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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

The IRS Scandal, Day 1350:  Even Trump Adviser Buys Myth Of 'Scandal-Free Administration,' Despite IRS, Five Other Scandals

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Wall Street Journal: Obama’s ‘Scandal-Free Administration’ Is a Myth, by John Fund (National Review) & Hans Von Spakovsky (Heritage Foundation):

You often hear that the Obama administration, whatever its other failings, has been “scandal-free.” Valerie Jarrett, the president’s closest adviser, has said he “prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself.”

Even Trump adviser Peter Thiel seems to agree. When the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd observed during an interview that Mr. Obama’s administration was “without any ethical shadiness,” Mr. Thiel accepted the premise, saying: “But there’s a point where no corruption can be a bad thing. It can mean that things are too boring.”

In reality, Mr. Obama has presided over some of the worst scandals of any president in recent decades. Here’s a partial list: ...

• IRS abuses. Mr. Obama’s Internal Revenue Service did something Richard Nixon only dreamed of doing: It successfully targeted political opponents. The Justice Department then refused to enforce Congress’s contempt citation against the IRS’s Lois Lerner, who refused to answer questions about her agency’s misconduct. ...

All of these scandals were accompanied by a lack of transparency so severe that 47 of Mr. Obama’s 73 inspectors general signed an open letter in 2014 decrying the administration’s stonewalling of their investigations. ...

The president’s journalistic allies are happily echoing the “scandal-free” myth. Time’s Joe Klein claims Mr. Obama has had “absolutely no hint of scandal” in his presidency. The media’s failure to cover the Obama administration critically has been a scandal in itself—but at least the president can’t be blamed for that one.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/01/the-irs-scandal-day-1350even-trump-adviser-buys-myth-of-scandal-free-administration-despite-irs-five.html

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Comments

There's some irony with the press parroting President Obama's objectively false proposition about "no scandals", considering it was his DOJ that secretly subpoenaed AP phone records, attempted to prosecute a Fox News reporter for not revealing his sources, and brought the hammer down hard on leakers and whistleblowers, and pretty much anybody else working in government who might be tempted to talk to the press. I understand editors and reporters by and large voted for him, twice, but I guess they don't place a very high value on their own integrity.

Now I read they're parroting the idea that President Obama is leaving office with a "high" or "historically good" approval rating, another objectively false proposition.

The Fourth Estate is sorely in need of renovation, from the ground up...

Posted by: MM | Jan 19, 2017 1:09:05 AM

The MSM are an off-shoot of the Democratic party...want some fun? Check out the you tube election night programs on the Big Networks. The anchors go from ebullient at 8 pm to sullen by 10:30. Their lack of interest in Lois Lerner and her pals taking the Fifth over "crashed" hard drives and erased back-up tapes is astonishing.

Posted by: VoteOutIncumbents | Jan 18, 2017 8:37:24 AM