100 Days

In the early days of the Watergate scandal, investigative progress was glacially slow. The Nixon Whitehouse stonewalled every congressional query, and Nixon's supporters denigrated any attempt to get to the truth. It was, after all, a "third rate burglary" of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. At the time, it looked like it was going nowhere. A corrupt and venal president was looking for political intelligence that would somehow put his opponents at a disadvantage. It took almost two years for the truth the be known and ultimately forced Nixon to resign his presidency.

As the current IRS scandal approaches day 100, investigative progress continues to be glacially slow. The Obama Whitehouse has stonewalled every congressional query, and Obama's supporters have denigrated any attempt to get to the truth. The IRS scandal is, after all, (1) the work of rogue IRS agents in Cincinnati (oops, that's wrong!), (2) a misinterpretation of complex tax laws that never reached D.C. (oops, check that!), something that did reach D.C but never reached the Whitehouse in any way (oops, wrong again!), (4) a "phony" scandal (really?).

As I have stated in a number of recent posts, Obama's IRS scandal has a distinct and obvious nixonesque feel. The only problem is the offenses that allowed the IRS to target small, citizen-organized opposition groups are far more serious and ominous than a "third rate burglary" of the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

The Washington Examiner comments:

It takes preternatural naivete to accept claims that nobody in the Obama White House knew about the illegal targeting conducted by the IRS during the 2010 and 2012 campaigns, namely the harassing treatment of Tea Party, conservative and evangelical groups seeking nonprofit status. Obama has a history of going after critics with something more than reason and logic. In 2008, he encouraged supporters to "get in their face" when dealing with opponents. There was also the massive call-in organized by his campaign the same year demanding that a radio station cancel an interview with National Review's Stanley Kurtz about Obama's links to radical leftists like Students for a Democratic Society/Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers.

Indeed, "preternatural naivete" is something that many innocent Obama supporters have in abundance, but it's not what drives the Democratic politicians who look the other way when laws are alleged to be broken.

People close to this President likely sanctioned the IRS attack on his opponents. At the least, they have corrupted a government agency (recall that in 1972, the IRS actively resisted requests from the Nixon whitehouse to do essentially the same thing that has happened in this instance) and in all probability that people close to this President have committed criminal acts. The public is understandably more worried about a a dreadful economic picture that remains after five years of Obama's flailing attempts to achieve economic growth through massive government spending and increased taxation. The media? Crickets.

Will the truth emerge? I think it's possible, but unlikely. The media led the charge against Nixon's corruption and to some extent forced the political class to act. The MSM remains silent, refusing to investigate a clear case on government corruption at the highest level, afraid that they'll bring this presidency (already an objective failure) to its knees. But the IRS scandal investigation will move forward. It will be interesting to see what develops over the next 100 days and the 100 days after that. Until the truth emerges, it will not stop. Nor should it.