Friday, May 09, 2014

"The five stages of GOP scandal-mongering," according to Paul Waldman

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And the Borowitz Report has shocking news


Earlier this week Dana Milbank devoted a Washington Post column, "Meet the chief prosecutor in the GOP's Benghazi show trial," to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the lying jackass scum-weasel who actually referred to the Benghazi "select committee" hearings House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner chose him to preside over as a "trial."


"This contempt vote was like the end of a toddler's tantrum, the final hoarse scream before the child collapses in an exhausted heap on the floor."
-- Paul Waldman, in his "Plum Line" post "The five
stages of GOP scandal-mongering: A reader’s guide
"

by Ken

The contempt vote Paul Waldman is talking about, of course, is the thunderbolt hurled the other night by the slime-weasels known as House Republicans, vilely abetted by a menagerie os ConservaDem slime-weasels, against Lois Lerner, the former IRS official targeted for daring to look into right-wing fake-charitable who flagrantly and unapologetically flout the regulations applicable to charitable organization, which they aren't in any way, shape, or form -- as we can tell easily from their very pretense to be engaging in charitable activities when they don't believe in charity to begin with.

In their seething rage, hate, and plumb-dumb ignorance, they have no attitude toward anything that isn't "me me me" is "Chuck you, Farley." Of course those organizations have absolutely no earthly purpose other than the political" and any pretense otherwise simply proves the total fraudulence and illegality with which they were established and operated. Their intent has never been anything other than to flout every law and regulation they are bound to respect as a fundamental condition of their existence.

Many of them, of course, are too stupid and too uncaring of law to even be aware that the only reason those organizations were formed was to flout the laws. The rest of them, of course, delight in their criminality. What they're doing is dropping their pants and taking a stinking dump on America.

Now the slime-weasels who coddle and pander to this human garbage have risen to the full height of their bestial criminality and voiced their official contempt for Lois Lerner.

And then there's Benghazi. Bestial life forms that have never uttered a public word of truth in their scum-sucking existences and will go to their graves without ever doing so, short of a deathbed conversion, are in high moral dudgeon over the tragic events at the consulate in Benghazi, while understanding not a single thing about where or what the place is or what happened there -- at any time in its history. It's their way of pretending that, though they have chosen to live their lives as debased beasts, they occupy some sort of high moral ground. Probably when they were blithely ignoring past incidents at U.S. embassies and consulates, mostly under Republican administrations, or when their leaders were slashing funds for protecting U.S. embassies, the slime-sucking America-hating fake-patriots were out having sex with barnyard animals.

They truly believe that some psychotic god they claim to worship put them on earth to lie their putrid carcasses off.

To return to the IRS follies, "You may be wondering," Paul Waldman asks," what ever happened to that IRS scandal, anyway?" (Note: There are scads of links onsite.)
It went the way of pretty much every Obama administration “scandal,” which is that it turned out to be not nearly as scandalous as Republicans had hoped.

In fact, a clear pattern has emerged on how these scandals have unfolded, one that might be helpful to keep in mind as we start paying attention to Benghazi again. Here’s a handy guide:

Stage 1: Worse than Watergate!

Whenever a controversy emerges, Republicans immediately jump to the conclusion that they’ve struck political gold. At last, the true depths of the Obama administration’s treachery will be revealed! However much is known at first and whatever the allegations are, Republicans can be relied upon to say it was worse than Watergate, partly because they seem to have forgotten what Watergate was actually about, but mostly because it’s Barack Obama we’re talking about here.

“This makes Watergate look like child’s play,” said Michele Bachmann about Solyndra. “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate,” said Peggy Noonan about the IRS (so that means that it wasn’t worse than Watergate, but it was worse than Iran-Contra). And everyone agrees that Benghazi is worse than Watergate. “I have made a study of different cover-ups – the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and Iran-Contra,” said noted scholar Sen. James Inhofe. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I think this is probably the greatest cover-up, in my memory anyway.” Benghazi would drive Barack Obama from office, said Mike Huckabee: “I remind you — as bad as Watergate was, because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die.” Rep. Steve King put it in perspective: “If you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is.”

Stage 2: The facts show something problematic, but not Watergate-level scandal

This is where things get complicated. Every controversy is unique, but the pattern has been that the actual facts do reveal something problematic, but not the criminal malfeasance Republicans were hoping for.

For instance: The IRS scandal was about ill-trained workers ham-handedly trying to apply vague laws they didn’t really understand, not a conspiracy directed from the White House to swing an election by holding up the applications of a bunch of Tea Party groups to get special tax status as social welfare charities. Benghazi was a chaotic mess, and different decisions could have been made leading up to it, but nobody in the White House or the State Department cruelly decided to let American personnel die. Solyndra was one of many companies the government supported in its green tech efforts, and they went bankrupt when the price of silicon for solar panels plummeted and their technology was no longer cost-effective, but there was no nefarious conspiracy.

Every case has lessons that can be learned, but none of them gave Republicans what they were really after: the scandal that would destroy Barack Obama’s presidency.

Stage 3: The (not so) dramatic hearings

Republicans decide to go ahead with hearings anyway, in most cases overseen by the spectacularly incompetent Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee. The hearings reveal no new information, though they do provide an opportunity for Republican members to pretend to be outraged, and for ranking minority member Elijah Cummings to argue bitterly with Issa. In some cases, like Benghazi, this results in a downgrading of the central allegation, from the charge that people high up in the administration were directly responsible for four deaths, to the current charge, that people high up in the administration spun the events after the fact in an attempt to make the administration look good, which is 1) absolutely true, and 2) not a crime.

Stage 4: The rage at the media for not paying enough attention

A core feature of Republican rhetoric on all these controversies is the complaint that the mainstream media are ignoring the story, and only Fox News is brave enough to bring the truth to the American people. But in fact, in every case, the media did pay attention for a time. Most all of these controversies got blanket coverage for a while. But that coverage inevitably petered out when Republicans were unable to substantiate their most dramatic claims.

You may not need much in the way of facts to get the scandal train moving — breathless allegations and high dudgeon are usually enough — but unless some real misdeeds are revealed, the train will slow to a stop. Republicans’ real problem isn’t that the media didn’t pay attention to the scandals, it’s that there just hasn’t been much there, leaving the media with little choice but to move on.

Stage 5: The last gasp

That’s what the contempt vote against Lerner is, and in some ways, that’s what the select committee on Benghazi is, although that will be an extended last gasp. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the select committee is going to uncover nothing meaningful that we don’t already know. Why? First, because there have already been lots of hearings and testimony and investigations and documents turned over, and no malfeasance has been revealed. Second, because I doubt these clowns would be capable of finding anything even if there was anything to find. It’s all about theater.

Indeed, GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, the head of the new select committee on Benghazi, accidentally admitted as much, as Dana Milbank points out:
Asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about the possibility that his panel’s work would continue into the 2016 election campaign, Gowdy replied that “if an administration is slow-walking document production, I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.”

A trial? And the Obama administration is the defense? So much for that “serious investigation” House Speaker John Boehner promised; his new chairman intends to play prosecutor, proving the administration’s guilt to the jury — in this case, the public.
Once the committee convenes, the media will be all over it for the first couple of days. And after it becomes apparent that no blockbuster revelations and no scandalous misbehavior being uncovered, they’ll drift away. And then Republicans will start complaining again that the media are conspiring with the administration in the cover-up.
And then, of course, the lying jackass scum-weasels will be braying about their new "worse than Watergate" scandal.


AND CHECK OUT THESE SHOCKING
BOROWITZ REPORT POLL FINDINGS


May 9, 2014
POLL: MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHO NEED JOBS WANT CONGRESS TO GET TO BOTTOM OF THIS BENGHAZI THING FIRST
Posted by ANDY BOROWITZ


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- Millions of unemployed Americans who have fruitlessly been looking for work for months are determined that Congress get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi, a new poll indicates.

According to the survey, job-seeking Americans hope that Congress will eventually do something about job creation, but they are adamant that it hold new hearings about Benghazi first.

By a wide majority, respondents to the poll “strongly agreed” with the statement “I would really like to find a job, but not if it in any way distracts Congress from my No. 1 concern: finding out what really happened in Benghazi.”

In related findings, a survey of Americans found that taxpayers overwhelmingly consider Benghazi hearings to be the best use of taxpayer money, well ahead of schools, roads, and infant nutrition.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner released the following statement: “I want to reassure the American people that, until we have completed our Benghazi investigations, there will be absolutely no action on job creation, infrastructure, immigration, education, housing, or food.”
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