What Would Nixon Do?

I have never seen an administration go downhill this fast. It almost like watching the Nixon administration in fast forward. I have made the point that aside from the Watergate cover up Nixon was also accused of corrupting the IRS and having knowledge of the break in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's shrink. The purpose of that break in was pretty close to the apparent reason of the seizure of AP's phone records, namely to stop leaks. Stopping leaks seems to be an obsession of this administration and I have to confess some sympathy for them on that score however prying into the lives of probably 100 reporters is obsessive behavior in anyone's book.
One could argue that Nixon's fall was helped along by a partisan Attorney General, John Mitchell. Is Attorney General Eric Holder partisan? Perish the though.

The IRS scandal is worse than we thought. Or worse than we were lead to believe. No it was not confined to a few low level grunts in the Cincy office The Washington Post reports:
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.
IRS employees in Cincinnati told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.
The AP, remember them? now reports that the trail leads all the way to acting Commissioner Steve Miller who has twice wrote letters to Congressmen telling them that their apprehensions were unfounded.
On Monday, the IRS said Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny. Congress, though, was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted, even after Miller had been briefed on the matter.
At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny - despite being asked about it.
It is beginning to look as is the last election was stolen. The administration buried the facts on Benghazi while the IRS hindered the opposition. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor.