Republican scandal-mongering #2

Let's see:   we have Benghazi, the IRS, and now the DoJ and the AP.   Any other big deals the Repubs can try to turn into a scandal?

1.  As a scandal, Benghazi is a non-starter, except that it involves the loss of life and world-image.   Turns out, according to an excellent column by David Brooks in Tuesday's New York Times, that the U. S. mission in Benghazi was primarily a CIA operation, and it was their responsibility to provide security.   But the whole "scandal," about who said what, is the result of trying to shift the blame within from CIA to State Department.   They clashed over what the early "talking points" should be, so they only put out -- and this is where Susan Rice's Sunday morning debacle originated -- what both CIA and State could agree on, which wasn't much.   Which meant that the least controversial story (reaction to the anti-Muslim cartoon) was what got focused on, excluding other possibilities that had different interpretations by different agencies.   The more likely bases for the attack on our mission were cancelled out in the inter-department disagreements.

As to the so-called "cover-up" by the White House, that's just a lot of bullshit from Republicans trying to discredit Obama and, more especially, Hillary Clinton.   Today, CNN released a copy of the real email from a top WH aide that had been released in supposedly summary form by ABC a few days ago.   The two versions have very different implications, the real text lending itself much less to charges of cover-up.

So is this "scandal" really more about turf war/blame war between the CIA and the State Department?

2.  The IRS non-scandal was pretty much explained in my post on yesterday.

3.  Now the DoJ/Associated Press story may be a real scandal -- or it may not.  We don't yet know the details of what Justice was investigating, so it's hard to say whether it was justified.  AG Eric Holder has said that the security breach they were investigating was one of the most serious that he has  seen in his whole 30+ year career as a prosecutor -- supposedly justifying the whole operation.

 We also don't know whether DoJ obtained a warrant for the phone taps.   So it's premature to call it a scandal until more is known, at least known to Congressional oversight or the DoJ Inspector General.

However, it does raise the worries that many have , on both ends of the political spectrum, about Big Brother and loss of our privacy in the interest of security.   Personally, I am in favor of a Free Press in big capital letters.   It is a necessary fourth branch of our governmental system to make democracy work.   Not that it has functioned too well lately in being the watchdog that keeps our political leaders honest.   That's even more reason to protect it's autonomy and rights.

I'm going to reserve judgement on #3 until we know more.  But the other two, in my opinion, are not worth the time/energy being lavished on them.    The Obama administration needs to do a better job of candid explaining -- just as David Brooks did in his column.   Don't let the Darrel Issa's and the Lindsey Graham's steal the show and push a story beyond any ability to rein it back in with common sense and factual explanations.

Ralph