Is Media Matters Obama’s Watergate?

There is one very disturbing, very serious precedent that provides a direct link between the Obama White House and its Media Matters buddies — and the famous Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency.

Let’s start with Anthony Ulasewicz. Or, “Tony” as the late New York City cop turned private investigator turned Watergate figure was known. And Tony’s friend in the NYPD’s “Bureau of Special Services,” Jack Caulfield.

In the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon aide John Ehrlichman had hired Jack Caulfield as a campaign “tour director.” Caulfield at the time was a detective second grade in the NYPD, whose first contact with the Nixon staff came when he was assigned to candidate Nixon’s Park Avenue campaign headquarters. Remember that this was 1968. Presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated in June, Martin Luther King two months before that. In this atmosphere police protection became a big thing, and shortly Nixon, like all out-of-office presidential candidates ever since (if they meet certain requirements — as Rick Santorum has just done) had Secret Service protection. In the mix of this, inevitably Caulfield became friendly with the Nixon staff — John Ehrlichman specifically. Victory in hand, Ehrlichman became White House Counsel and Assistant to the President. Combining with his longtime friend H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, soon the new White House Chief of Staff, the duo formed the top staff tier of the Nixon White House.

Getting off on the wrong track almost immediately, Ehrlichman asked Caulfield to form a private security agency to provide “investigative support” for the White House. Caulfield, rejected for the government post of Chief Marshal of the United States (boss of all those U.S. Marshals), said he wanted to work in the White House instead. Done. He was duly installed in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. His job? Yes indeed. Setting up a private intelligence system for Ehrlichman — and the new President.

What exactly, in the increasing flow of information from the Daily Caller about the Obama White House and Media Matters, sounds strikingly similar to the Watergate tale of Tony Ulasewicz?

That’s right. It’s this:

A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010,[Media Matter founder and head David] Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.

It’s not clear what the four spoke about — no one in the meeting returned repeated calls for comment — but the apparent coordination continued. “Anita Dunn became a regular presence at the office,” says someone who worked there. Then-president of Media Matters, Eric Burns, “lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of matters.”

Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama’s deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011.