The Times Way

The pejorative phrase, "The Chicago Way," is often used to describe corrupt and mendacious behavior by the Obama administration. It's laughable, therefore, that the geniuses on The New York Times Editorial Board use a play on the phrase in an editorial critique of Chris Christie. Entitled "The Christie Way," the editorial begins:

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey tried to change the subject on Tuesday with his annual State of the State speech, talking about longer school days and reducing urban crime. But there is no diverting attention from the unanswered questions about how Mr. Christie and his close advisers have used his office to mete out rewards or punishment for political reasons.

The give and take of politics is one thing. But Mr. Christie’s team crossed that line into political abuse.

Seriously?

Let assume for a moment that Christie is guilty of everything that Democrats and their media allies accuse him of. Let's assume that he's corrupt, vindictive, dishonest ... the whole nine yards. Editorial outrage would therefore be in order.

Except ... the outrage is coming from a group of editors (trained hamsters) who have worked assiduously to protect the Obama administration during its myriad national scandals. They have shown very little curiosity about events associated with each scandal, there has been almost no continuing reporting on each scandal, they have very little interest in placing news about each scandal on page one, and they shamelessly promulgate the administration line on each scandal (think "phoney").

The Obama scandal most analogous to the Christie mess—but far, far, more serious in scope, lawless, vindictiveness, and blatant dishonesty—is the use of the IRS to intimidate political opponents of this president.

More than 250 days after the IRS itself announced wrong doing, the Obama administration, with the help of trained hamsters on the NYT editorial board, have successfully stonewalled the issue. The FBI "investigation" headed on the civilian side by an major Obama donor, has done little to investigate, but has announced that no criminal action would be taken before the investigation has been completed. Most groups who were the targets of the IRS weren't even questioned—so much for completeness.

So ... where's the outrage from the media? Just imagine for a moment that an IRS executive under a Republican president took the 5th when asked to testify before congress while targeting, say, MoveOn.org. You can bet your life the media wouldn't buy into the mendacious claim that the scandal was "phoney."

But this president is a Democrat so "the Chicago Way" holds sway—stonewall, lie, misdirect, pressure critics, and know that the trained hamsters in the media will be your ally.

That's The Times Way.