Friday, March 17, 2017

Nothing new for presidents

 
"Did you know, for example, that before they were presidents, John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford expressed support for the “America First Committee”? Or that before deportation became a dirty word, President Barack Obama was known as the “deporter-in-chief,” deporting more people than any other president in American history? Or that Harry Truman also had a “Southern White House” in Florida, spending a cumulative six months there during his time in office? Or that Warren G. Harding was denounced for his grammar and spelling, with H. L. Mencken once noting, “He writes the worst English I have ever encountered. . . Even Trump’s accusation that Obama wiretapped him has presidential precedents. As the Washington Post reported, Richard Nixon was convinced that his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had bugged his campaign plane in the final days of the 1968 race. [I think I also saw that Hillary Clinton had the WH swept for bugging.] And don’t forget that Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama all replaced U.S. attorneys appointed by their predecessors. . ."
 
The point is there’s very little Donald Trump has done that hasn’t been done, in some form or another, by others before him."

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