Arthur Louis's Open Salon Blog

Why Did Richard Nixon Keep Following Me?

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:05:57 -0400

Richard Nixon may have been the first certifiable paranoid to occupy the White House. Remember the White House “enemies list?” I consider this pertinent because there was a period during my early days in New York when I kept bumping into him. We never exchanged any conversation, but I couldn’t help wondering whether he noticed me and, given his mental affliction, whether he had begun to suspect that I was following him.

It would be just as easy to make the case that he was following me.

I was sitting in a party of four at a deluxe Manhattan restaurant, I think in 1965. I forget the name of the restaurant, but the prices were sky high. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bill for the four of us approached $40, including tip. (Yes, you younger folks, this was a different world before the roaring inflation of the seventies and eighties.)

Suddenly two men appeared at the entrance to the dining room. One of them was tall and bulky, the other short and slight. Everyone at my table immediately concluded that this must be a gay couple. Not that they were engaging in any displays of affection. It was just something about their aura.

As the pair was led to a table not far from us, it suddenly became apparent that the larger and noisier of the two men was Richard Nixon. I believe he was wearing a fawn-colored sport jacket, which was pretty informal for Richard Nixon. He usually came across as a blue-suit guy.

At the time, Nixon held no public office. He had been defeated in 1960 in his bid for the presidency, and two years later in his bid for the governorship of California. He was Citizen Nixon, an overcompensated New York lawyer, perhaps entertaining hopes that he could win the Republican presidential nomination again in 1968.

The people at my table decided to play it cool. We would let Nixon and his companion enjoy their meals without bothering them. We wouldn’t even stare at them. They would be just another dinner party.

Not everyone in the restaurant was so reticent. After the pair had been served their main course, an elderly woman who had been sitting nearby couldn’t restrain herself. She walked over to the Nixon table and began telling the former vice president what a wonderful man he was. Nixon, his mouth full of food, tried to respond to this unwelcome intrusion, but he didn’t strike me as particularly gracious. I suspect that secretly he wanted to strangle the woman, and I doubt that he would have served a day in prison. (He never did, you may recall.)

That was the first time Nixon followed me, and I assumed that it would be the last.

Fast forward to December 1968. Nixon had won the presidency the month before, and was waiting to be inaugurated in January. He had offices in the Pierre Hotel, an easy walk down Fifth Avenue from his New York apartment.

It so happened that I was staying at the Pierre over the weekend, while my family holidayed in Puerto Rico. The price of a room at the Pierre may have been the highest in New York at that time: $44 a night. I could have gotten a room at the Waldorf-Astoria for less than $30 a night, but I decided to indulge myself.

I was walking along a corridor on the main floor of the Pierre at just the time that the Secret Service decided to escort Nixon down that corridor in the opposite direction. Discretion being the better part of valor, I stopped and stood against a wall until the group had passed. Nixon looked right at me, and I could have sworn that he recognized me from the restaurant three years before. “Why is he following me?” I imagined him thinking.

Later the same day, after dark, I was walking south on the east side of Fifth Avenue in the rain, after visiting a museum. Suddenly I saw Nixon and his Secret Service retinue, under a flock of umbrellas, coming toward me on the sidewalk and headed north. There was nobody else nearby. It was just me and them on the sidewalk, so at that moment I was the only possible threat to the President-elect.

As I passed the group, every pair of Secret Service eyes focused on me. Nixon, however, coyly pretended not to see me, although he must have been burning with curiosity.

I never saw Nixon again, just as our meetings had begun to seem routine. Perhaps there were occasions when he saw me first and ducked aside before I noticed him. I’ll never know.

Obama Must Go

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:05:13 -0400

“He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”

Sound familiar? Maybe it does if you are old enough to remember the articles of impeachment prepared against Richard M. Nixon, or curious enough to have studied them after the fact.

Who would have supposed that the disgraced former president, the only one to resign from office, a longtime bulwark of the Republican party, would be the model for Barack Obama’s presidential conduct?

This is getting serious, folks. We have a major coverup, we have abuse of tax enforcement. Could it be that we (not I, actually) have re-elected a man just as unworthy of the highest office as the dearly departed RMN?

In 1973 and 1974, a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham – later to add the name Clinton – participated eagerly in the impeachment proceedings brought against Nixon by the House of Representatives. She has the necessary experience, certainly, and the types of charges and legal niceties are familiar to her, so do you think she might want to help make the case against the current president as well? Perhaps Speaker Boehner would provide her with a comfortable, purple-velvet throne from which to operate on the House floor.

Of course, to avoid any conflict of interest, she might prefer to have some assistant formulate any charges relating to the Benghazi tragedy and coverup. Someone like Susan Rice, let’s say.

To absolve Obama of any guilt in the recently disclosed tax-enforcement witch hunt against the Tea Party and other conservative groups, you have to buy his line that he learned about it from news reports, at the same time that you and I did.

This has been his explanation for every egregious foul-up in his administration. People who aren’t privy to his pure thoughts and intentions go marching off on their own, perpetrating one outrage after another, greatly to his distress once he finds out about it.

That, for example, is how busloads of illegal immigrants with criminal records got released from prison. That is how IRS agents – at the lowest level, mind you; janitors and people like that – conducted a Schutzstaffel-style scrutiny of non-profit organizations that happened to spring from the Tea Party movement.

It was all their idea, they weren’t following orders from superiors, they were going entirely against the will of their Top Boss. Flouting the president seems to be standard behavior in the Executive Branch.

Yes, and Stalin was horrified to find out, too late, about the political purges of the 1930s.

If you buy Obama’s line, then you are accepting the premise that he has no control whatsoever over some, perhaps all, of the most important functions of the Executive. Whatever happened to the sign that Harry Truman kept on his desk: "The Buck Stops Here"? Did it get shipped off to England along with Churchill's bust?

If he can’t be thrown out of office for high crimes and misdemeanors – and I wouldn’t give up hope – then can’t we find some way to embarrass him into resigning because of incompetence and indifference? How long do you think you would remain in your own job with a record like that?

ADDENDUM

This is being added about 45 minutes after I posted the piece above. I just learned of the Justice Department's seizure of telephone records from Associated Press reporters.The Associated Press, for gawd's sake. They have been an eager, panting member of the White House harem.

The Obama administration seems to be going out of its way to emulate Nixon, and may even surpass him. Here is the story from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-subpoenas-obtains-wide-set-of-ap-phone-records-in-investigation/2013/05/13/cec4065c-bc0a-11e2-b537-ab47f0325f7c_story.html

I Told You So!

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:05:05 -0400

Six months ago, I posted an article here predicting that the coverup of the true facts in the Benghazi massacre could lead to the downfall of President Obama. I didn't expect him to be impeached and convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, but I speculated that when the truth came out, he might lose his effectiveness as the nation's chief executive, and have to resign in disgrace.

I pointed out that the only thing keeping him in office was the refusal of the Lamestream Media to cover the story. As long as the story of the administration's outrageous lies was carried only in the conservative media, it could be dismissed as partisan political agitation by the disloyal opposition.

Now, however, ABC News, long a dependable Obama lapdog, has surprised everyone by reporting about the duplicitous behavior of the Obama administration in covering up Benghazigate. ABC News got hold of twelve evolving versions of the administration's talking points, explaining the origins of the attack on our consulate that killed our ambassador and three other Americans.

The explanations started out as an honest CIA appraisal, blaming premeditated actions by terrorists directed by Al-Qaeda.In the final, hopelessly watered-down version, the one carried to the world by serial liar Susan Rice, Obama's U.N. ambassador -- and in other forums by Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and that glibbest of prevaricators, presidential spokesman Jay Carney -- the attack was blamed on an obscure video ridiculing Islam, posted on YouTube by an obscure U.S. resident. Pure baloney.

It will be interesting to see how ABC News explains its venture into honest journalism, but equally interesting is that some of the other Lamestreams appear to have been inspired to make honest inquiries themselves. Maybe there just comes a time when one wearies of being duped and dumped on by a corrupt administration, and decides to do one's job. It's called self-respect.

Nobody can say yet whether Obama will have to make an early return to Chicago, but it seems more likely than it did when I posted that piece six months ago.

For those millions of you who failed to read it first time around, here it is again:

NOVEMBER 14, 2012 7:36PM

Could This Be Bye-bye Obama?

Political scandals come, and political scandals go, but they all smell the same.

I am going way out on a limb here, and predicting that President Obama will be forced to resign from office before the end of his second term because of Benghazi-gate, just as one of his esteemed predecessors, Richard Nixon, did because of Watergate. It will be the last, nasty practical joke inflicted upon our country by this ill-natured, incompetent boob of a President – because look who we will get as his successor!

I decided that Obama was bound to resign because I don’t think any presidency can survive more than four years of the fully justified drubbing that Obama already is receiving from the alternative media and the political opposition. His mishandling of our foreign affairs is exemplified by, though not limited to, his mishandling of the Benghazi tragedy.

Being incompetent isn’t quite enough cause for impeachment, and in any event Obama would never acknowledge that he is incompetent. But when you add in the lies, the deceptions, the cover-up, and when all the gory details of this disgraceful shell game finally get disclosed, as they will, to the American public, you have a presidency that simply cannot remain viable.

I don’t know whether the worthless mainstream media, which in its more honorable days led the charge in ousting Nixon, will continue to “circle the wagons,” as Rush Limbaugh puts it, around their precious President. I still believe enough in our nation’s journalistic traditions to assume that there must be some mainstreamers out there who will break ranks and join the better cause.

Where are all those young idealists who enrolled at journalism schools in record numbers after Watergate? Some of them are still batting away at their keyboards, and if enough of them decide to do the right thing, it will be Hello Again, Chicago for Obama and his lovely family.

It wasn’t until today that I mustered enough certainty to publicly predict Obama’s premature departure from the Oval Office. It happened when a reporter at his news conference asked Obama to respond to the attack by Republican Senators McCain and Graham on Obama’s United Nations ambassador, Susan Rice. They said they would do whatever they could to ensure that Rice, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Secretary of State Clinton, does not receive that promotion, because of her involvement in the Benghazi cover-up.

Rice, you no doubt recall, went on five different Sunday political talk shows one week after the Benghazi attack, to spread the administration’s propaganda – which already had been discredited – that the attack which killed our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans had been prompted by an anti-Muslim video. (The producer of the video has just begun a one-year term in a California prison, supposedly for parole violation. Yeah, right! This is just Obama’s kiss-up #546 to America’s enemies.)

Obama gallantly rode to Rice’s defense. He seems to have a bit of a thing for her. Michelle should take note.

Obama said: “…let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill, and professionalism, and toughness, and grace.”

Echoes of Watergate!

Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember what went on during the Watergate drama, but I am, and I was following the events so closely at the time that every word of every participant has been etched in my mind. So, this is what I remember:

When Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, two top White House staffers who had been implicated in the Watergate scandal, were forced to resign to deflect suspicion from Nixon, Nixon went on TV and called them “two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know.” Neither of those fine gentlemen, who wound up serving time in prison, was by any stretch of the imagination a “public servant.” They were Nixon’s personal servants, Nixon’s myrmidons.

Susan Rice and the rest of the lying cabal, including Obama himself, Hillary Clinton, Jay Carney and, sad to say, perhaps General Petraeus, are not public servants. They serve their own interests, exclusively.

Good riddance to the lot of them. Better sooner than later.

AND HERE, AS A SPECIAL TREAT, ARE ALL THE COMMENTS THAT FOLLOWED AT THE TIME, INCLUDING MANY SKEPTICAL ONES THAT ARE STARTED TO LOOK A BIT PALLID:

I guess you still didn't get the lesson from Nov. 6th. It's not too late to jump from the train:

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File

Republicans: Don’t Trust Fox News!
(How the news network failed the GOP.)

Kanuk

November 14, 2012 08:34 PM

You wouldn't care to put that up as a wager on InTrade would you Arthur?

Abrawang

November 14, 2012 08:53 PM

Cadabra, I don't even know how to start an Intrade market, but if someone else does, I probably would wager on it.

Arthur Louis

November 14, 2012 09:15 PM

"...I probably would wager on it.

And end up extremely disappointed or shell shocked as you were on the morning of Nov. 7th. You should just let it go.

Kanuk

November 14, 2012 09:22 PM

Well, Arthur,
I remember Watergate very well. There was more than one crime involved, and they were actually crimes. This election-scare holdover is going nowhere. I think you need an actual crime to impeach, so you might want to hold off until something resembling a crime comes out of all that partisan posturing and Fox News hyperventilating. Godot has the evidence of the crime. Wait for him.

Now if you were prone to critical thinking, you'd be aware that whether the attack was prompted by a video or not is almost absolutely meaningless, and it is in no way a crime to describe it either way. It's not a material fact. It was an attack, regardless of the motivation. Further, you'd need evidence it wasn't prompted by the video to even meet the non-crime standard of a whimpered "neener-neener," which is the extent of what partisan gain can be had. You need to ask the attackers what they were thinking.

So, the charge of cover-up is laughable. Watergoo-goo.

Can you explain...while maintaining a straight face...why it is a crime to offer that it was caused by the video protest? Maybe trying to figure that out will point you to the simple truth there's no crime so a cover-up would be pointless. What's being covered-up? It wasn't prompted by the vid? Who cares, as that doesn't matter. At all. Zip, zero, nil, nada.

There's no there there, Arthur. You're taking the Rwing media mania seriously, but there is no high crime or misdemeanor. There will be no high crime or misdemeanor. You're chasing the crawling ants of Rwing tabloid media delirium tremens.

The GOP will pose around this thing for awhile and then it will fall off the radar screen because they won't be any more able than you to figure out the impeachable offense.

Romney lost. Get over it. Don't let your disappointment lead you down the wingnut path of silly walks.

Paul J. O'Rourke

November 14, 2012 09:41 PM

Paul, So nice to see you again. I figured you would still be hung over.

Some crime may emerge from the fog, but I am not counting on that. I am counting on Obama being rendered impotent -- politically, that is -- so that hanging around Pennsylvania Avenue will no longer seem worthwhile. And his "revenge" against his detractors will be that silly drunk with hair plugs.

Arthur Louis

November 14, 2012 10:36 PM

Arthur, InTrade is menu driven so you've plenty of time to get the hang of it. And there will be so many takers that the odds will look spectacularly good to you. Though it sounds like you've etch-a-sketched just a bit in your reply to Paul.

By the way, were you advocating for Bush's impeachment on the grounds of an unnecessary war entered into under false pretenses?

Abrawang

November 14, 2012 10:57 PM

A. Incompetence is more than enough to impeach someone. In fact, for Federal Justices, it's about the only way to do so (extreme misconduct which would likely lead to criminal charges prior to any impeachment, anyway).

B. One needn't be old enough to remember the Nixon Administration for this kind of crap. If one tries hard enough, I'm sure anyone old enough to ride one can remember Lewis "Scooter" Libby and his commuted sentence (after his conviction but before sentencing, if I remember correctly) for perjury in the Plame bullshit.

C. If one is old enough to remember Nixon's 1st presidential race, one might remember that JFK did the same shit Nixon did in Watergate to MLK, and forced a political endorsement out of him in the process.

D. Kill 'em all.

MalcolmXY

November 15, 2012 10:19 AM

PJ - You claim to be an attorney, right?

You ever read this obscure legal document called The Constitution?

"The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."

Any elected official or Federal Justice can be impeached for whatever reason The House deems an impeachable offense (or the appropriate committee they refer the matter to does). The only case in which their impeachment would be invalidated would be in the case of Justices for anything but incompetence (like...impossible to prove, except if it's Clarance Thomas) or direct evidence of a crime (a holdover from the 1st Justice they tried to impeach).

If the Senate convicts, the impeached is removed from office and barred from holding any other elected office in their lifetime (on the federal level for sure, but I don't know how it works as you go down the ladder).

Misdemeanors cover jaywalking, so it ain't like the crime need even be real to get it started.

Regardless, Arthur was talking about resignation, not impeachment (though, obviously under a looming threat of impeachment).

Of course, none of this matters, as Pelosi stated when she was Speaker, there's basically an agreement amongst both major parties never to go through this process again, lest there be a constant stream of articles of impeachment for party X's president should they have the audacity to do their job and start the process on party Y's president, despite how blatant the offenses of Y's president may or may not be.

Basically, it's moot.

MalcolmXY

November 15, 2012 10:45 AM

Abra,

Even Nancy Pelosi didn't want to bring impeachment proceedings against Bush after she became speaker in '07.

I don't think the Iraq war was worth the candle, but I was willing to give Bush a pass, because I don't think he lied about weapons of mass destruction. He thought they were there, his sources were wrong, and when he found they weren't there he fessed up, rather than pretending that he had found them and had destroyed them. In a similar pickle, certain other Presidents would have covered up.

Even after more than a year of digesting the Iraq war and its faulty foundation, the American people gave Bush more votes in '04 than they did in '00. Go figure. To you that is probably as strange as the result of this year's election was to me.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 12:06 PM

Mal,

I have never claimed to be an attorney. Impeachment is a very political process, and that implies some level of support for doing it. The issue-less issue of the attack being video-motivated or the latest Rwing media senseless-sation of Petraeus being blackmailed by Obama in order to...I forget, as it's not worthy of my attention...is not going to excite anyone. The General wetting his worm will, though. Impeach Petraeus!

It's a sort of political IQ test. People like Arthur and Gordon get all plumped-up with visions of the Rwing media being a serious source of news and analyses, and so land down-slope on the left end of the Bell Curve. People such as yourself, and even others who are knowledgeable and less inappropriately condescending, make broad generic statements about impeachment as if that represents insight. However, it adds nothing to the subject at hand, nor does it elevate the pseudo-pedant's credibility.

Yes, they can impeach for any number of contrived reasons. Big deal.

Benghazi-gate is going nowhere, even though it will occupy several news cycles on the way to obscurity. The Rwing media will use it to sell Metamucil and Depends, and to bulk-up their e-mail listing of people who might buy into slippery investment schemes.

News cycle-wise, General Dickdunk and Ben-gauzy-gait will trot over the Fiscal Cliff fairly soon.

Paul J. O'Rourke

November 15, 2012 02:12 PM

Paul, You seem to be saying that Benghazi-gate will blow over because the non-lamestream media don't have enough heft. I'm not sure that is true, but what a thing to say.

You are tacitly acknowledging that the lamestreams play favorites, and they cast the deciding vote in our political differences. If most of the media favored Romney in the late election, you would be squealing like a... well, whatever. My little essay includes a prayer for the return of objectivity in the media.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 03:55 PM

Arthur, you are not doing yourself any favors with posts like this.

Take the loss like a man...and plan for the next election. Fact is, you can even start planning for the mid-term election where the Democratic senators up for election are much greater than the Republicans.

But to cry the way you are here is unseemly.

Get it together.

Frank Apisa

November 15, 2012 04:07 PM

Frank, I didn't cry either literally or figuratively over the election result. I recognized it as a strong possibility, and was prepared for it. But Nixon was forced to resign 19 months into his second term, and he deserved it. The same may happen to Obama for parallel reasons. I would think that a reasonable fellow like you would be having second thoughts about this guy as the Benghazi story unfolds.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 04:25 PM

Arthur,
If you feel you need...and apparently you do...need a politics with very conservative policies assured after every vote or so-called vote, you may find a cozy home in North Korea.
Your Pal,

Jon

Jonathan Wolfman

November 15, 2012 05:20 PM

Jonathan,

I am disappointed in you. I always used to cringe when right wingers told left wingers "If you don't like it here, go to (pick your favorite Soviet bloc nation)."

I guess the right wingers said it often enough that they were bound to find an echo among the off-the-wall lefties.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 05:35 PM

Arthur, you are still actually lobbying for the demise of President Obama? Ask yourself: What possible good will come from such an eventuality? Why are you so willing to believe the President is involved in a cover-up, when you are so willing to give President GW Bush a pass? They both have said they acted upon the intelligence they were given. As recently as yesterday, President Obama stated in his press conference that what happened in Benghazi is still under investigation. Won't you at least give our current President the courtesy of waiting for the results of the investigation before you start writing these acidic posts?

Lezlie

L in the Southeast

November 15, 2012 05:39 PM

Made it this far Arthur--

"His mishandling of our foreign affairs is exemplified by, though not limited to, his mishandling of the Benghazi tragedy."

Wondered how you would compare this "Benghazigate" to Bush's "weapons of mass destruction" excuse to invade and topple a sovereign nation, resulting in the deaths and maiming of thousands of American kids, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians... and leading to the financial collapse of this country?
Please do respond.. thanks

tr ig

November 15, 2012 05:53 PM

Lezlie,

Obama repeatedly uses "under investigation" to dodge questions. The evidence so far indicates a multi-faceted cover-up. I wouldn't trust anyone to investigate his own actions, least of all Obama.

It is true that Obama's resignation would make Biden president, and that would not be good either. I think the nation is in a bad place with the current leadership. It's too bad that Romney didn't force the Benghazi issue.

It was much the same in 1972. Watergate happened before the election, but wasn't enough of an issue in the campaign, and Nixon won by a huge margin. Later it caught up with him. So it has happened before and may happen again.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 05:57 PM

oh those of narrow vision
the kool-aid looks the same
but taste?
no pie for you!

Chuck A. Stetson

November 15, 2012 05:57 PM

tr ig,

I already said, in response to a comment above, that I th0ught the Iraq war was a mistake. But really, what does Bush have to do with Benghazi-gate? Why is it that every time someone knocks Obama, one of his supporters drags Bush out of the mortuary vault?

Here's a lesson that you and others ought to learn: "You're one too!" is never a satisfactory response to criticism.

Arthur Louis

November 15, 2012 06:04 PM

Arthur,
I'm not saying the MSM plays favorites. The New York Times, for example, doesn't use the right-wing media stories for the same, exact reason they don't use National Enquirer "Iowa Farmer: Space Aliens at my Tractor" stories for their headlines.

The "conservative" media is pure junk. Titillation for titheads.

The "conservative" media is pure junk. Titillation for titheads.

Paul J. O'Rourke

November 15, 2012 06:12 PM

You brought George W. Bush up yourself, Art. And if I remember correctly, it was Colin Powell who finally forced the admission from 43 that there were no WMDs. I understand how you feel. I felt the same way when the GOP managed to snatch the 2004 election from the jaws of victory for Gore. But at some point, you and I (figuratively) will have to stop throwing shit-grenades and start figuring out how to get this government under some semblance of order. I was taught to be a gracious loser; to get behind the winner, whomever it is. That's why things used to get done in DC. Remember?

Lezlie

L in the Southeast

November 15, 2012 06:32 PM

You're dreaming dude... from your perspective a nice dream no doubt.
Enjoy it. Seen Gordon Osmond around here lately?

tr ig

November 15, 2012 06:42 PM

@Arthur Louis

It certainly could be the end of President Obama. Of course it could be when he comes for your guns and declares martial law. Or he could drop the pretense and reveal that he was really born in Kenya and this is an African takeover of the U.S.A. Just as likely, he will introduce us to our new Martian overlords and make us slaves to an intergalactic cartel.
I suspect that as a parting gift to the nation Speaker Boehner will lead his merry band of cuckoos over to Senate chambers to bring impeachment charges. The Senate will then tell them to go fly a kite and both parties will use that incident to flog their midterm campaigns. President Obama not finishing his second term? Highly unlikely.

his second term? Highly unlikely.

Anthony Duval

November 15, 2012 07:08 PM

Oh fer cryin' out loud.

Benghazi, the last hope of the RWing after finding out just over half the nation is fed up with their fantasies.

If GWB wasn't impeached over the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, or for failing to take timely action before 9/11
OR for lying to the world to start a war we didn't need over weapons he damn well knew were not there...Which incidentally lead to the deaths and severe injury of THOUSANDS of Americans

Barack Obama is NOT going to be impeached over Benghazi. And while you're at it, ask GOP Congress members, including Paul Ryan, why they cut the security budget for embassies abroad.

It's one thing to be angry and bitter over losing an election.
It's another thing entirely to be delusional.

Shiral

November 15, 2012 09:09 PM

Really hate to encourage the usual circle jerk, but hell, we're all leaving this site anyway

So:

http://open.salon.com/blog/token/2012/11/13/president_biden_or_president_boner

http://open.salon.com/blog/token/2012/11/14/consider_this

http://open.salon.com/blog/token/2012/11/15/southern_strategy_redux

I believe Blackmail for political gain probably IS a high crime or misdemeanor....... Just sayin'

And how delicious if Hillary set him up........

Herr Rudolphus der Rude

November 15, 2012 09:48 PM

PS:

Malcom X on "the Southern Strategy"

http://stolenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Malcolm-Last-for-Website1.wmv

Website1.wmv

Herr Rudolphus der Rude

November 15, 2012 10:34 PM

PJ -

I don't know...I think I offered a little insight about Samuel Chase and the near impossibility of impeaching Federal Justices (precisely because, until recently, the bench has been a place which was meant to be free of blatant political affiliation, even if the leanings of a judge were somewhat easy to spot).

I'd be happy to learn you about the specifics of impeachment as it applies to any other branch of the US Government. All ya gotta do is ask. Sheesh.

MalcolmXY

November 16, 2012 02:09 AM

yr precious geezer. thanks for the laugh. are u takin' yr meds?

Ben Sen

November 16, 2012 08:29 PM

Ben Sen,

Kendinizi sikeyim! Lutfen.

Arthur Louis

November 16, 2012 11:46 PM

No, we'll be stuck with him for 4 (or more) years. The American public has been duped. BO will get away with every last thing, Oh, that's right, he has done no wrong. Everything's fine. Feel like having a Coke or maybe some popcorn?
Rated!

Jeana Morris

November 23, 2012 10:23 AM

Thanks, Jeana,
Hard to imagine that they can repeal the two-term amendment, but Obama is very creative with Executive Orders. He may find a way.

Arthur Louis

November 23, 2012 07:00 PM

"myrmidons"? holy cow I gotta go read the dictionary and get back to ya, man. you say there was a coverup of benghazi attack-- what exactly was being covered up, dude?

vzn

January 26, 2013 02:53 PM

vzn,
what was covered up was the origin of the attack. it was a terrorist strike. obama, mrs. clinton, susan rice and jay carney kept insisting that it was a spontaneous reaction to an odious anti-Muslim video. They were saying this long after they knew better. The idea was to lay the blame off on someone else, because their own lax vigilance allowed it to happen. the ambassador had begged for more protection from the state dept.

This was in the heat of the election campaign, and obama, who had claimed that he had virtually destroyed al-qaeda, was afraid this incident would hurt his election chances if the truth were told.

hope that helps.

Arthur Louis

January 26, 2013 03:23 PM

JUST TO EMPHASIZE, THOSE COMMENTS ABOVE ARE OLD, DATING BACK TO WHEN I POSTED THE ARTICLE. THE COMMENTS BELOW, IF ANY, ARE NEW.

I'm Straight, and it Takes Guts to Admit it

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:04:23 -0400

I went out on the street this morning, and to the first stranger I met I said, “I’m straight.”

He looked me up and down, evidently taking note of my slouching posture, and said: “You don’t look straight to me. Try lifting your chin, pulling in your stomach and thrusting your pelvis forward.”

“No,” I said, “I mean that I am straight sexually. I am a heterosexual.”

“Why do you think I care?” the man said, and hurried on.

Having learned a lesson from this first encounter, I changed my line when I approached the next stranger, a woman this time. “I am a heterosexual,” I said.

“I’m not that good with big words,” she replied. “Does that mean you go to bed with little boys? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“No, no,” I replied, a bit nervously, for I noticed a police officer standing a few yards away. “It means that I go to bed with women, on those rare occasions when I can find one who is willing.”

“Well, that’s vaguely interesting,” she said. “Would you like to tell me which sexual positions you prefer?”

“I consider that a rude invasion of privacy,” I said.

“Well, you were the one who brought the subject up,” she sniffed, and walked away.

I tried essentially the same approach with a half-dozen other people, and none of them seemed to care that I had conventional sexual preferences, if it is still legal to call them that.

So I went back home and called the White House. I do that every time I have a problem, and from the new, expansive, all-caring, people-loving Obama White House, where nobody’s personal problems are beneath the interest of the president and his staff, I got a more cordial response.

“Hello, White House,” I said, “I am a heterosexual.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” said the woman who took my call. “You must feel so isolated these days. Don’t fret about it. There are still quite a few heterosexuals out there, although hardly any have the courage to admit it. You are very courageous.”

“President Obama just called Jason Collins,” I said, “and I…”

“Who? Never heard of him.”

“The professional basketball player who announced that he was gay.”

“Oh, of course I remember now. Yes, the President wanted Mr. Crowley to know that he admired his courage.”

“That would be Mr. Collins,” I corrected.

“Yes, quite right.”

“Well, we have reached the point in human evolution where it is far more courageous to admit that you are not gay,” I said, “so do you think the president would like to call me?”

There was a hubbub at the other end of the line, which was difficult to decipher because the staffer had covered the mouthpiece of her phone. Finally, she came back on.

“The president will speak with you now,” she said. "What was your name?" I told her, and added that it is still my name.

“Mr. -------,” a familiar voice said. “This is Barack Obama. I understand that you are a heterosexual. I have to admire your courage for admitting this, but I would advise you to be careful about when and where you do so. Don’t ask, don’t tell might be the safest policy.”

“That doesn’t sound like the advice you gave Jason Collins,” I said.

“Who? Oh, you mean that fifth-rate basketball player whose career is hanging by a thread? It was pretty clever of him to call attention to himself that way. Nobody I know had ever heard of him before, and now he is the best-known basketball player in modern history. Makes me wonder whether he really is gay. He can pretty much have his pick of teams now, and if the coach doesn’t start him in every game, he will have the LGBT lobby to deal with. Dealing with them is no fun, believe me. I don’t know where anybody got the idea that they were a bunch of pansies.”

“May I ask why you called him, Sir?”

“I really can’t explain it,” the president replied. “If I had ignored him, he might have faded out of the NBA, and then I would finally get my opportunity to play big league hoops. I guess I just took my own B.S. about ‘caring’ too seriously.”

The Boston Conspiracy: Now it can be told!

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:04:03 -0400

The father of the Tsarnaev brothers was interviewed in Russia, and an aunt was interviewed in Canada. Both of them claimed that the boys were framed, that this whole thing was a setup.

They may not know it, but they have set the table for the conspiracy theorists at Open Salon. I imagine that these OSers are combing their imaginations right now, and that in the days just ahead they will favor us with their speculations.

Do you need a little help, guys? Glad to provide some.

First of all, we have to implicate Dick Cheney in this. We know that with George W. Bush's approval he masterminded the charade on Sept. 11, 2001, in which 19 kindly, lovable Al-qaeda militants were framed for the destruction of the World Trade Center and the severe damage to the Pentagon. The plot involved all law-enforcement agents of the United States, all Republican members of Congress, the entire Bush administration, and Fox News. Oh, and did I mention Israel?

Some say that the U.S. establishment may not have executed the 9/11 mayhem themselves, but that they had full information about the plot, and that they let it happen because they knew they could use it as a pretext to remove Saddam Hussein from leadership in Iraq. Either way, it is Cheney's fault, and Bush's. And perhaps, though this is not certain, some pro-Life evangelicals and Rick Santorum. And a substantial portion of the people who are against same-sex marriage. And let's throw in Mitt Romney, just in case.

This incident in Boston is essentially a repeat of that scenario. We are not blaming President Obama or anybody in the present administration for this. Once again, we are blaming Bush and Cheney. They are both retired, with too much time on their hands, so they began looking around for ways to harm their fellow citizens, a task at which they are masters.

At the suggestion of a white-supremacist militia leader who lives nearby, Cheney decided to kill and injure a substantial portion of the fans who planned to attend the Boston Marathon. The plot was given extra gravitas because of the Marathon's proximity to Patriot's Day. Patriot's Day, which commemorates the battles at Lexington and Concord in 1775, has been a rallying point for white supremacists, because many of the people who fought for the Colonies in those battles owned slaves.

Cheney, who is supposed by some to still keep slaves on his cotton farm in Wyoming, thought it would be especially appropriate to conduct a terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon because Massachusetts is a blue state.

Then how, you may wonder, did law enforcement come to the conclusion that the explosions at the Marathon were detonated by two obscure young men wearing baseball caps?

The preliminary explanation is that in fact the bombs were planted with the cooperation of Bush's two daughters. They are known to have visited the lingerie counter at Lord & Taylor, adjoining the Marathon route, not long before the race began. While the sales staff was making a fuss over them, their bodyguards slipped away and planted a phony tape in the store's surveillance camera. The tape showed the two fall guys, the Tsarnaev brothers, walking along a sidewalk carrying backpacks. There is nothing illegal about walking, or even carrying backpacks!

As to who actually planted the bombs, the principal suspects are Clarence Thomas and John Boehner. President Obama, who is aware of the speculation about a possible conspiracy in Boston, seems to strongly favor a scenario in which Boehner would be implicated. Some of the more level-headed people in his inner circle have opposed this theory, saying that it is dubious, and that without proof it could turn out to be a lie.

To which Obama is said to have replied: "Lie, shmie, as long as it helps elect Democrats."