I was going to write about the IRS scandal today. A least I thought it was a scandal until I heard an IRS guy testify before Congress on Friday that there was no political targeting. Just foolish mistakes, people trying to be more efficient. No political targeting? That guy actually had the nerve to say that before Congress.
But that’s not what I am going to dwell on. Yesterday on Face The Nation, Bob Schieffer pretty much said what should have been said far earlier. When Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer (and if he’s the senior advisor, I’d like to see the junior advisor) gave stock answers to questions about the three crises facing the President, Schieffer accused him of taking “exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took” and finally scolding him by asking, “Why are you here today? Why isn’t the White House Chief of Staff here to tell us what happened?”
That tells you something. Why are mouthpieces with scripts just thrown in front of the public? How about some people who know something? Susan Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi, so why was she explaining it all over the networks?
And even the people who are involved have to resort to scripts. Lois Lerner had to resort to a planted question, which she had a prefab answer for to notify the public of the IRS “nontargeting”. What is going on here?
When people in government behave like this, there is something wrong. The President has always been acclaimed for his oratorical skills. Yet all we hear now is “I didn’t know anything” or “ We will find out who did this” or “We will get it fixed”.
Maybe the public will buy it. I don’t know. But one thing is for sure- it’s no way to run the Government. And in the long run, it will be bad for all of us.