It’s Tuesday, May 13th, 2014…and here’s The Gouge!
First up, courtesy of The American Spectator, an absolute must-read Cover Story commentary by Jeffrey Lord, who offers not only sage advice to the former prosecutor from South Carolina as regards the House investigation into Benghazigate, but a bit of history even we had some difficulty recalling:
“…The Pelosi threat not to participate in the Benghazi hearings or the demand to depart from the rules and suddenly have an even split of committee members — something Pelosi never did when she herself was Speaker — is a remnant of that “we’re the boss” attitude House Democrats learned in their 58 years of total control of the House. A period refreshed with their four-year return to power from 2006-2010. They still think like the Senate Democrats of 1973, who ordered an investigation of Nixon — an investigation that eventually drove Nixon from office. Forcing Nixon out for doing exactly what LBJ had done.
There’s a lesson here for Congressman Gowdy. And while he may not know this history of Watergate, he most assuredly has well demonstrated a prosecutor’s drive to demand — and get — the facts. Not part of the facts. Or selected facts. All of the facts.
Every single e-mail involved in this episode must be placed in the hands of Gowdy’s committee. Every relevant person involved — from high to low — should find themselves sitting at that witness table. America can spend the summer getting to know not only what Hillary Clinton did and where the President was and what he was doing exactly. The country can learn just who is Tom Donilon, anyway? Who is Ben Rhodes? Probe the Dude’s memory and go over the scribblings of Tommy Vietor. Find every secretary, every night watchman. Be as thorough in investigating Obama as those Senate Democrats — and, yes, the Republicans — were in investigating Richard Nixon. Just… follow the facts.
But understand — and one suspects Congressman Gowdy already gets this — that House Democrats, not to mention the Obama White House — are going to do everything they possibly can to disrupt, block, circumvent, or thwart Gowdy’s effort at every turn. Just as in 1973 — when Senate Democrats blocked an investigation into LBJ that they knew could only lead to certain disaster for Democrats…”
All we can say is it’s a good thing Boehner isn’t…
…running this investigation!
Speaking of The Obamao’s…
…best buddy, the supposed “fighter” incapable of comprehending when his opponent’s on the ropes…
“…Speaker of the House John Boehner incorrectly cited congressional history earlier today while disavowing any thoughts of having Lois Lerner arrested and jailed by the legislature for contempt. “I’m not sure we want to go down that path,” Boehner said when asked on “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s never been used. I’m not sure that it’s an appropriate way to go about this.”
…Congress does have the authority to jail individuals cited for contempt and did so as recently as 1935, according to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report…”
Proof positive, if any were needed, Boehner’s been a dog…
…his entire tenure as Speaker.
Meanwhile, back to Benghazigate, as the editors at NRO explain for the learning impaired…
Watergate defines the vocabulary for American political scandals, and so it was no surprise that former Obama-administration communications operative Anita Dunn took to the airwaves yesterday morning to pour derision upon the notion that a “smoking gun” has been uncovered in the form of recently released e-mails documenting the White House’s disinformation campaign following the Benghazi attack. A dozen Democrats have asked, “Where’s the scandal?” But the question here is not whether the administration’s misleading statements in the wake of the attacks on U.S. installations in Egypt and Libya are a political scandal in the style of President Nixon’s infamous burglary; they aren’t. But that the administration’s misdeeds here seem to fall short of felony burglary hardly makes the matter a less serious one: The White House misled the American public about a critical matter of national interest, and it continues to practice deceit as the facts of the case are sorted out. That, to answer Hillary Clinton’s callous question, is what difference it makes…”
Two thoughts: first, Hillary’s already been caught in one egregious lie:
Second, Watergate was never about the burglary, but rather about the cover-up! Oh,…and three: count on whoever runs on the Republican ticket against Hillary in 2016 to never bring any portion of her sorry, sordid past to light!
But as James Taranto notes, were the MSM doing its job, the hypocrisy of Obama’s statements and positions on Syria, Nigeria and Ukraine…
“Obama says violence escalating in eastern Ukraine is making it obvious to the world that pro-Russia militants there are not peaceful protesters,” the AP adds. If only his administration had such a strong command of the obvious back in September 2012.
would be as evident…
…as the evil intent in Michelle’s Marxist eyes!
In a related item, the WaPo‘s Jennifer Rubin offers some lessons learned from Team Tick-Tock’s increasingly bizarre and utterly unseemly behavior:
Seven lessons Tommy Vietor taught us
Tommy Vietor, the former spokesman for President Obama’s National Security Council — the entity on which the president depends to synthesize national security information and policy — went on Fox News to answer questions about Benghazi. Mind you, the entire episode — the failure to keep tabs on the influx of jihadis, the failure to protect Americans in Libya, the massive confusion and misinformation that persisted up through the president’s Sept. 25, 2012, speech at the United Nations — was as much the responsibility of the NSC as any other entity. When asked about thee-mail Ben Rhodes sent out, Vietor snarked, “Dude, that was like two years ago.” And that’s when it became crystal clear how things like Benghazi happened in this administration.
Here are seven lessons we should keep in mind, ably illustrated by Vietor (who subsequently insulted Fox News rather than apologize, on MSNBC, declaring, “I guess you’re only supposed to use the Queen’s English on Fox.”):
1. An error like Benghazi happens because multiple people have a hyper-partisan mindset that submerges everything to politics.
2. The staff reflects the boss. If the staff is rude, immature and callous, the boss almost invariably is.
3. The entire purpose of the video story and the delay in turning over documents was to get far enough past the events that someone like Vietor could say, “Old news.”
4. The Obama team doesn’t seem to associate the presidency with a particular level of decorum. Wear jeans. Put your feet up on the desk. Insult opponents. Use coarse language. (The president’s insightful analysis of the House budget was that it was a “stinkburger.”) When such arrogance pervades, mistakes — small and large — happen.
5. The attitude that hostile questioning is illegitimate breeds insularity and groupthink. (How dare they challenge my version of events!)
6. A president is not the prisoner of bad staff. He hired the staff for a reason. He doesn’t fire them (e.g. Jay Carney) for a reason. They are doing what he wants.
7. It is never just one guy. Vietor’s behavior is hardly unique among current and former Obama staffers. Carney routinely insults the press, “dissembles” (as Jake Tapper described his “It’s not about Benghazi” excuse).
There are certainly serious people who have served in this presidency. (An assertion with which we beg to differ!) Former Defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta served honorably and continue to warn the public of the administration’s follies. But they are the exception to the rule. They were and are respected by both sides of the aisle, have had a long career in government service, speak and write like adults, do not engage is partisan swipes and understand that their responsibility was to the country, not to a political party or the reelection campaign of their boss. It is noteworthy that these sort of adults have vanished from the administration in the second term. There is plainly no place for them.
As we noted above, we beg to differ with Rubin on only one point: if their memoirs and post-service recollections are accurate, both Gates and Panetta willingly enacted purely political policies and goals they knew to be contrary to American national security and their oaths to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies…foreign and domestic. This renders their service not only dishonorable, but downright treasonous.
Not to mention anyone can blame the boss AFTER the damage is done!
Which is likely why, as James Taranto so eloquently observes, all this Administration has to offer…indeed, all the entire Progressive movement has to offer…is one lie after another:
“More than 20 years after its release, the critics are still raving for “Schindler’s List.”President Obama gave Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust film a thumbs-up Wednesday at a dinner for the Spielberg-founded USC Shoah Foundation, on whose behalf Spielberg presented Obama with the Ambassadors for Humanity Award.
Thanks to “Steven’s remarkable film,” the president observed, “the world eventually came to see and understand the Holocaust like never before. . . . That’s what stories do. We’re story-telling animals. That’s what Steven does.”
It’s what Barack does too:
I have this remarkable title right now–President of the United States–and yet every day when I wake up, and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria–when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids–and having to think through what levers, what power do we have at any given moment, I think, “drop by drop by drop,” that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive; that we can tell a different story.
Obama’s “remarkable title” is itself an example of the power of story telling. It is a commonplace that he rose to prominence almost entirely on the strength of his biography (which Bill Clinton once disparaged as a “fairy tale”). In 2011, when he was at one of his political low points, critics on the left insisted his failure was one not of leadership or of policy but of story telling.
Now here he is telling a story–a story about telling stories. The moral of this story is that leadership is a matter of telling stories. That is partly true–we do not mean to gainsay the hortatory and informative elements of political leadership–but Obama seems to be citing the power of stories as an excuse for inaction.
Which is only appropriate, being that this charlatan’s entire life is one big, fat…
…fabricated fable.
Finally, we’ll call it day with the Lighter Side…
Magoo
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