The mostly media driven
scandal talk involving President Obama has so far stirred barely a yawn among
the public. There are good reasons. The four alleged scandals, Benghazi, the
IRS, the AP leaks, and Health
and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius supposed shakedown of
corporations to help implement the health care act
don't come close to passing the smell test for a public fogging of the president.
There is absolutely no clear cut evidence or testimony that Obama had any
knowledge of or hand in the missteps. And the comparison to Watergate, or
Nixon, is a joke and an insult.
Nixon orchestrated the long
train of Watergate criminal abuses. He and a slew of administration officials
resigned, retired, or were indicted for their criminal conduct. The IRS alleged
scandal is the one that does have the potential to generate some public
outrage, mostly because of the inherent public fear and animosity toward the
IRS. But the best or worst that can be said about this is that some IRS operatives
dissected the Tea Party and other political groups because some do blatantly
engage in political activities that IRS rules forbid after they get a tax
exemption. These officials went too far with their over intrusive scrutiny of
these groups. But this is a far cry from the blatant and direct misuse of the
IRS by past presidents from Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson to Republican Nixon too
whipsaw political groups they considered enemies.
Then there's the almost
ritual expectation by the public that second term presidents will be dogged by
some scandal. This was the case with Eisenhower, Nixon, of course, Reagan,
Clinton and George W. Bush. This shouldn't surprise. They've been in office a
long time. They run a big sprawling government with thousands of appointees and
personnel. This is simply beyond the pale of one person to control every facet
and decision their appointees and personnel make.
These are mere trifles,
though, when stacked up against the major reason that the media's
sensationalized missteps of the Obama administration have barely registered a
blip on the public chart. The reason is the GOP. It has stepped up its very
publicly avowed bitter, protracted and divisive war to stymie Obama's second
term presidency. It has virtually declared a boycott of his judicial nominees.
GOP senators have subjected his top cabinet picks to a free-wheeling public
attack, smear, and vilification campaign. GOP House Republicans have voted 37
times to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. Both House and Senate
Republicans have made it equally clear they will not even consider trying to do
a deal with Obama on fiscal and debt reduction measures.
The GOP has made no
secret that it will continue to use its two formidable weapons to further hammer
Obama. One is its power to say no in Congress. The hoped for payoff for the GOP
is that forcing Obama into a prolonged war with it will result in the White
House getting little or none of its legislative agenda through Congress and
this will sour public opinion on the White House. This has been the bane of
other presidents during their second term and has marred their legacy.
Then there's the power
of money. Since many well-heeled GOP corporate bankrolled candidates went down
to defeat in the presidential election, some saw this as a grand rejection of
the corporate, banking and wealthy ultra conservative bankrollers ability to
buy their way into office with their handpicked conservative candidates. This is
a wrong read. Money will continue to be a potent weapon at the GOP's disposal.
The astronomical cost of winning an office virtually assures that. The
difference is that in future elections the GOP will be more selective and
prudent about the conservatives that its campaign financiers bankroll.
The GOP's greatest
weapon is the frozen political divide in the country. Nearly 50 percent of the
nation's voters not only did not support Obama, but expressed total contempt
for his policies and his administration. The GOP banks that it can swivel this
divisiveness into sustained opposition to those policies, and that it can buy
enough time with that until the 2014 midterm elections and further boost its
numbers in the House and especially the Senate. This is where the real and manufactured
Obama scandals fit in. By blitzing the White House and the media with a score
of hearings on alleged Obama administration scandals, the GOP hopes to stir up
enough dirt, public doubt, and dissension to further cripple Obama and, in a
dream case, cripple Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic presidential
contender for 2016. So far, the ploy hasn't worked. The alleged Obama scandals
have not ignited public outrage. But this in no way sates the GOP's thirst to
pull out all stops to try and make sure they do.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His
new ebook is How the NRA Terrorizes
Congress--The NRA's Subversion of the Gun Control Debate ( Amazon ). He is an associate editor of New
America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban
Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM
Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
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