Issa Trope

Nixon library director Tim Naftali's critics claimed he was out out to get 37 because he was a leftist. Go run an Alger Hiss museum, one famously sneered.

But if you want to hear some real red meat, some classic Nixon-baiting, liberals are pikers these days compared to the new breed of conservatives. Listen to what Orange County's own Rep. Darrell Issa said on Monday evening while defending House Republicans' lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder over the so-called fast and furious debacle:

It's the Nixon standard. Are you entitled to cover up your own wrongdoing?...Nixon decided this a generation ago. You cannot commit crimes, including lying to Congress, and then cover it up and expect it to be covered by executive privilege.

Don't think Issa turned this trope to impress liberals. He said it on Fox News, and he made the point twice, in spite of two efforts by host Greta Van Susteren to quiet him and end the segment. Last year, he called the Obama administration "Nixonian." One assumes these talking points weren't composed by Ken Khachigian, former Issa consultant and Nixon factotum.

As The GOP's Poison Pill Goes Down

Rep. Darrell Issa, defending his move against women's reproductive rights, compares the members of his all-male panel to Martin Luther King, Jr....Romney shows guts and stands up for women (the candidate's late mother, that is)...Dick Morris claimed on Monday that ABC's George Stephanopoulos, his fellow former Clintonite, was paid to float the contraception issue at a recent GOP debate. "They want to create the impression that the Republicans will ban contraception, which is totally insane," he said. This was right before we learned that Rick Santorum, possibly the GOP frontrunner, wants to ban contraception.

Issa Dope

If it should help set up a Rick Santorum nomination, Barack Obama's fancy footwork on reproductive rights last week may be remembered as one of the best rope-a-dopes in modern political history. Santorum's gender gap would be wider that Jackie Gleason. Imagine the high fives at the White House this morning as Darrell Issa and his fellow House Republicans muzzled women at a hearing about denying them birth control. Sarah Posner reports:

One of the witnesses Issa refused to allow the Democrats to call was Sandra Fluke, a student at Georgetown University (where [Democratic Rep. Eleanor] Holmes Norton teaches at the law school), which Holmes Norton called "the foremost Catholic university in the country.

Had she been permitted to testify, said Fluke, she would have discussed the stories of Georgetown employees who are denied birth control coverage, including a woman who has lost an ovary because she was even denied coverage for pill not even needed for contraceptive, but for medical purposes. As a result of not having the proper medical care, the woman, now 32 years old, lost an ovary and is experiencing an early menopause, threatening her ability to have children.

Issa denied Fluke the opportunity to testify because she was "not qualified." She said, "women impacted by the [policy] are the most qualified to speak." Those voices, she said, "were silenced today."

Hat tip to the Rev. Susan Russell for this photo of experts testifying at the hearing about women's reproductive rights.

With Friends Like These

A GOP congressman from southern California calls the Obama administration "Nixonian."