Ron Fournier is digging into the heart of why Obama is just like Bush:
Why does this matter? Because a president’s credibility matters. President Bush’s second term effectively ended when Americans grew tired of his administration’s spinning and dissembling over Iraq and Katrina. They stopped trusting him. They stopped listening to him. He no longer had the moral authority to lead.
You guys, it wasn’t gross incompetence that turned the country against Bush, it was “spinning and dissembling”. If Scott McClellan, Tony Snow and Dana Perino had just flat-out told the press that Iraq was a clown show /cluster fuck and people died in Katrina because FEMA was gutted and ignored, then Bush would have been far more popular. Now Jay Carney is repeating the deadly mistake of trying to mislead the press about Benghazi and the IRS auditing tea partiers, which makes them just as bad as a war that killed 4,500 soldiers, or a storm that claimed 1,800 victims.
Cassidy
Oh God. You defended Obama. Now our purity scolds will come tell us (again) how we’re all Nixon Republicans and we had the votes for single payer and he’s worse than Bush and if he would just lead and be a leader and…I’m forgetting some, I know.
Oh and DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
maya
Obama is Flubya.
Betty Cracker
Fournier is a thick-headed hack. Did you see his exercise in pearl-clutching over a David Plouffe tweet earlier today? Plouffe wrote:
Fournier’s article about it is entitled: “Did David Plouffe Justify IRS Targeting Conservatives?” Uh, no, you dumb motherfucker.
jayjaybear
The GOP’s binary worldview is getting very old. There are no shades of bad. There is just “THEY DID IT TOO!” Even when the two things being compared are a scratch on your hand and a double above-knee amputation.
Redshirt
I give up. Let’s “Heighten the contradictions” and give the Repukes everything they want. Surely, when America (and the world) is a smoking ruin, folks will finally say “we need REAL progressive leadership in America!”.
pokeyblow
Obama has made some very big mistakes.
Letting Bush/Cheney et al. off the hook for the Iraq War was one.
Letting Wall Street off the hook for everything is another.
Tongue-kissing the insurance industry with his health care reform is a third.
Putting social security cuts on the table is a fourth.
But he’s not like Bush. Bush is a mass murderer, and a thief.
Obama doesn’t steal, at least not for himself. He does have a tendency to give gifts to the opposition which other folks end up paying for, however.
Bush deserves Saddam’s fate — I think this, although Obama strongly disagrees with me — while Obama is just a politician with judgment gaps many of his supporters devote their lives to ignoring.
Hunter Gathers
Think Fournier regrets taking that job working for McCain? Conservative cock must taste like the finest chocolate.
Ruckus
Both sides? We get both sides(which is not even true, like every other time) from a supposed to be journalist?
It really is true then that the right side of the isle is composed of 4yr old idiots. As opposed to the entire group of 4yr old toddlers. Of course this is not the first conformation, only one more on a continuous assembly line of stupid.
The only positive light is that they have nothing and they keep telling us that.
BGinCHI
These journos, or whatever the fuck they are, are getting so stupid I almost can’t read and think about this shit anymore.
Honestly.
It’s getting more ridiculouser every day.
askew
Fournier and the rest of the media are doing their best to discredit Obama because it pisses them off that the general public likes and approves of him no matter what BS the media flings at him. MSNBC’s white liberals are wetting themselves in their excitement to bring Obama down right now.
Brandon
Tl;dr
I’m bored. Any pictures of kittens?
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Unfortunately, what a lot of those fuckers want involves firearms and a fetish dream that makes Rwanda look like a Disneyland.
MomSense
@pokeyblow:
Do you have this list saved so you can just paste it in to all the threads? Probably super efficient but just to make it fun you could try mixing things up a bit. Or you could always just put one sentence in per post. That way it would spread the information throughout the thread. People may forget your list 30 comments later and it is really important stuff that gets overlooked in all of the blind Obama adoration here at balloon-juice.
Frankensteinbeck
From what I can tell, most of the national press still believes that invading Iraq was an awesome cowboy adventure and Katrina was full of looters who got what they deserved. So, yes, not being absolutely straightforward about it was Bush’s one flaw. They have no concept that the rest of America doesn’t see things this way.
@Cassidy:
Well predicted.
pokeyblow
@MomSense: Those are the main four items on my list. It’s not hard to type them out… I took typing class (on a typewriter) back in high school and am surprisingly good at it.
Ed in NJ
It’s hilarious how this IRS thing is “recharging” the Tea Party. I look forward to all the crazy candidates they run next year, leading to a Democratic House. Well played, IRS/White House.
the Conster
Katrina explained Iraq. And “heckuva job Brownie” after Katrina explained the entire Bush/Cheney shameless incompetence to everyone with a pulse.
What does Benghazi explain?
Ash Can
The more I hear about this IRS horsecrap the stupider the “controversy” sounds. I wish to holy freaking hell these people would all just stand up and scream “WE HATE HAVING A BLACK DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT” and get it over with and let life go on. These people are going to be rolling around on the ground and smearing their own shit all over themselves and crying that Obama made them do it, by the time this is all over.
pokeyblow
@the Conster: In a fubar world, Benghazi doesn’t mean shit. Perhaps something might have been done better (e.g., GOP approval for increased embassy security funding). But there’s no way in hell what happened was any sort of high crime. Bad luck, bad timing, whatever. Shit happens all over the place, all the time.
But the GOP doesn’t care, because the GOP doesn’t give two fks in a cat’s ass about playing fair.
Most people know that. Obama doesn’t seem to, however.
Scott S.
The world would be a better place if Ron Fournier got punched in the face every single day for the rest of his life.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Sure! Once we’re living in a Theocratic police state, Americans will realize Republicans are bad and vote in a Congress full of Kuciniches and Darcy Burners. Then we can enact true Progressive Legislation! It will be glorious.
Therefore, we need to Impeach Obama – from the Left!
Ash Can
@Ed in NJ: From your lips to the FSM’s orecchiete.
Chris T.
Off topic analogy that occurred to me this morning..
[scene: fire breaks out, firemen come and begin applying water]
KRUGMAN: Uh, hey guys? That’s an electrical fire, you can’t use water to put it out.
CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR CHORUS: Oh, look, Paul Krugman believes you can never use water to put out a fire!
KRUGMAN: No you idiot, water is fine in most cases, but with an electrical fire it will just make things worse.
CCCHORUS: Hah, everyone knows austerity water is just the thing! Look, it’s working in Ireland!
KRUGMAN: Part of the fire over there was not electrical, and anway, Ireland’s now full of electrocuted dead people.
CCCHORUS: Well of course they’re dead, they got burned in the fire! Krugman is so dumb, he doesn’t understand fires!
KRUGMAN: Most of them would still be alive. Look, we used some nonconventional firefighting here in the US and it’s working better.
CCCHORUS: MORE WATER NOW NOW NOW!
Hill Dweller
After the Obama-Cameron presser, Matthews and Todd literally discussed the style points of Obama’s answers.
As an aside, with the exception of Maddow’s show, I avoid cable news like the plague. After watching MSNBC for the last hour, it continues to be the right decision.
Cassidy
@the Conster:
Shit happens. Navy SEALs aren’t invincible; we know this but wingers lurve them some false idols. State Dept needs to roll deep.
Interesting anecdote (to me), I actually applied to a position with the State Dept before I decided to be a Firefighter. They were hiring “contractors” but instead of working for a PMC, you’d be a contract employee of the State Dept. The positions were in Diplomatic Security with the idea that the security team would be made up of these contractors headed up by two DS Agents, specifically to deploy/travel to high threat areas. The pay wasn’t as good as a PMC, but was more reliable and, if you were looking to go into DS, a foot in the door to get hired as an agent. When I told the recruiter that I wasn’t coming to the interview she seemed bummed because my resume made me desirable.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ed in NJ:
The TP reminds me very much of some of the meth heads whom I knew in days of old. Those fuckers could hear a car door close three blocks away and they were always certain that it was the cops.
gene108
@the Conster:
Nothing really that the Republicans haven’t been trying to tarnish him with for the past 5-6 years, such as he can’t be trusted on national security, for example.
At this point, it is more about trying to set up their ducks for a 2016 run, where they hope they can recapture the electoral wave of 2000, when there wasn’t an incumbent President.
Butch
I was just reading Mr. Pierce, who reminded me that one part of this “scandal” was that the Benghazi talking points were edited 12 times, and speaking as a government contractor my response was “only 12?” Just as an example, I was recently asked to review a government document dated 2002 and it is STILL labeled “preliminary draft.”
lonesomerobot
No, no, Mistermix, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re missing the subtext – after “Why does this matter,” add, “(to me and my friends in the press).” Then it all makes sense!
You see, the press are only offended when they feel they are being played for fools, or when the curtain is momentarily drawn back to show the whole thing as a farcical circle jerk. So lying us into a good old war is just fine and dandy, and great for the news biz. They were all fine to go along with all that, as long as they didn’t feel like they were being brazenly lied to (mind you, some lying as all good, especially if only the DFHs are complaining; then it’s BONUS POINTS), or as having been manipulated for political goals.
But the moment that changed and the “journalists” sensed they might be getting made fools of — or worse, shown to be too pliant and complicit in enabling the original lies to go unchallenged — then IT’S ON!
In the Bush years it was, “HOW DARE YOU LET THE PUBLIC KNOW WE HAVE NO CREDIBILITY?!” And now for Obama, it’s, “HOW DARE YOU HAVE CREDIBILITY WHEN WE DON’T?!”
It’s OK until Ron Fournier gets his fee fees hurt.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Scott S.:
Fixed.
Short Bus Bully
Make no mistake, this IRS thing has legs. It plays into EVERY conservative fantasy all at one time.
Bad tax man? Check.
Victimized Republicans? Check.
Jack booted thugs? Check.
Socialist Preznit abusing government powers to target white folks? Check and DOUBLE CHECK MOTHERFUCKERS!!
“They are coming for our guns next!” CHIZITTY-CHECK.
Feel free to add more as necessary…
Tone in DC
@Hunter Gathers:
Thanks for that. Really.
As for Benghazi, Fux News is hyperventilating for the second or third week in a row (ZOMG coverup!!! Obama is undermining our national security eleventy!!!!1!) I’m not surprised, I’m just disappointed.
pokeyblow
@the Conster: I’ll add that, in the world of wishful teabagger thinking, Benghazi means Obama fucked up just like Bush did on 9/11. Same goes for the Boston Marathon bombing.
Ridiculous? Yes, of course. But stupid people have to believe ridiculous things… unless they want to stop being stupid.
MomSense
@Redshirt:
Hold on you may need to scratch Dennis from the list now that he is a FUX “news” contributor.
Roger Moore
@Chris T.:
That’s actually quite good. You should consider sending it to Krugman to see if he’d like to use it in one of his columns. You might want to use a different kind of dangerous unconventional fire (I’m inclined to think of a metal fire, where dumping on water actually makes it burn hotter) but the basic analogy is solid.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: I’m trying to figure out exactly how the T’Baggers were targeted? Hope they’re not getting any tax exemptions or tax breaks. They’re strictly political organizations. They should be heavily scrutinized.
MomSense
@Chris T.:
That works for me if you add that before the fire broke out the chorus said “we don’t want no stinking fire inspectors or tedious big government fire codes and we can’t spend money on updating our old, wiring”
pokeyblow
Fournier’s son apparently has some sort of emotional disorder. So Ron opens up his Rolodex:
Tyler and I drew up a list of places we wanted to visit, starting with those closest to our home in Arlington or connected to his favorite historical figure, Theodore Roosevelt. At Lori’s [Fournier’s wife] urging, I arranged meetings between Tyler and the two presidents I covered from the White House beat, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She thought: What better way for Tyler to both view history and learn social graces than to sit down with a former president?
What better way, indeed? And what better way to show off what a beatstick you are than to casually let your readers know that these guys will make special time for you?
Fucked-up.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/how-two-presidents-helped-me-deal-with-love-guilt-and-fatherhood-20121129
Hungry Joe
Benghazi is worse than Watergate. The IRS scandal is worse than Watergate. The climate-change hoax is worse than Watergate. You are worse than Watergate. I am worse than Watergate.
Benghazi is worse than Iran-Contra. The IRS scandal is worse than Iran-Contra. The climate-change hoax is worse than Iran-Contra. You are worse than Iran-Contra. I am worse than Iran-Contra.
Benghazi is worse than …
These loons are driving me way beyond insane. The GOP is the Lernaean Hydra Party — you chop off one nonsensical head and two grow in its place.
Punchy
I haytez yo noo phantz.
Redshirt
@MomSense: That’s a plus to the Firebaggers I’m mocking here. They can “work across the aisle”!
beltane
@Hill Dweller: Style points are all that matters to people whose range of experience runs from cocktail party to celebrity gala. “Civility” is a stand-in for decency with this crowd because they are utterly lacking in decency and wouldn’t know what it is even if it hit them in the face. All cable news does is show us a bunch of sleazy millionaires propagandizing on behalf of the billionaires who sign their very lavish paychecks. That’s why it’s pointless to hate on them as individuals. They are are merely interchangeable components of a corporate propaganda apparatus. People will do all kinds of things if you pay them enough-spreading misinformation on TV is the least of it.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
I think you can summarize the whole thing with “Any Democratic scandal is worse than every Republican scandal” or maybe just “IOKIYAR, INOKIYAD”.
Hill Dweller
One thing I didn’t know until today’s presser was Obama sent the Director of the Counter Terrorism Center up to Capitol Hill three days after the Susan Rice Sunday show appearances to tell them the attacks were carried out by extremists in Libya.
So we have Obama repeatedly calling it terrorism during the week after the attack, and sending his top counter terrorism official to congress to brief them on the extremists carrying it out. How is that supposed to be a cover up?
Tractarian
Is there any reason why words following the name “Ron Fournier” are treated any different than, say, words following the name “Rush Limbaugh”?
No, there is no reason, because there is no difference. Haters gonna hate. Life goes on.
smintheus
Republicans long ago tied Obama up in knots for the duration of his presidency. Benghazi 2.0 is at least as much about sending signals about Hilary: that she’s untrustworthy; that she’ll be controversial; that if she’s elected the GOP will be determined turn her presidency into a carnival just like Bill’s. It’s a message both to voters and to Hilary that it’s not worth going through all that again.
beltane
@pokeyblow: Fournier’s son has Aspergers Syndrome. I also have a son with AS, and I have invested a good amount of time making sure he learns “social graces” from caring, thoughtful adults just so that he never comes across sounding like Dubya.
danimal
I’m pissed at the IRS for their ham-handed idiocy; it was a bad idea poorly executed for no apparent reason.
But thankfully, by turning the outrage machine up to 11 on a number of non-scandals, the conservatives crying wolf will be ignored now, even as the IRS wolf is at the door.
Hungry Joe
@Roger Moore:
Fixed. But your comment was worse than Watergate. Your comment was worse than Iran-Contra. Your comment was …
lonesomerobot
@Tractarian: The difference is that Ron Fournier will get invited on WBUR’s ‘To The Point’ by Tom Ashbrook to weigh in on topics like a real, “objective” reporter. And then Totebaggers will get the impression that Ron Fournier is “serious”.
Roger Moore
@Hill Dweller:
Because he didn’t get everything right in the very first discussions before any facts were in. Besides, he’s blackity black black and a Democrat, which means that he’s wrong by definition no matter what he does. Get with the program!
Violet
It’s about time for a blonde white girl to go missing or a celebrity meltdown or a politician to be caught with the proverbial dead girl/live boy. SQUIRREL!
Edit: To be clear, I’m not hoping for anything bad to happen to anyone. Just thinking of the usual things that distract the disaster commonly known as our media.
pokeyblow
@beltane: Good job. I feared while writing my comment that it would come across as an attack on those with AS. Far from it.
If Fournier can get face-time for his kid with W, and thinks that will help his kid, then great. Writing the article and treating everything the therapy-purposed access his son has to two former presidents as some thing matter-of-factly quotidian, that’s screwed up.
Last I checked, lots of people, lots of children, can’t even see a fucking doctor when they’re sick. With respect to helping his son, Fournier has my best wishes. As the author of that article, Fournier can kiss my egalitarian ass.
lonesomerobot
We can all rest easy, genius Marco Rubio has written a sternly worded letter to Jack Lew to call for the resignation of the IRS Director. Brilliant! Except, the Director under whose watch this occurred was a Bush appointee and the current Director is an interim replacement.
BRILLIANT!
Roger Moore
@lonesomerobot:
Wait! Don’t tell me; let me guess: the Republicans are filibustering any appointment of a permanent director of the IRS.
Cassidy
@lonesomerobot: Shorter marc Rubio: I’m relevant! Pay attention to me! I was a frontrunner!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Violet: Except Obama refuses to be caught with an intern, or even use cigars. That’s what infuriates the media.
Jamie
Minor correction -It wasn’t just the gross incompetence that turned the Country against Bush
Mnemosyne
Is it just me, or does this seem like a tacit admission that there is no “scandal” here, so now we have to focus on whether or not the administration “spun” the information?
As far as I can tell, the terrifying abuse of power by the IRS was that several organizations were asked for additional documentation before their application was approved. And, uh, that was about it. The horror!
Villago Delenda Est
Fournier’s foul existence needs to end.
patroclus
I think that if you add the Holocaust to the Soviet Gulag and then add in the Khmer Rouge and Rwanda and multiply it by 80 trillion, it still wouldn’t equal the horrors of talking points being revised in an inter-agency process for a Sunday Morning chat [email protected]@@!! Ron Fournier clearly isn’t taking this seriously…
FlipYrWhig
“Moral authority to lead” is ponderous, empty nonsense of a phrase anyway.
Hungry Joe
@patroclus:
I see you conveniently omitted the North Korean prison camps, Obot.
f space that
@Short Bus Bully: Absolutely. Not only that it lets the “sane”, by MSM standards, Republicans make common cause with the nutbags like Ted “Calgary” Cruz. And no Democrat will defend the IRS. I feel sorry for the IRS, they are going to get shit hammered.
pokeyblow
You see, Bush had moral authority to lead when he lied us into the Iraq War.
He had it when, instead of moving quickly to equip himself with facts concerning the 9/11 attacks, he read a goat book for seven long minutes.
Also when he fooled around with a guitar and ate birthday cake with traitor McCain during the drowning of New Orleans. (Apparently Condi Rice had to see Spamalot alone that weekend, without her “husband.”)
He had it when the partisan supreme court appointed him president, disallowing a full vote-count because it might cause “irreparable harm” to Bush’s cause.
He only lost it later on, when Ron Fournier arbitrarily decided that “America” was tired of his “spinning and dissembling.”
What a revelation!
Tractarian
This.
To the majority of Americans, no matter how serious the IRS scandal is, it’s going to be lumped into the “Fast and Furious” pile of overblown partisan BS.
scav
Hmm. Credibility Match-up. Obama. v. MSM+Villagers. decision, decisions. Where to find all the blades required once we recover from laughing for hours like loons. Seriously, who replaced these jokers mirrors with photos of Edward R. Murrow?
jayackroyd
Had dday on VS last night. He said that this IS the media narrative for second terms–scandal obstructing any further accomplishments. They’re just waiting for something to come along to put into that frame.
The real news is republican obstructionism, but there’s no bipartisan compromise for that.
Chris
@Cassidy:
Oh, let’s be honest: the purity trolls would be doing that regardless.
“Hmm? What’s that, John? A picture of your dog? SHE WON’T LOOK SO CUTE WHEN YOU CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO BUY HER FOOD BECAUSE OBAMA DESTROYED THE ECONOMY argle bargle.”
Yatsuno
@Roger Moore: He hasn’t nominated one yet AFAIK. This whole mishegas will only make this harder and the Repukes will use this as an excuse to cut the IRS’ budget even further. FML.
ranchandsyrup
Any excuse to rev up the wingnut wurlitzer and circular firing squad. Everyone pining for the “daddy” republicans to come back? I’m not.
Loviatar
Epistemic closure thy name is Obot.
You guys can’t even take the criticism and separate it from the criticizer. Fournier maybe a Villager and an ass, but his criticism has validity. Add that with Short Bus Bully comment on the IRS scandal and you have a president whose 2nd term hasn’t started off well and will only head downhill from there.
——–
Republicans 2.0 = Obots
raven
@Loviatar: Eat shit and die motherfucker.
ranchandsyrup
@Loviatar: It has validity, in your opinion. But you don’t detail how it is valid. Care to do so?
Yatsuno
@Loviatar:
In what way, Charlie? Answer carefully.
Yatsuno
@ranchandsyrup: You. My brain. Out. Now. :P
Chris
@Hungry Joe:
More like the Marvel Comics Hydra Party, once you factor in the fascist roots and deep and abiding desire to bring down the United States.
quannlace
I thought it was claiming he was a ‘lame-duck President’ by the third month of his second term.
ranchandsyrup
@Yatsuno: Heh. I’m movin, I’m movin. Hope all is well Yatsy.
f space that
@Loviatar: Your bullshit enables the Republican party. PSGTFO.
Violet
@Loviatar:
Do you have a crystal ball? Cool that you can predict the future.
Todd
@danimal:
Corollary – when every formerly non-controversial government program becomes socialist tyranny, socialism and central government starts looking decent.
Calouste
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Fixedyfixed.
ranchandsyrup
@Violet: I love when people present their wishes or fantasies as fait accompli. Like the unskew the polls dude.
EconWatcher
The IRS thing does seem to involve at least poor judgment by some IRS officials. But if I understand the facts correctly, that poor judgment was corrected by other, more senior IRS officials before the matter became public. If that’s right, I don’t see how it’ll last very long.
Even with our bored media, how does “underling does something stupid, then corrected by supervisor” become a major political scandal?
Political scandals usually involve higher-ups doing something bad, often with lower level people trying to stop them and getting squashed. This thing happened on the wrong end of the reporting chain.
Cassidy
@Chris: True, but I can’t turn down an oppurtunity to mock them. I’m weak.
Violet
@EconWatcher:
Because the media want a scandal and they are looking for one. That’s why I said above we need the proverbial missing blonde, white girl, celeb meltdown or politician with dead girl/live boy to distract the media. The IRS thing is not enough of a scandal keep itself going without media attention. There’s no there there.
patroclus
@Hungry Joe: If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered by two gay married illegal immigrant Islamo-fascist abortionists who were trying to shove their “lifestyle” down the throats of otherwise innocent Americans, it still would pale in comparison to the outrage of the IRS checking the filings of admittedly conservative albeit non-partisan non-political tax exempt tea party groups!!! Ron Fournier is the very epitome of an Obot extraordinaire!
Chris
My goodness gracious, the entire website just changed. I like the new look!
Yatsuno
@EconWatcher: I think what happened is TIGTA found something not quite right and reported it to senior leadership. In other words, the system did its job, but that subtlety will be lost on the teatard folk. It’s all about teh TYRANNY and teh JACK-BOOTED THUGS!! And when the deficit gets worse because they cut compliance down to the bone, it’ll be allthe fault of welfare queens with Cadillacs.
piratedan
@Violet: because let’s be honest, Republicans being boorish, sending Grandma and Grandpa out to die in the snow under the overpass doesn’t get pageclicks you ninny. Now a black guy in a position of power and someone about fifteen positions removed from him possibly abusing their authority, hell we can spin that into a national outrage because all white people pay taxes.
(ps, sorry about the ninny comment, I was busy channeling Belushi’s “when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor speech”)
liberal
@Loviatar:
Not really.
If you look at my comment posts, I’m hardly an Obot. Most around here would consider me a firebagger (even though I’m not).
This IRS “scandal” merits a big yawn.
smintheus
@Chris: I think the different fonts clash. It’s hard to use sans-serif alongside serif fonts and not get a confusing look.
Patrick
@Loviatar:
With all due respect, if that’s your opinion then you haven’t been paying attention. The job market has finally started to take off. The last monthly report was phenomenal. There is a reason the Dow just keeps going up. And the economy is what drives opinion ratings of Presidents.
And people vote with their pocketbooks. Literally nobody cares about Benghazi. Hell, I follow politics and I don’t even understand what this fake pretend scandal is supposed to be all about.
And the IRS thing sounds like overblown hype as well. Furthermore, if Obama didn’t know about it, what the heck does this have to do with Obama? He didn’t appoint the IRS commissioner. Bush did.
Violet
@smintheus: I’m not a fan of the ALL CAPS titles. Feels like the titles are yelling.
Trollhattan
@lonesomerobot:
Yup, and the Rs are blocking his replacement’s nomination.
Remember the Good Old Days when the IRS was administered in a fashion wholly non-partisan? Me neither.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/16/local/me-allsaints16
TeaGhazi!
EconWatcher
@Yatsuno:
Thanks for the info. An Inspector General finding it sounds a little worse than it being discovered in the course of normal supervision. But still, if the leadership reacted promptly and appropriately after that, I don’t see where this goes.
I have to say though, unlike Benghazi, at least there is an issue here. You never want law enforcement agencies using political criteria for targeting groups based on their opinions. This is no where near the level of the US Attorney firings in seriousness, but you want to have zero tolerance for anything like that. Otherwise, you end up in Putin’s Russia.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
That will make the media fixate on it as if it were a scandal, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into the public seeing it that way. Despite all the claims about the stupidity of the American public, people are actually capable of judging the media based on its choice of topics. The longer they fixate on a supposed scandal without coming to the point and showing something scandalous, the more credibility they’re going to lose.
GxB
@the Conster:
That implies a solid 27% of the population are zomb… Ahhh, what you did there, was seen, by I.
@Chris T.: Very nice.
smintheus
@Violet: Yeah, that too. It’s not a theater marquee or a Roman inscription.
MomSense
@Redshirt:
Wait working across the aisle is a good thing? I thought that was proof of selling us out.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Violet: Well…take a look, we have an agency that is hated by the average joe, add the fact it was “targeting” consevatives, and it is not complicated to explain to an average TP’er. This mole hill is becoming a mountain, talk radio is jerking off on this because the uppity Black Guy is trying to go after Whitey. I don’t think this is going to disappear so quickly. And since there is very little journalism practiced by the cable news outlets(hell Fox is acting like a child on Christmas Day)be prepared to get swamped by it.
Tonal Crow
1. It’s not OK for government to target groups for special scrutiny based solely on political views.
2. It’s not OK when Republicans do it either.
3. Let’s investigate why similar (and worse) things also happened under Dubya. Sen. Reid, you said you’re a “boxer”. Well, throw some punches.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Tonal Crow: What if your job is to make sure that groups’ primary focus is to not be political?
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
It’s another case of whatever he’s doing being wrong. When he tries to accomplish anything by rallying the Democrats, he’s being unnecessarily partisan. When he tries to accomplish something by enlisting help from the Republicans, he’s giving up too much and selling out his party. Unless you’re an Obot, in which case rallying the Democrats is living up to his principles and compromising with Republicans is trying to get stuff done.
Ash Can
@Trollhattan:
Well then, it’s a good thing that the IRS did such a good job scrutinizing all the Catholic bishops who were campaigning against Obama last fall. Oh, wait…
SatanicPanic
I think all these Tea Party scams should be investigated. I don’t know what the big deal is.
jl
Yeah, well, so what? Let Fournier waste his time on this garbage if he wants.
Obama has run his last election for his own self. Only question now is whether he wants to go all out in the midterms to get a better Congress or not. And that partly is up to him. Big Dawg didn’t seem all that interested once his own ass was out of the fire, we have to hope Obama is more civic minded.
I read a poll that the public still trusts HRC over the GOP clowns and their “Benghazi!” show.
This stuff isn’t happening in a vacuum. The public can compare the behavior of the administration and the GOP. Maybe if the GOP still had enough competent scandal mongers like Nixon and Atwater. But the GOP has incompetent thugs and loons like Issa and penny ante ward heelers and two bit hoods like Johnny Bones.
Ash Can
@SatanicPanic: This. The tax-exemption of GOP astroturf organizations gets a second look from the IRS? Since when is it a scandal for the IRS to do its fucking job? I would expect any politically-tinged organization to get extra scrutiny from the IRS when it files for a tax exemption, regardless of where on the political spectrum it falls. That’s common sense. And these Tea Party scams got their exemptions anyway, and people are still crying? Fuck them.
GxB
@Loviatar: Dude(ette) your name sounds like a new pharmaceutical. I guess its fitting to add that if your ODS persists longer than 4 hours, discontinue posting and call your psychiatrist.
grandpa john
@EconWatcher: it’s a scandal because they say it is, remember the media will never let facts and truth get in the way of a good story.
Mnemosyne
@EconWatcher:
You also don’t want political groups funding candidates while hiding behind a nonprofit status, because that’s, y’know, illegal under current campaign finance laws.
If we’re at the point where IRS can’t even look at political groups to make sure they meet the criteria for the nonprofit status they’re requesting from the government because it’s government intrusion to make sure groups qualify for the government benefits they’re requesting, then we may as well pack it in and go home because the “small government” crowd has won.
grandpa john
@Trollhattan: How many congressional investigations did that trigger? none as I remember
Tractarian
It’s almost as if there is a REASON a tax-collecting agency might want to pay special attention who groups who proclaim that the government is a mortal enemy and any taxation is akin to armed theft. I can’t quite put my finger on it though.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
The Congressional GOP has been trying to hamstring the IRS in doing its job, and tolerating worse violations of law wrt liberal organizations since long before some IRS workers hatched this stupid idea of targeting applications on the basis of ideologically loaded key words.
So, I am not concerned about how the response to the teabagger keyword-gate will effect GOP hypocrisy and cynicism on the IRS, which will plow full steam ahead regardless.
Trollhattan
@Ash Can:
Yup. The crickets were keeping me awake the whole campaign. I suspect many of our finer suburban megachurches were showing their Obama love from the pulpit, also, too. Been awhile since I’ve seen one of them raided by the IRS.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I will be happy to be scandalized if it turns out that any group was improperly denied their tax-exempt status due to their political beliefs.
However, since no one seems to be able to find any group that that happened to, I’m not going to cry about how horrible it is that a few of them had to provide additional documentation to prove their eligibility.
And, yes, I do find it ironic that the people crying about how these groups had to provide additional documentation before they got their government benefits are the same ones who demanded that welfare recipients be given drug tests before they’re eligible for benefits. Yet again, IOKIYAR.
grandpa john
I am almost 76, seen a lot of political shit happen during my years, but I never thought I would live to see the time when one of the political parties decided that the way to advance their party is to totally ignore the welfare of the american public and make treason a virtue.
SatanicPanic
@Ash Can: yeah, they really should have been expecting this. Bunch of WATBs
Original Lee
Somewhat OT, but Obama’s competence appears to be trickling down even to some of the 27%. My extremely conservative in-laws were saying this past weekend that they were glad Obama was in office. I nearly cracked my jaw on the edge of the table.
They still don’t LIKE him, but somewhere, somehow, some of them have figured out that we would probably be involved in another war for sure if either McCain or Romney were in office.
MomSense
Just stepping back a bit from the particulars of this IRS kerfuffle, it seems that all the hatred of the IRS is really misplaced and that Republicans encourage it because the reality is that the IRS is just enforcing the tax laws that Congress creates.
jl
@Mnemosyne: To clarify in case there is any misunderstanding, what I am saying is just that if some IRS bureaucrats did something bad, I don’t think we should pull our punches in condemning it for fear of giving the GOP scandal fodder. The GOP will be digging that up anyway, and it will be counterproductive to try to rationalize what I think are obvious mistakes by people in the IRS.
Government agencies can harass people simply by making unfair demands, so I don’t think the fact that no one was eventually denied the status is a good excuse.
But, what really pisses me off is that I think the approach of using a few key words to screen for bogus applications was a very poor approach. Too easy to detect and evade, for one thing.
Another thing that pisses me off is that our miserable incompetent hacked up corporate media seems incapable of noticing that the GOP House has a role in these ‘scandals’; budget cuts for State Dept security, and obstruction of permanent leadership for IRS. Seems like the GOP House has no responsibility for anything, in the eyes of hacks like Todd, Gregory and Schieffer and their dozens of incompetent partisan hack colleagues.
jl
@Original Lee:
Huh? Thanks for that news. I am glad to hear it.
Maybe a little Angry Black Man from Obama right now would do some good. I sure liked it at his press conference today.
Maybe Obama was saving it for just the right time. And I will have to reconsider my disbelief in his supposed eleventy D chess mastery.
joel hanes
@Patrick:
I follow politics and I don’t even understand what this fake pretend scandal is supposed to be all about.
Benghazi is about two horrible crimes, to wit:
1. When announcing the loss of four lives at the Benghazi consulate, President Obama did not use the word order preferred by Republicans: he said “act of terror”, and they prefer “terrorist attack”.
2. The official State Department public statements were revised several times as facts came in and other parts of the government suggested rewording.
That’s the awful malfeasance that’s “worse than Watergate”: a disagreement about proper word ordering, and also a memo got revised. Too.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Somebody linked to a story in (I think) the thread right below this that said that the IRS used to have specific guidelines posted on their website about what information groups needed to provide in order to qualify for their requested status but — surprise, surprise — the guidelines were killed sometime during the Bush years and were never re-implemented, so a lot of offices ended up flailing around to figure out their own criteria.
To me, that would say that the answer is to establish uniform guidelines so IRS personnel don’t have to guess at the criteria and get themselves into pickles like the one they did here, but I guess that’s one of the things that makes me a DFH and not a Real American.
rikyrah
Fournier is an assclown.
An assclown who didn’t say SHYT during Dubyra’s reign.
fuck him.
Mike in NC
Fournier needs to step up his game to compete with hacks like Tapper, Halperin, and Todd.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
It was Kay who highlighted the passage from the Washington Post story:
Is there any way in which the Bushies did not fuck up the government with their poor management and short-sighted decisions?
jl
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, that is useful info.
Edit: sorry, i did not answer your questions: IMHO, no there is no way they did not.
Harold
Fournier is one of Rove’s minions http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14/aps-ron-fournier-to-karl_n_112696.html
ruviana
Dead thread prolly but I thought this was a good explanation. Ladies and gentlement, I give you SEK.
Bob In Portland
Two topics: Guantanamo and the Drug War. Cui bono?
Despite McCain’s hissy fits when there’s been talk of closing Guantanamo, I don’t really think there’s a real contituency for keeping it open, and there are actually a few liberals and civil libertarians out there who really want it closed. Obama said he wants to close it. Who’s stopping him?
Who really, really needs the drug war?
These are decisions that are made above and beyond our representative government. The fact that we are approaching the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination and no one says the obvious makes all these things possible. It makes them predictable.
The farther up the food chain you get in the Democratic Party the more you have to be a Republican. A reasonable Republican. Obama is to the right of Richard Nixon, and that is not praise of Nixon. It’s just an acknowledgement of the political, continental drift. A quarter inch a year, and suddenly South America is coming into style. Clinton allowed the criminality of Iran-contra to stand, and the structure of that criminality to continue to function (hello, Graham Fuller!), likewise, Obama, at one point a constitutional lawyer, is on duty to allow the insults to the Constitution done by Dubya to continue, to become part of the fabric of our country.
This has been going on for fifty years. Those of you who weren’t at least teens then don’t notice it. To notice it is to admit the ugly drift into fascism we’ve been living.
So, no, Obama is not as bad Dubya. I’m sure he sometimes feels bad about the disintegration of America.