- The Benghazi massacre
- Fast & Furious gun-running operation
- Associated Press wiretap operation
- Targeting of conservative organizations by the IRS
- Investigation of a journalist and his family because he asked questions
- The Pigford Scandal
- HHS Secretary soliciting donations from companies the HHS would later regulate
- Solyndra
- NSA data mining program
And the list could go on and on…
While each bullet point above ranges from the inexcusable (Benghazi) to a program that was not administered correctly (Pigford), all have one common thread, which is that they occurred on Obama’s watch. Of course no leader can possess the power to micro-manage an organization (let alone an entire country), and all administrations are faced with a scandal or two. This administration however seems to have closets full of skeletons waiting to step out and dance in the public view.
And what does the president do to address these issues? Not much really. Of course he presents a concerned appearance when seen in public. He has a press conference, although we can’t really call them that because he rarely takes questions. When he does, it is apparent that they are scripted in advance – wouldn’t want the POTUS to have to think on his feet would we? He promises to get to the bottom of this (insert scandal here) and basically kick the ass (his words) of the person responsible.
In reality though, not much ever happens. The story fades from the forefront of the news and life goes on. This happens much faster if there is some sort of crisis which conveniently occurs to capture the nation’s attention. A good shooting, hurricane, bombing, plane crash, or errant YouTube video go a long way with helping to distract the population from the real issue at hand. And this administration excels at managing these crises to their maximum benefit.
Through it all, we see just what type of leader we have in the White House. He doesn’t take control. He doesn’t follow through with a decisive action to make sure such scandals never occur again. He sure as hell doesn’t show leadership in a crisis and do what it takes to protect American citizens from harm. If you don’t believe that I would say ask our late Libyan Ambassador if he is satisfied by the administration’s response to his pleas for help. This President just looks at the crisis and tells us it is not that bad, it is not really a scandal, or this is simply a partisan attack on his policies; policies, which by the way are going to save us all from any evil imaginable.
In other words, he just shrugs off these issues as though they are beneath him. Move along people, nothing to see here. Isn’t the season finale of The Voice on right now? That’s right worry about real problems like who is going to be eliminated on whatever reality show you prefer. Let us handle this boring government stuff.
And the scary part is that it works. He is an expert at making the worst seem like a trivial matter. Lose an ambassador and security staff in a late-night massacre? Blame a video with a viewership less than that of the lowest rated television show as the reason it happened. All of a sudden your media darlings are running with the story that the video enraged the local peaceful demonstrators. The massacre had nothing to do with the fact that you removed the one person in the country that had kept the peaceful demonstrators in check all this time, it was the video. The massacre had nothing to do with the fact that someone ordered U.S. forces to stand down and ignore requests for assistance from the ambassador, it was the video people.
Fast and Furious gun-running scheme intended to find out how Mexican drug cartels get guns. To a normal person this would be a no-brainer. They get them illegally. A Border Patrol Agent was killed with one of the guns in question. Innocent Mexican citizens were killed with the guns in question. Yet the response from the administration was that the program started under his predecessor and it was carried out by lower level management acting without approval of his administration. Of course this would later be found out to be untrue. However, by that time there was anew crisis and more importantly, Beyonce and Jay-Z were having a baby! Priorities people, priorities.
When all else fails blame Bush. It pretty much goes like this with each new scandal. And up until this point the press has been just as complicit in the attempts to direct attention to other issues and make the problem go away. However with the latest scandals it seems as though the press has opened their eyes for the first time. Funny how when you become the target of the person you were instrumental in placing in office it becomes a different story huh?
The press has found out that they are not above a little monitoring and intimidation by this administration. With this realization they are stunned and now all of a sudden we are seeing more coverage of the scandals. Mind you that most of this information was available before the last election but the mainstream press chose to ignore it. They can give any excuse they want, but any person with a ounce of common sense knows that the purpose was to deflect controversy and accusations of wrongdoing away from the President in a crucial election season. The ploy worked and the masses were more informed of the fact that Mitt Romney wasn’t standing next to his trash can every week with a tall glass of lemonade to whet the thirst of the garbage man, rather than the fact that the administration could care less that the Libyan Ambassador and his security people were being murdered while we watched.
The media has now partially joined the calls for answers from this administration. It is doubtful that anything will come of it. The media show will taper off after some time. Some crisis will distract the country or maybe Beyonce will pop out another kid.
Through it all though this president will talk at length as to what he plans to do about the problem (provided his speech is prepared in advance). The sheep will listen in passing because American Idol tryouts are about to start and that is so much more important. And life will go on, freedom will be eroded, and rights of the citizens ignored.
Someone remarked to me the other day that Obama seems to be able to shrug off any scandal with little or no effort. I explained that the man is an expert at it but the true crime in this country is not the ability of Obama to remain unscathed through these scandals.
The true crime is that the American people are more adept at shrugging off these issues than Obama.