Across the ocean it is even evident how much President Obama is like former President Nixon. From the Telegraph:

The IRS scandal is the most serious, and the most likely to bring back a genuine whiff of Tricky Dick. In this case, IRS workers were filtering a wave of applications for tax-exempt status by political organisations during the run-up to the 2012 election – casting an unacceptable and possibly illegal eye towards whether they had the phrases like “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their name. While none of the conservative applicants were ultimately denied tax-exempt status, the intrusive inquiries delayed their advocacy and cast a chill on the political process.

It goes on.

The second scandal came when the Associated Press was told by the Justice Department that reporters’ phone records had been secretly subpoenaed as part of an investigation into a leak concerning national security, most likely related to a story that compromised a field agent’s identity.

All of a sudden privacy issues and concerns over the excesses of the Patriot Act became personal to the press corps and they reacted with understandable outrage in a series of brutal press conferences.

And about Benghazi.

Finally, there is the continuing inquiry into the killing of four Americans in Benghazi. After damning congressional testimony from former deputy chief Libya diplomat Greg Hicks, the White House belatedly released a barrage of emails – which showed that the editing of the now-infamous “talking points” used by officials in television interviews was largely the product of a bureaucratic turf war between the CIA and the State Department.

It concludes by saying these scandals can stand on their own.

Facts are the best way to stop a feeding frenzy and the Obama administration finally seems to be taking these scandals seriously. The breaches of public trust not only threaten the bipartisan votes necessary to pass key second term legislation like immigration reform, they undercut the president’s ability to make his larger legacy case that progressive governance can be efficient and effective.

The inquiries will continue, but we already see how reflexive partisan projections distort and discredit the search for truth. That is only compounded by the impulse to impose old narratives about “Nixon” and “Watergate” on current events. These scandals can stand on their own.

These are not over, not by a long shot.