It's hard to think of a time when such a miasma of so many scandals descended at once on an administration. The Benghazi scandal never involved any suggestion of illegal actions. It was just an obvious case of an administration that deliberately set out to deceive the press and the public. It is a testament to the embarrassment of the thing that Obama's defenders insist that it was only a matter of manifest incompetence and not, mind you, a genuine cover up.
The IRS scandal is another kettle of smelly fish. Here there are at least two distinct scandals. One is basic fact that the IRS specifically targeted conservative groups for greater scrutiny, subjected them to special, draconian reporting requirements, and delayed their status as tax exempt organizations. The second scandal is that IRS officials knew of this mischief long before they reported it to Congress. The defense offered is pathetically weak. It is said that this was only an incompetent strategy to deal with a sudden surge in applications for tax exempt status, but the targeting began well before the surge.
What is more telling is the Administration's tale that President Obama was never informed about this and learned about the problem only when he saw it on TV. Now I ask you: which is more appalling: that they are lying through their teeth or that they really didn't tell the President about it? If the former, then they are just liars; but we knew that already. If the latter, then Obama really isn't a President; he just plays one on TV.
Both of these scandals suggest an administration that is sloppy to a very disturbing degree, at the very least. The most recent scandal suggests something rather more sinister.
The AP scandal is, in principle, not quite as bad as the IRS scandal. The latter threatens everyone whereas the former threatens only the press. However, threatening the press is very, very bad in a liberal democracy. The Obama Administration had good reason to want to find out who leaked classified information to the press. That is a legitimate concern for national security. Seizing the private records of reporters wholesale, however, clearly threatens the ability of the press to gather and report their stories. A reporter will often promise anonymity to a source in order to get information, if only to know where to go next. That promise means nothing if the FBI can seize the reporters laptop, his email and text messages, etc. Liberals have wanted shield laws for a long time, so that reporters could shield their sources. They have a new enemy in the Obama Administration.
The latest bombshell is a lot worse than that. Here is a bit from NBC:
Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a "possible co-conspirator" in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
Did you get that? In order to get a search warrant on James Rosen, the Attorney General was willing to identify Rosen as a "possible co-conspirator". In other words, Rosen was a suspected criminal for reporting what he had learned.
Here is how Jan Crawford at CBS puts it:
For the first time ever a Presidential Administration is treating news reporting like a crime and a reporter like a criminal suspect.
That's CBS! Of course, Crawford is right. It's one thing to go after leakers. It is another thing and a new thing to criminalize reporters who listen to the leakers. The Obama Administration has achieved a novelty in lawless and unconstitutional behavior. I don't believe that such a thing occurred to those who spun wild speculations about George W. Bush.
There are three logical possibilities here. One is that this administration is more contemptuous of constitutional limits than any previous administration. Another is that is it simply more sloppy and incompetent than any predecessor. The third is that both are true. Take your pick. One thing I do believe is that the President is innocent of all of these acts of mischief. How the Hell would he know?
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