The Left’s new meme .. there IS no scandal

The New York Times Editorial Page

There Just Has to Be a Scandal – Somewhere

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

The American public,Greg Sargent pointed out this morning, does not find a presidential scandal in either the Benghazi talking points or the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-wing groups seeking a tax-exempt and disclosure-free status.

In a C.N.N. poll released over the weekend, 61 percent of Americans say President Obama’s comments about the I.R.S. investigation were mostly or completely true, and 55 percent say the I.R.S. acted on its own. On Benghazi, 50 percent believe that early statements about the attack reflect what the administration believed at the time, compared with 44 percent – 76 percent of them Republicans – who say officials intentionally misled the public.

But Republicans are clinging to the idea of scandal, especially Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House oversight committee, who is desperately trying to find someone to blame for the murders of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

The Week:

D.C. is obsessed with scandal. America isn’t.

No wonder the nation is disillusioned with its lawmakers.Let’s take the ongoing Benghazi saga. The White House, trying for a change to get in front of the controversy, released more than 100 pages of emails sent in the frantic aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack. They showed that Republicans, trying to fan the flames of scandal, created a scandal of their own by doctoring key portions of text that had been leaked to the media. Republicans fired back that there were key gaps in what the administration actually released.

There’s no question that with a tight election looming, the Obama administration’s strategy in the wake of the terror attack had three elements: Play down the incident, change the narrative, and run out the clock. Politicians do this all the time. They cherry pick facts, spin data, and develop slick talking points for media consumption. Everyone from the president on down to your mayor does it. That’s what politicians do. And that’s what the White House did. Press secretary Jay Carney said on Nov. 28 that the White House only made “stylistic” edits to Susan Rice’s talking points. That’s probably a crock.

NY Daily News

Of scandals real and imagined 

The Benghazi ‘coverup’ didn’t pan out, so partisans latched onto the IRS

We have known for longer than long how excitable some people are. We also know that no aspect of the federal government draws more consistent scorn than the Internal Revenue Service.

Hatred and fear of the IRS bring people together across classes, boundaries and ideologies. Polluters, con artists, gangsters and Hollywood producers, upper-class citizens who were born in tubs of butter: All revile the IRS for taking money from them and spreading it around to takers.

There are shills on the right who hate taxes for feeding the government, which they call a beast. And there are shills on the left who think the feds more often than not do the bidding of the banks and big corporations, who skate by without paying their share.

It’s the Tea Party that, these days, is leading the charge on behalf of those who are paranoid about the supposedly oppressive, arrogant and ruthless characters in Washington. The Tea Party had been laid in a coffin, with unsure mourners and celebrants waiting for it to die, but now it’s up. It’s awake. It’s agitated.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/scandals-real-imagined-article-1.1347511#ixzz2TvLDYfAZ

WaPo, Ruth Marcus:

IRS, AP, Libya scandals are a trifecta with little payout

By Ruth Marcus,May 16, 2013

Folks, deep breath time. This is not the end of the Obama presidency. It’s a bad stretch with an unfortunate confluence of unfortunate events. None of which will make the first paragraph — not even the first page — of the account of the Obama administration in the history books.

Let’s tick through the trifecta of scandals and what they tell us — about the foibles of this administration, about the hidden operations of bureaucracies, about the modern practice of politics.

Benghazi.With the e-mail chain released, the chief takeaway should be this administration’s remarkable capacity to be its own worst enemy. It has managed to look as if it were executing a coverup without having anything to cover up. The real scandal of Benghazi remains what previous inquiries concluded —that “systemic failures” of leadershipresulted in “grossly inadequate” security.

This last is REALLY worth a read to see the complete, sad panoply of denial and how strong the urge to excuse is.

That the left can find a way to say a failure to listen to diplomats begging for security, then deny them aid under attack resulting in 4 deaths, then lie about the reasons for the attack, then cover that all up FOR MONTHS is not a measure of leadership failure beggars the mind.

That the left can excuse the IRS being used just as they were during the Nixon administration to look for individuals to punish and intimidate, then go FAR BEYOND THAT by functionally REPRESSING AVERAGE AMERICANS (at the least - if not by leadership intention) leaves one’s jaws agape. Certainly if the latter can be shown to be a probable cause, we WILL have impeachment discussions and SERIOUS ONES.

That the left can even look at reporters targeted, hacked, accused secretly before judges as members of a criminal espionage conspiracy, look with equanimity upon an entire NETWORK being measured for attack based upon political opposition, brings to mind ANIMAL FARM.

That these horrors are looked upon with an ‘OH, WELL’ insouciance and judged to be the result of republican attacking wolves (instead of actions or lack of same by the NATIONAL LEADERSHIP) , rather than apply the same critical thought they reserved for Bush, holds dire consequences for the nation.

Or am I missing something?