If at first you don't succeed

Bugging reporters phones is the obvious next step. As Digby notes, yet more proof that the same creeps who learned the art of political knife fighting in the Nixon administration are applying all they know to the current one.

The claims that these encroachments on civil liberties are benign are disproven by the actions of another Republican administration within my own lifetime. Many of the architects of today's imperial presidency learned politics and policy in the Nixon era. It's almost unbelievable that it could play out like this again, in virtually the same way, but it has, even the infighting. It's a recurring Republican nightmare. They are asking us to ignore history, specifically their own history, and just "trust them." Why would this country ever be so foolish?

And once again, the establishment press gets hoist with its own petard.