On November 7, 1962 President Richard M. Nixon said at his so-called “last press conference” after he lost the race for governor of California to to Democratic incumbent Pat Brown, “I leave you gentleman now. You will now write it; you will interpret it; that’s your right. But as I leave you I want you to know…. just think how much you’re going to be missing. You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
On February Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, 2014, President Barack Obama told Fox News in interviewer’s Bill O’Reilly’s taped session, “What you guys are gonna have to figure out is … what are you gonna do when I’m gone?”
There is no comparison of the man Nixon, known as Tricky Dick, with Obama. Nixon was uncouth. Obama is sophisticated, or at least pseudo-sophisticated.
But there is a common thread in their laments to the media, a common denominator of feeling sorry for themselves.
Nixon’s speech was that of a total crybaby who painted himself as an innocent victim of the media, and Jews, to nail him to the political cross.
He said, “I believe in reading what my opponents say and I hope that what I have said today will at least make television, radio, the press, first recognize the great responsibility they have to report all the news and, second, recognize that they have a right and a responsibility, if they’re against a candidate, give him the shaft, but also recognize if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then.”
Fox News is known as having no love for President Obama, who granted the network’s Bill O’Reilly an interview before the Super Bowl game, just as he did last year to CBS when it carried the football game.
“Do you think I’m being unfair to you?” O’Reilly asked.
“Absolutely,” Obama said. “Of course you are, Bill — but, I like you anyway.”
After leading questions about “health care not working” and a”wholly corrupt IRS,” the president continued, “This is okay. If you want to be president of the United States, then you know that you’re going to be subject to criticism. I think regardless of whether it’s fair or not … it has made Fox News very successful.”
And: “What you guys are gonna have to figure out is … what are you gonna do when I’m gone?”
Nixon wasn’t smart smug enough to take the credit for helping reporters to sell their newspapers.
Obama has the chutzpa and the conceit to do so, but the bottom line is that both Obama, like Nixon, feels sorry for himself.
In three years Fox News won’t have Obama to kick around anymore.
But unlike Nixon, Obama always will have The New York Times to kiss him where he has been kicked.
