Taking Notes

Stonewalling is an extremely effective strategy, particularly if you're an administration that has the media in its pocket and at the same time, controls enough Senate votes to kill any attempt at getting to the truth. It's currently Day 292 of the IRS scandal. You remember, the one in which the IRS, directed by shadowy figures in Washington, DC, was used to intimidate and harass opponents of Barack Obama during a presidential election year. The scandal began with a senior IRS officer, Lois Lerner, refusing to testify by taking the 5th in front of congress while at the same time arguing that all of this happened as a result of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati. The president first professed "outrage" at the events, but that quickly morphed into his assessment the scandal was "phony." His trained hamsters in the media refused to ask hard questions and generally prefer to say "lah, lah, lah" whenever new information (and there has been much new information) surfaces.

In earlier posts, I suggested that the IRS scandal is at least as serious as Watergate—an abuse of power that led to the resignation of a president. In part, the misuse of the IRS was what drove the Congress to draft articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, a venal, corrupt politician who viewed anyone who disagreed with him as the enemy. Scott Johnson comments:

The charge that Richard Nixon attempted to misuse the IRS for political purposes made its way into the second of the three articles of impeachment against him. Nixon “endeavoured” to misuse the IRS, in the fancy British spelling of the word used in article 2. Nixon’s efforts to misuse the IRS were futile. They went nowhere. Nixon and his henchmen desired the IRS to “screw” their political opponents, but their efforts were a pathetic failure.

Nixon henchman Jack Caulfield astutely complained that the IRS was a “monstrous bureaucracy…dominated and controlled by Democrats.” As we have come to see, Caulfield was on to something. By contrast with Nixon’s failures to misuse the IRS, the IRS have very effectively “screwed” Obama’s political opponents, and we have yet to learn what the president knew and when he knew it.

The interesting thing is that Nixon "endeavoured" to use the IRS, failed to do so, and was correctly pilloried by the media, by responsible politicians in both parties, and by the public. Barack Obama did more than "endeavour"—he weaponized the IRS in a presidential election year, crippling some of his opponents. Instead of outrage, we get crickets.

Democrats circle the wagons, buying in to Obama's outrageous statement that there isn't "a smidgegen of evidence" that corruption occurred. It was all just "boneheaded" moves in Cincinnati. Maybe that's because the "investigation," has been non-existent. Almost 9 months after the story broke, the Eric Holder's DoJ and the FBI haven't interviewed witnesses, haven't talked with those that were targeted, and have dragged their feet, hoping that it will all just go away. Obama already knows the result—not a smidgen.

Because of media complicity in this broad cover-up, it's very likely that the Obama administration will never be held to account for this serious abuse of power. As a consequence, Barack Obama has established an effective strategy for perpetrating serious government abuse (that is, as long as you're a left-leaning democrat who is a media darling).

When he ran for office the first time, Barack Obama promised a new kind of politics. I guess this is it. Rest assured that politicians in both parties are taking notes.

Update:
-------------
The House Ways and Means Committee has oversight responsibility for the IRS. Bridget Johnson reports that over the past 9 months, both Democrats and Republicans on the committee have co-signed letters to the IRS requesting a variety of information that would shed light on who ordered the illegal targeting, who coordinated it, and who, if anyone, in the administration should be culpable. In a classic example of stonewalling—an art that has been perfected by the Obama administration—five of the six letters have gone unanswered.

Yesterday,[ House Ways and means Committee Chairman, Dave] Camp sent IRS Commissioner John Koskinen a letter requesting again all documents related to the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

“At a recent Subcommittee on Oversight hearing on January 28, 2014, you promised to work with the Committee to fulfill this months-long request,” the chairman wrote. “However, we have yet to receive any additional Lerner documents. If the IRS does not take immediate steps to provide the Committee with documents responsive to this request, I will consider using compulsory process to compel them.”

It's about time that subpoenas be drafted and presented. In fact, it's way past the time when that should have happened.