).\u00a0 It was supposed to have been a thing of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}