So just how overblown does your scandal mongering and false equivalencies have to get before they're even too much for NBC's David Gregory to stomach without some push back? Peggy Noonan found out this Sunday on Meet the Press, after writing an op-ed this week which called these trumped up "scandals" the media has been fixating on "the worst Washington scandal since Watergate."
As Gregory pointed out to Noonan, the administration she worked for well after the Watergate scandal had that pesky little problem called Iran-Contra that she somehow forgot to mention in her article. Of course, reminding her about St. Ronnie's problems didn't seem to faze her one bit:
GREGORY: Peggy Noonan, you wrote something this week that really struck me in your column on Friday. And I want to put it up on the screen and ask you about it. “We are in the midst,” you write, “Of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they’re seeing. [The IRS and AP scandals] have left the administration’s credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don’t look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.”
I have to say, Peggy, what you don’t talk about here is an administration for a man that you worked for who led the Iran-Catra-- Contra scandal where they ran a secret war and lied to Congress and all the rest. Over-- overstatement here?
PEGGY NOONAN: I don’t think so. I think this is-- what is going on now is all three of these scandals makes a cluster that implies some very bad things about the forthcomingness of the administration and about its ability to at certain dramatic points do the right thing. And I got to tell you, the-- you-- everyone can argue about which of these things is most upsetting, but this IRS thing is something I’ve never seen in my lifetime. It is the revenue gathering arm of the U.S. government…
GREGORY: Peggy-- Peggy, wait a second.
NOONAN: …going after political…
GREGORY: Richard Nixon specifically directed people to investigate to audit people. I mean, of course, we’ve seen it in our lifetime.
NOONAN: Understood but this is so broad. This is extremely broad and very abusive to normal U.S. citizens just looking for their rights. And here’s the thing…
GREGORY: Right. No question-- no questions about-- about the egregiousness of it.
NOONAN: If it doesn’t stop now, it will never stop.
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
NOONAN: And the only way it can stop is if, frankly, a price is paid, if people come forward and they have to tell who did it, why they did it, when it started.
GREGORY: Congressman Becerra, I’m-- I’m struck that Peggy seems to be more critical than Senator McConnell was this prog-- program who clearly did not want to use comparisons to Watergate and Nixon and the like.
Of course Gregory couldn't be bothered to point out to her or his audience that the better part of these "scandals" other than some of what went on at the AP is a bunch of trumped up nonsense.
