One of the big memes pushed by Obama dead-enders is that it’s silly to compare the massive IRS scandal to Watergate. They must be horrified to see the Treasury Inspector General doing exactly that. In fact, he said it’s worse. The Hill reports:
The Treasury Inspector General who uncovered the improper targeting of Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service said Monday he was stunned by what his investigation uncovered.
Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), said the targeting at the IRS his probe discovered was “unprecedented,” and the closest comparison that came to mind was the targeting of political enemies by the administration of Richard Nixon.
“During the Nixon administration, there were attempts to use the Internal Revenue Services in manners that might be comparable in terms of misusing it. I’m not saying the actions taken here are comparable,” he told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “This is unprecedented.”
Well, Barack Obama is very fond of declaring himself “historic.” Obama’s enormous team of volunteer ronin campaign shock troops at the IRS – and their equally rogue supervisors who in no way coordinated with the President, even though the IRS commissioner spent an equally unprecedented amount of time at the White House, and they all lied to Congress to conceal the abuse until after the election – were doing the sort thing Richard Nixon occasionally muttered about.
It’s disappointing to see The Hill toss in this silly garbage:
The TIGTA report, released in April, has set off a blizzard of controversy on Capitol Hill, and has led to the resignation or removal of several top IRS officials.
Nonsense. No one has lost their job or been reprimanded for this outrage. One temporary commissioner reached the end of his term and was not re-appointed; one of his underlings retired gracefully, without official reprimand; the odious Lois Lerner, the high-level official at the center of this scandal, is on paid administrative leave.
Another mention of Watergate comes from none other than Bob Woodward, who takes pains to say that Obama has not checked into the Watergate just yet, but he’s on the road to that destination, or maybe even sitting in valet parking with a twenty in his hand and suitcases full of scandal at his feet. He can make the whole thing go away with a refreshing burst of transparency, which Woodward doesn’t seem to have noticed is something Obama is fighting to the death to avoid. Politico summarizes Woodward’s interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News:
“This fiction that somehow [The IRS is] totally an independent agency is absurd,” the legendary journalist said Monday on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, saying that in the Nixon era, the Treasury secretary refused to audit Democratic groups when the IRS commissioner was asked to do so by the White House.
Clearly in the pipeline, lots of people knew some of this or should know it. And I agree, this should be investigated, but you know who should lead the investigation? President [Barack] Obama.”
Yeah, I’m sure he’ll get right on that, Bob. Right after he dispatches another team of character assassins to take out congressional investigators, and his operatives hand the media another prepared narrative about Republican “overreach.” You know what it looks like when Obama is truly upset about something – you watched him melt down into a puddle of sobbing fury after his gun control agenda was defeated. Do you see any evidence of the tiniest fraction of such Presidential anger over the IRS scandal, Mr. Woodward?
“Much hangs in the balance here, not just the reputation of the news media for aggressiveness and some form of neutrality, but the whole relationship that the White House and the government has with the public about trust. … I think Obama can get ahead of this and really answer some of these questions,” Woodward said.
“This is not Watergate at all, but the road to Watergate is concealment, is not coming clean. … ‘Let’s call executive privilege; let’s stonewall.’ And if they do that, they will dig themselves in a hole.”
Yes, the media has a glowing reputation for “aggressiveness” against President Boyfriend to protect. You’ve never seen such feral lapdogs in your entire life.
Meanwhile, the IRS hierarchy is acting like a bunch of cheap hoods in an old-time gangster comedy, telling the Inspector General that nobody can quite remember where the orders to unleash hell on Obama’s political opponents came from. Some of them actually refused to answer the IG’s questions. That seems like something Bob Woodward’s dreamy tough-guy President could fix with a press conference and a couple of phone calls. Funny how he’s not rushing to the microphones to take care of it.
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Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller – who, contrary to the Hill’s uncritical regurgitation of Obama talking points, most certainly did not resign in disgrace following an angry phone call from the President – actually said he used to know who ordered the witch hunt, but he just plumb forgot the name, gosh golly gee whiz.
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Imagine the reaction of Bob Woodward, and the rest of the media, if this kind of silly crap was pouring out of Richard Nixon’s IRS, while the President sat on the sidelines. They would have been camped on the front porch of the White House demanding to know why the President hadn’t cleaned house at the IRS. They would already be well into the “what did the President know, and when did he know it?” phase. Perhaps our “aggressive” media will get there after the rumored eruption of damaging documentation from frustrated low-level IRS employees tired of getting blamed for this outrage, when in truth they were just following orders.
