White House: Obama is no Nixon

The Department of Justice seizing reporters' phone records? The IRS apologizing for targeting conservatives?

The Richard Nixon comparisons seem to write themselves—much to the joy of Republicans working to cement the association between President Barack Obama and the former scandal-plagued president.

But when asked at Tuesday's press briefing about the White House's reaction to the recent Nixon comparisons, press secretary Jay Carney suggested those who made them were wrong.

"People who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history," he said.

He then pivoted to the Benghazi "scandal," chalking it up to politics. "What we have here," Carney said, referencing the controversy over the administration's handling of the 2012 attack, "is so clearly—as we're learning—more and more a political sideshow, a deliberate effort to politicize a tragedy."