Since Watergate — when a Republican president was rightfully impeached and forced to resign before being removed from office for legitimate crimes that he committed — the Republicans have deployed the strategy of trying to grind the government to a halt whenever a Democrat is elected president. They deploy this strategy so the Democrat administration can get as little accomplished as possible.
Whenever you hear about a “scandal” involving a Democrat president, you must keep the GOP's "Stop Government" strategy in mind because, no matter what the scope of the scandal is, the Republicans will use it to the best of their ability to grind the government’s ability to govern to a halt.
The GOP certainly deployed this strategy when Bill Clinton was in office. Beyond the budget battles that led to actual Federal government shutdowns, the GOP kept digging into the supposed crimes of the “Whitewater” real estate deal until, after not finding anything illegal, they centered on a blowjob — which isn’t a crime. It’s a fucking blowjob. But that didn’t stop the Republicans from using a fucking blowjob to finally grind government to a halt by using it to impeach Clinton.
Right now, there are three “scandals” circling the Obama administration. The Department of Justice getting phone records of Associated Press journalists is the only legitimate scandal out of the three; and currently, there isn’t a bit of evidence pointing to Obama having knowledge of DOJ actions. There is a vast gulf of difference between an employee of the executive branch committing a crime and the president directing those crimes; and the latter was the situation with Nixon and Watergate. Also, due to warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency during the Bush administration being declared legal by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, there exists the very real possibility that the DOJ’s actions weren’t even a crime.
Should there be Congressional hearings into this matter? Of course. But there is a difference between having hearings and grinding government to a halt — a difference that the Republicans, due to their post-Nixon strategy, purposely obfuscate.
As for the Benghazi “scandal”, that attack happened at a time of protests in Muslim majority cities around the globe. There was absolutely no intelligence about an upcoming attack on a US consulate office in Libya’s second city. After all, usually it’s the embassy in a capital city that is targeted, not a minor office. We don’t even know if the Benghazi attack was planned ahead of time or just happened on the spot. I've lived in Cairo, so I’m familiar with how streets in Arab cities in Africa look; and there’s not a lot of opulence in those streets. If an American ambassador is driving into town in a rich American car, with security in tow, then the city residents can at least deduce that this is somebody important. There are a lot of weapons available in a country that just went through a civil war, and from there the only organizing that takes place is a couple of on the spot telephone calls and, bam, you have an attack.
That’s. It. There was no conspiracy to hide information about this attack because there was probably absolutely no information at all until it happened. And it happened at a time of global protests in Muslim cities, which was enough to make anyone question whether it was a protest gone awry or an attack. Period. End of story.
There is no reason for the Republicans to drag this Benghazi story out for months, but they have anyway. Why? Because they are trying to grind the government to a halt.
Besides the Department of Justice and Benghazi, we have the other new “scandal” revolving around an IRS office in Cincinnati targeting new organizations with words like “tea party” and “patriot” in their name applying for non-profit status as 501(c)4 groups. The decision to target conservative organizations was, most likely, made at a middle management level in a satellite IRS office outside of Washington DC, so how, exactly, is Obama responsible for this? Furthermore, groups that wish to qualify for 501(c)4 non-profit status should have a stated purpose and goals for “social welfare”. One of the groups that was targeted, called “Tea Party Patriots”, spent most of their time rapidly organizing against Obama before the election. Their biggest accomplishment was producing an anti-health care act movie called “The Determinators”, publishing it on DVD and sending it out to hundreds of thousands of Americans. How, exactly, is that working towards aiding the “social welfare” of society?
The IRS saw a sharp increase in organizations claiming 501(c)4 status after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case. And, quite frankly, if you have conservative organizations steeped in anti-tax and anti-government ideology forming blatantly political organizations that were applying for non-profit status as 501(c)4 “social welfare” groups, wouldn’t you be curious, too? Yes, all organizations are supposed to be judged equally, but this targeting of conservative organizations was likely borne out of IRS employees looking for better ways to manage their workload. Let’s face it, these conservative organizations are pretty suspect. Besides the fact that this wasn’t ordered by the Obama administration, how exactly is this a scandal?
Should there be a hearing or two? Of course. But will Republicans pretend this is the end of the world? Of course. Why? Because they are trying to grind the government to a halt.
In light of all of these “scandals”, wherein evidence of direct involvement from the Obama White House doesn’t exist, it’s worth mentioning two actual scandals from the Bush administration that Republicans (and their savant-like stenographers in the mainstream media) cared nothing about — two non-scandals that had evidence of the Bush White House being directly involved.
The most important non-scandal of the Bush administration was the Downing Street Memo. Published in the British press on May 1, 2005, the memo proved that the Bush administration was lying to the world about the evidence we had regarding Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction during the run up to the Second Iraq War. That unneeded war killed over 4,800 soldiers, injured over 32,500 soldiers, and likely killed over 120,000 Iraqi civilians. I could get into the monetary costs that we’re still paying off, but the human toll is sick enough. Why didn’t the Republicans or the mainstream media regard the Downing Street Memo as a scandal?
The second non-scandal is one I mentioned previously, the National Security Agency executing warrantless wiretaps. This was initiated by the Bush administration after 9/11, and Republicans weren’t appalled by it. In fact, one of the groups who was spied upon took their case to court but it was recently thrown out in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case has yet to make it to the Supreme Court, and lawyers the group spied on fear that an appeal to the Supreme Court would only uphold the ruling from the 9th Court because of the conservative-leanings of the current Supreme Court justices.
Why didn’t the Republicans use these two scandals, with direct connections to the Bush White House, as a reason to host a number of hearings and grind government to a halt? Why do they only care when lesser crimes are committed that don’t have any apparent connections to the Obama White House?
The answer is simple: Republicans want power, period. That’s why they’ll turn a blind eye when one of their own commits impeachable atrocities against the Constitution and humanity. But when a Democrat is in office, then they’re constantly searching for the next blowjob.
