False Realities

All politicians spin the facts—doesn't matter whether they're GOP or Dem, conservative or progressive—all politicians spin. We all accept it, discount the spin if we're knowledgeable enough to recognize it, and move on.

Spin is the ability to put the very best face on a set of facts that might be damaging, without being blatantly dishonest. But when the spin become counter-factual, when an objective assessment of known events, rulings, and behaviors indicate that the "spinner" is trying to create a false reality, spinning crosses the line and becomes lying.

When Barack Obama appeared on John Stewart's late night broadcast and argued that the IRS targeting of those who opposed his policies didn't happen or was attributable to confusion at a local level, he was working to create a false reality.

The Boston Herald Editorial Board notes:

In 2013, after the IRS inspector general confirmed the use of inappropriate criteria in vetting applications for tax-exempt status, the president was resolute.

“Regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place,” he [Obama] said then, “the bottom line is, it was wrong.”

Hmmm. Yet today, Barack Obama's attempt at revisionist history provides us with a different interpretation:

“When there was that problem with the IRS, everyone jumped ... saying, ‘Look, you’ve got this back office, and they’re going after the Tea Party’ ” Obama told Stewart. “Well, it turned out, no, Congress had passed a crummy law that didn’t give people guidance in terms of what it was they were trying to do. They did it poorly and stupidly.”

The Boston Herald's editors comment:

“Back office”? As was widely reported, the guidance to single out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny apparently came from the IRS in Washington.

Beyond that, the idea that Lois Lerner, who was head of the tax-exempt office, and her colleagues simply didn’t have the proper guidance required to vet applications — and that it was not their fault, but the fault of Congress — is, like an episode of Stewart’s show, laugh-out-loud funny.

The law exempting nonprofit groups from taxation has been around since the 1950s, but only after the proliferation of conservative 501(c)4 groups did it become “crummy”?

The president elicited more laughs by adding that the “real scandal” is that the IRS has been so poorly funded “that they cannot go after these folks who are deliberately avoiding tax payments.” So ... they had to fall back on ideology?

So ... the "real scandal" is that the IRS is underfunded? I suppose that's because they didn't do a good enough job of attacking American citizens, and like all big government ideologues, Barack Obama has only one solution when a government agency fails to do its job—spend more taxpayer money.

Obama's interview gives us yet another window into the man. Looking through the window, albeit a very small glimpse, the view is not pretty.

The salient question to ask is this: If Barack Obama and his administration repeatedly and blatantly attempt to create false realities whenever their actions and motives are questioned, how is it possible to believe any claim that they make?