'Nixonian' Applies to Fox, Not Obama

Pundits have been decrying the Obama administration’s “Nixonian” attack on Fox News—and that’s ridiculous, writes Joe Conason of Salon. The president’s within his rights to avoid or criticize an organization that won’t treat him fairly, and that definitely describes Fox. The network is run by former Nixon aide Roger Ailes, “the living symbol of everything negative and nasty in American politics.” And Fox repeatedly implied Obama was a terrorist.

To equate Obama’s pushback with Nixon’s assault on the press is laughable. During the Watergate investigation, Nixon pelted the Washington Post with unveiled threats, screwed with its FCC license renewals, and tried to engineer a takeover. AG John Mitchell once famously screamed at Bob Woodward that Post publisher “Katie Graham is going to get her tit caught in a big, fat wringer” if the investigation continued. Wake us when Obama’s crew does something like that. (More Barack Obama stories.)