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Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday suggested that President Barack Obama could be impeached after it was revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted tea party groups.

The Associated Press learned last week that the IRS had apologized for what it was an "inappropriate" investigation into whether tea party groups were abusing their tax-exempt status.

"How stupid do they think we are?" Will asked during an ABC News panel on Sunday. "Just imagine... if the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings, out in Cincinnati of course, saying we're going to target groups with the word ' 'progressive' in their title. We would have all hell breaking loose."

"This is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate summer," he added, reading a passage from former President Richard Nixon's articles of impeachment.

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed 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 intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

"I think it would be irresponsible to start talking about impeachment over this," Democratic strategist Donna Brazile replied. "Clearly, there was some incompetence at some level or bureaucrats looking into all these applications in a rush after Citizens United [Supreme Court ruling] to see whether or not they were legitimate organizations with the word 'tea party' or 'patriot' in it. Yeah, there are progressive patriots as well."

"Given what George has just said, you better get ready for your audit," ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl quipped to Will.

"The IRS commissioner was a Republican appointed by [former President George W.] Bush, who his term expired in November," Brazile pointed out.

There is no evidence that President Obama directed or even knew of the targeting of tea party groups.



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Jon Stewart ripped into Fox "News" and their continued hyping of the trumped up Benghazi "scandal" which they've been promising over and over is about to "have the lid blown off a giant coverup" at any moment now since the attacks first happened.

Stewart took his viewers back through some of Fox's coverage for the last few months now, whether it was the Greta hyping the Petraeus testimony, or Hannity ranting about the Clinton testimony, to Lindsey Graham promising that the hearing this week was "going to make you mad" and if not, well, they'll just keep having more of them until you are.

Stewart reminded his viewers that this Congress has had nine full hearings on Benghazi, but during the Bush administration there were fifty four attacks on diplomatic targets that killed thirteen Americans, but Congress only held three hearings total on embassy security back then with zero of the outrage we're seeing from Republicans now.

After asking what made things different this time around, Stewart went through the recent list of items that the wingnuts on the right believe are "worse than Watergate" and crazy GOP Rep. Steve King's remarks that Benghazi is "Watergate and Iran Contra together" and "multiplied by ten." Stewart put into perspective just what King was comparing the so-called Benghazi "coverup" to and asked, just what did President Obama do that Republicans believe is worse than some of Nixon and Reagan's worst scandals combined.

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McCain Compares Drummed Up Benghazi-Gate to Watergate

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Who needs Fox when you've got CBS doing double duty for them with interviews like this one with Sen. John McCain on Face the Nation? The Republicans have been foaming at the mouth since the embassy attack over a month and a half ago in Libya and now we can add McCain's name to the long list of Republicans who have compared "Benghazi-Gate" to Watergate or called for impeaching President Obama for how the matter has been handled.

I'm sure there are others I missed, but here's at least a partial list of those who have been making the same hyperbolic attacks:

Rush Limbaugh: RUSH: Benghazi cover-up "This dwarfs Watergate'

Ron Christie: Worse than Watergate??!! WTF

Sean Hannity and Donald Rumsfeld: Hannity Trots Out Donald Rumsfeld To Help Turn Benghazi Into Watergate

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich: Libya Cover-up Worse Than Watergate

Mike Huckabee: Huckabee Suggests Impeaching Obama Over Libya Embassy Attack

Col. David Hunt: Col. David Hunt Tells Jerry Doyle: Benghazi Coverup Worse Than Watergate

And Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Marsha Blackburn Calls 'Benghazi-Gate' 'Worse Than Watergate'

They've all got their talking points aligned perfectly, don't they? And last but not least, here's Grampy McCain from this Sunday: McCain: Libya either a "cover up" or "incompetence":

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Last week, it was Mike Huckabee comparing the latest trumped up non-scandal to Watergate and suggesting that President Obama should be impeached over the handling of the embassy attack in Libya. Now we've got flamethrower Rep. Marsh Blackburn making the same comparison -- Republican Lawmaker: Obama’s Handling Of Libya Is ‘Worse Than Watergate’:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined the chorus of Republicans criticizing President Obama’s response to the violence in Libya on Monday, going so far as to suggest that the administration’s handling of the situation is worse than Watergate — the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon:

BLACKBURN: I think this is an issue — Benghazi-gate is the right term for this. This is very, very serious, probably more serious than Watergate. And to call this a response to a video when it was obviously a terrorist attack — and when you read some of the documentation on this, and you know that there has been other sites and locations that have bind attack in Libya, when you know that the Libyan government felt there was something getting ready to transpire.

Fox News, Republican lawmakers, and conservative pundits have for weeks criticized U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice for initially characterizing the attack as a “spontaneous reaction” to a movie trailer disparaging the Prophet Muhammed. Since then, however, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and even White House Spokesperson Jay Carney have all used the word “terrorist” to describe the attack. Obama himself attributed the violence to terrorism during a September 12 address at the Rose Garden.

Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly has more on how this is part of the Romney campaign's new strategy that they think is going to turn the election around for them -- Benghazi Truthers:

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Huckabee Suggests Impeaching Obama Over Libya Embassy Attack

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Who could have seen this coming? Here we go with the next step in the ridiculous, drummed up, non-scandal, Benghazi-gate that the right wingers have all been losing their minds over for the last couple of weeks at Fox -- Huckabee Suggests Obama Should Be Impeached Over Libya Incident:

Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) compared the administration’s handling of the consulate attack in Libya to Watergate, during an appearance on the network Friday morning, and hinted that the president should be impeached for not immediately attributing the violence to terrorism.

“We have been flat-out lied to,” Huckabee told Fox’s Bill Hemmer. “They know they lied. As if airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center said those were just accidents. Anybody with two eyes and an IQ above plant life knows what happened in Libya was not a spontaneous reaction to a 13 minute video on YouTube”:

HUCKABEE: It was a planned orchestrated attack led by terrorists, terrorists, Bill. And this White House has to explain why it hasn’t owned up to that. Why it can’t say it. I think frankly, if this issue really gets traction that it deserves, and let it say it deserves, go back. Richard Nixon was forced out of office because he lied. And because he covered some stuff up. I will be blunt and tell you this. Nobody died in Watergate. We have people who are dead because of this. There are questions to be answered and Americans ought to demand to get answers. [...]

HEMMER: Just one more thing here. What you’re describing, comparing events of today to Watergate.

HUCKABEE: I sure am….Bill, i’m not saying this just out of some political interest. I’m saying that our trust as a nation is built on our ability to know that when our president, whoever he is, Democrat or Republican, looks us in the eye and tells us something, we ought to know he is telling us the truth.

Fox News, Republican lawmakers, and conservative pundits have for weeks hinted at an administration cover-up, naming it Benghazi-gate, and alleging that Ambassador Susan Rice misled Americans, when she initially claimed that the attacks were a “spontaneous reaction” to a movie trailer disparaging the Prophet Muhammed.

And while some administration officials expressed concern that “the White House began pushing the line that the attack was spontaneous and not the work of terrorists,” officials began labeling the incident the work of terrorism after investigating the incident. Read on...

Media Matters has more on the attack here -- Myths And Facts About The Benghazi Attack And Protests In The Middle East :

Right-wing media have pushed numerous myths about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and protests in the Middle East, from distorting the Obama administration's response to the attacks to misleading about the nature of security at the Benghazi consulate.

Check out the full report at their site.

And here's more from Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog -- No, Obama is Not Going to Lose the Election Because of Benghazi:

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Apparently it's asking too much of any of these talking heads in our corporate media to ever push back at Republicans when they start spouting over the top nonsense like Rick Perry did on Face the Nation this Sunday, because we didn't get an ounce of it from Bob Schieffer here.

Perry: Obama’s Use Of Executive Privilege Is ‘Nixonian’:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry compared President Obama’s use of executive privilege in the Fast and Furious controversy to President Nixon’s coverup of Watergate. “You gotta admit, this is almost Nixonian if not absolutely Nixonian in the coverup that’s going on with this Fast and Furious,” Perry said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“With Watergate, you had a second rate burglary,” Perry said to host Bob Schieffer Sunday. “Now you have a president who is using his executive privilege to keep that information from Congress. If that’s not Nixonian, than I don’t know what is, Bob.”



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From Hardball, while attacking President Obama for not having enough passion to suit them over the party crashers at the White House and the Christmas Underwear Bomber Pat Buchanan uses the Nixon administration to attack President Obama.

MATTHEWS: ... that executive role. And I want you to jump in here, Drew, because I think we`re on to something very narrow and very particular and pointed here. Something like the White House security and those grifters broke in -- a small matter, you could argue, because nothing really went wrong, but they did break in. They had no right to be there. It took him the longest time.

Now, Sally Quinn, who writes about things in Washington, said today in "The Washington Post" on the op-ed page, he should have fired somebody. It should have been Mark Sullivan out of Secret -- somebody, Desiree Rogers, in charge of social life. That was a case. Then the other thing with this thing with the airplane almost being blown up -- nobody seems to be -- you don`t get a sense he`s the boss.

BUCHANAN: Look, I...

MATTHEWS: He`s got some people like Rahm Emanuel enforcing them. And nobody gets sledgehammered.

BUCHANAN: Well, let me tell you -- this is -- now, I know you might...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: ... what Sally said...

BUCHANAN: You might not like the...

MATTHEWS: ... the president explained every time.

BUCHANAN: You might not like this comparison, but Nixon would have called in Haldeman, if those two people had walked in there. What went on, Bob? What happened? You get to the bottom of this. Heads roll. And Haldeman would have been right on top of this. I know they ran into a lot of trouble, but I`ll tell you, that was the best-run White House I have ever been in, first term of Nixon. I mean, when Nixon demanded this kind of action -- and he would not have been satisfied...

MATTHEWS: Well, Watergate, was first term, though.

BUCHANAN: Well, Watergate was first term. There`s no doubt about it. OK. You can laugh about it, what I`m saying...

MATTHEWS: I`m not. I`m just bringing it up.

BUCHANAN: ... is Bob Haldeman was an executive.

WESTEN: He was decisive.

BUCHANAN: And I don`t know that -- and Rahm Emanuel is a congressman and a guy that runs around getting money from Wall Street.

Yeah, best run White House Pat, except for the pesky little Watergate matter.



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From The Ed Schultz Show, Jerrold Nadler says the appointment of a Special Prosecutor doesn't go far enough and that the law is that when torture occurs under American jurisdiction there must be an investigation of everyone who may have been involved and if warranted prosecutions. Nadler expressed concern that we aren't being aggressive enough and limiting the investigations too much. He also adds this:

Nadler: We are well into territory already, where because of the pardon of Nixon after Watergate and the people around him, because of in the Iran Contra, we're getting into territory where it becomes taken for granted that high officials can violate the law and get away with it.

Schultz: Yep.

Nadler: If high officials violated the law here, if Cheney did, if Rice did, etc., they've got to be prosecuted to show that no one is above the law.

I agree with his point that no one is above the law. I disagree that we're "getting into territory" where high officials take it for granted that they will never be held accountable for their law breaking. We're well past that point now.