A Swing and a Miss

Ever since the news broke that conservative groups had been scrutinized by the IRS, the GOP has been desperate to milk as much political capital out of the story as possible.

Too bad that, as I've noted here, the facts of the case have revealed little to nothing scandalous that could be used against Obama. As the president himself noted, albeit commenting on another scandal, "there's no there there".

But now conservatives are excited because, in their minds, they've found the so-called smoking gun that "proves" Obama's complicity in the IRS "scandal": the fact that the former IRS commissioner - gasp! - visited the White House!

Unfortunately for the scandal-mongers, the commissioner visited the White House eleven out of one hundred seventy -five times - mostly for meetings on how to best implement health reform:

Source

As a good friend of mine often says: a swing and a miss. So much for Scandalmania 2013!

And as for "the smoking gun", do Republicans really want to bring that particular metaphor to mind? Have we forgotten the last time that metaphor was used by the GOP?

"Smoking Gun"

The REAL Benghazi Scandal

Years ago - long before Obama's inauguration, when most Congressional Republicans' memories conveniently seem to begin - I remember a news outlet receiving harsh criticism for what was seen as biased reporting. CBS Evening News reported on leaked documents that seemed to call then-President Bush's National Guard into question.

As it turned out, the documents proved to be phony.

As a result, many conservatives blasted Dan Rather and what they derisively renamed "C-BS" for trying to derail Bush's reelection campaign. Rather, if I'm not mistaken, eventually lost his job for reporting on what he thought was news.

Fast forward to today. At the height of the Benghazi "scandal", ABC News reports that leaked e-mails show the White House scrubbing references to terror in the talking points about Benghazi. That ends up being untrue.

Source

It's true that ABC News was simply doing its job of informing the public of what they thought was news. Moreover, it remains unclear whether this incident betrays biased reporting at ABC. Nevertheless, both CBS and Dan Rather were forced to apologize for their reporting on information from untrue leaked documents.

Where are the calls for the heads of ABC executives' heads on platters, and when will ABC issue similar apologies for reporting untrue information?

Scandalmongering and Unfair Comparisons

For the better part of this week, we have been seeing a lot of news coverage over the scandal at the IRS. It seems that applications for 501(c)4 status from conservative groups received more scrutiny than similar applications from liberal groups. Not very good news for a government agency that is already distrusted by a wide array of Americans.

After a week of twenty-four hour news reporting on the scandal and additional information coming to light, no evidence has shown that President Obama had any involvement with the IRS' greater scrutiny of conservative groups. That has not stopped the most rabid right-wingers, however, from making unfair and overwrought comparisons to Nixon.

    
Now we get this era's version of Mr. Nixon's infamous Enemies List, too: The director of the division of the IRS that oversees tax-exempt organizations apologized last week for targeting those that have suspicious words like Tea Party or Patriot in their names.

To quote Director Lois Lerner: "We made some mistakes; some people didn't use good judgment. For that we're apologetic." Right. Just some mistakes. Or as Ronald Reagan would say, slipping into the passive voice for once, Mistakes Were Made.

Surely it was only a coincidence that the IRS didn't target organizations with words like Progressive or Ninety-Nine Percent in their names. Just as the Enemies List compiled by Richard Nixon included only left-wing types -- or those he thought were left-wing in his all-consuming paranoia. These days it's a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, to use Hillary Clinton's term, that draws special attention from the IRS.

http://townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/2013/05/16/deja-vu-all-over-again-n1597426

So said conservative columnist Paul Greenberg earlier this week. Naysaying political cartoonist and cheap shot artist Bob Gorrell also joined in on the act this week:

Leaving aside the fact that liberal groups were scrutinized in much the same way as conservative groups (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/irs-sent-same-letter-to-democrats-that-fed-tea-party-row.html), it's really reaching to claim that the current IRS scandal is "Nixonian".

Let's recall our history. While he was in office during the early 1970s, Richard Nixon compiled enemies lists and used the IRS as a weapon against those enemies. It was revealed during the 'Watergate' scandal that Nixon had personally asked the IRS commissioner to go after his political rivals through their taxes.

Is there any proof that President Obama has ever compiled an enemies list of his own? No.

Is there any proof that President Obama tried to go after Tea Party groups via the IRS? No.

So where, one may ask, are the parallels to Nixon - besides the fevered imaginations of Greenberg and Gorrell?

All the evidence released thus far points to the IRS scandal being an intra-agency problem. The Citizens United ruling in 2010 opened the floodgates, allowing political advocacy groups to avoid paying taxes by claiming that they were "social welfare" organizations. Apparently, IRS bureaucrats were so confused by the onslaught of new 501(c)4 applications that they began scrutinizing the groups who were asking for tax-exempt status, thus creating the scandal in the first place.

It's bad enough to find out that the IRS was targeting certain groups because of their politics. Partisan vultures eager to play the politics of scandal don't help matters. Is it too much to ask to wait until the whole truth is revealed before asserting, without proof, that Obama is guilty of Nixonian crimes?

WHY Are We Still Talking About Benghazi?

Last week, Congressional Republicans launched what was supposed to be the Hearings To End All Hearings on Benghazi. In addition to providing excellent fundraising fodder and red meat for an empty-headed conservative base, the Republicans were hoping against hope that the hearings would uncover hidden truths that would prove to be a presidency-ending scandal for Obama.

What actually happened, however, is that the hearings were a waste of everyone's time. They did not tell us anything we had not already known about the Benghazi attacks or the subsequent White House response to those attacks.

So here in reality land, where no right-winger has gone before, what are the actual facts compared to the Republican talking points on Benghazi?

Obama called it a "spontaneous attack"!
In its initial assessment, the intelligence community thought that the attacks were spontaneous. Thus, that's what they put in the talking points memo given to Obama:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Benghazi%20Talking%20Points%20Timeline.pdf

When that was proven to be untrue, the intelligence community changed its assessment.


"Obama didn't call it an act of terror!"
The day after the attacks, Obama said the following in the Rose Garden at the White House:

                    "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that
                     character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for"

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/politics/fact-check-terror


Why didn't the military respond to the attacks?
According to an assessment by Leon Panetta, fighters scrambled in response to the attacks would not have arrived at the embassy in time to actually do anything about the attacks:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/leon-panetta-benghazi_n_2638283.html


Republicans were champing at the bit in November to hear testimony from General Petraeus on the Benghazi matter. There were conspiracy theories at the time that word about Petraeus' affair had been timed to discredit him so that he could not spill the beans over the alleged cover-ups involving the Benghazi attacks.

Now that Petraeus has actually testified that there was no conspiracy involving Benghazi, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) is now saying that Petraeus' testimony, formerly highly valued by Republicans, is not trustworthy:

GREGORY: Chairman, my reporting of the immediate aftermath of this talking to       administration officials is that CIA Director David Petraeus made it clear when he briefed top officials that there was a spontaneous element to this, that it was not completely known that this was a terrorist attack right away. You don't give any credence to the notion that there was some fog of war, that there were conflicting circumstances about what went on here?

          ISSA: David Petraeus said what the administration wanted him to say is the indication.

 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51857413/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/#.UZGRu8plFWm


There is no conspiracy or cover-up surrounding Benghazi. It is not a scandal. Almost everything Republicans have been claiming about Benghazi is either a lie or a misrepresentation of the facts as we know them. There's no doubt that the loss of any American lives abroad - especially those lost due to terrorist activities - is tragic. We should be angry about what happened, and we should demand answers. Now that we have those answers, however, it's time to move on with our lives.