May 15, 2013 --

Forty years ago, the Senate Watergate hearings, chaired by Sen. Sam Ervin, Democrat from North Carolina were underway. The hearings included the comment from Alexander Butterfield that President Richard M. Nixon had a taping system. This comment led to demands that the tapes be produced, and, after they were produced and 18 and one-half minutes found to be missing on one of the tapes, to demands for impeachment. (There were calls for impeachment even before the Butterfield disclosure.)

Forty years ago, the nation was told by the media that a cover-up can be worse than the original offense; that no man is above the law. And forty years ago, we learned that a president can be forced to resign on pain of removal from office. It should also be noted that forty years ago, the resignation of two officials and the firing of a third official could be quickly called by the media a "Saturday Night Massacre" --although the officials involved remain quite alive after their resignations and firing.

And so, I imagine Richard M. Nixon absorbing Hillary Clinton's exclamation at a congressional hearing on the terror attack in Benghazi, last September 11 -- "What different, at this point, does it make?" -- and saying, "why didn't I think of that?" But then, LPR does not believe it would have mattered had Mr. Nixon uttered a Clintonism rather than asserting: "I'm not crook." He was, after all a Republican.

Mrs. Clinton's comment was made at a congressional hearing last January after she offered as alternatives an incorrect assertion (protest) and an incorrect sarcasm (guys on the prowl to kill Americans). The difference Mrs. Clinton refused to recognize stemmed from her inability to deal honestly with the facts.

The aftermath of the Benghazi terror attack suggests to LPR the following insights concerning the media's leftist mindset:

Republicans who question the actions of a Democratic administration are motivated solely by partisanship.

Officials in a Democratic administration who create nonfactual narratives are not disseminating false information; at worst, they are merely confusing some details.

Democratic administrations are incapable of engaging in a cover-up. Democratic conduct can never be considered worse than a misstep or mistake that was made -- and a few weeks after such misstep or mistake, the event fades into the "long ago."

Whistle-blowers are to be lauded only when whistles are blown on Republicans. (Whistle-blowers on Democrats are probably malcontents.)

During Republican administrations, the media must assume an adversary relationship with government. During Democratic administrations, the adversary relationship should be replaced by an advocacy relationship for government.