Mid Day Comic Relief - Carl Bernstein: IRS targeting not Watergate




Journalist Carl Bernstein said President Barack Obama is no Richard Nixon on Monday, and he would know.


“It’s terrible,” Bernstein said of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Outrageous. Heads ought to roll. Simple as that. … From what we know so far, some high-up heads.”

But Bernstein said that conservatives who are eager to equate the IRS scandal to Watergate should hold their horses.

While the Nixon-era IRS investigated his political enemies and subjected them to audits, it did so at the direction of the president and his aides. No evidence has emerged linking Obama or the White House to the IRS scandal.

“In the Nixon White House, we heard the president of the United States on tape saying ‘Use the IRS to get back on our enemies,” said Bernstein, whose reporting helped lead to Nixon’s eventual resignation. “We know a lot about President Obama, and I think the idea that he would want the IRS used for retribution — we have no evidence of any such thing.”

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Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/ca...l#ixzz2TC0LCWTD