First off, Newt demonstrates why he really needs to shut up and go quietly to the Old Hornytoads Home.
Today Darrell Issa returned to the claim that President Obama did not call the Benghazi attacks a “terrorist act,” but an “act of terror,” which means something entirely different.
What can one say but … please proceed, congressman.
Joan Walsh notices that some on the Right no longer comprehend the difference between real and phony allegations.
The National Journal’s Ron Fournier tweeted “Welcome to the 90s,†with no apparent irony or self-awareness about the role of the media in ginning up that decade of phony scandals that paralyzed our last popular second-term Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
In fact, Fournier contends Benghazi will hurt Clinton and President Obama, even though he acknowledges the GOP’s claims are overblown. “If nothing else, Benghazi is a blow to the credibility of the president and his potential successor, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This could be big … Credibility is Clinton’s vulnerability, dating to the unjustified financial accusations that triggered the Whitewater investigation. Doubts persisted about her veracity and authenticity throughout the 2008 presidential campaign.â€
Read that again: “Credibility is Clinton’s vulnerability, dating to the unjustified financial accusations that triggered the Whitewater investigation.†The accusations were unjustified, Fournier admits, but they hurt Clinton anyway. Why? Because reporters continued to act like they were justified, even in the face of contrary evidence.
And so it goes with Benghazi. Welcome to the ’90s!
I’d rather not go back there, thanks, especially if I have to re-live the ’00s.
Update: Ok, here’s another one. Today Marco Rubio called for the resignation of the IRS Commissioner. Jonathan Chait explains why that is a problem — currently, the position of IRS Commissioner is vacant.
The IRS commissioner from that period is already gone.
The IRS commissioner during the probe was Donald Shulman, a holdover from the Bush administration. He left his job last November. There’s an acting commissioner right now, but he assumed his acting role well after the Cincinnati probe ended. The position of IRS commissioner is vacant, which may explain why Rubio’s letter calls for “the IRS Commissioner’s resignation†but doesn’t name whom Rubio wants to resign. Does he want the acting commissioner to resign? The old commissioner to re-resign? Appoint a new commissioner and then force that person to immediately resign?
How many Republicans does it take to make a measurable IQ? That’s what I want to know.
Newt should grow his eyebrows out and audition for a spot on 60 minutes.
“How many Republicans does it take to make a measurable IQ?”
I don’t know, but that guy from the Heritage Foundation will tell you it’s higher than Hispanics! (ba-dum-pum!)
Bill Maher on Friday said that the Repugs should be careful because Hillary eats scandals for breakfast; and, they just make her stronger.
Regarding the editing of the talking points on Benghazi, I worked for the Federal Government for 35 years and found that story very amusing. Most of that time I worked as a secretary. Editing like what was described for that letter is very normal at every agency and is especially stressful for the typist when two agencies want their point of view to be the main thrust of the letter (and when there are too many men involved). This editing process became even worse with the advent of word processing. All writers seemed to think WP made it easy to make corrections so why not edit and correct until the cows come home. One notorious letter I was working on that had about 10 carbon copies came back to me for about the 45th time needing me to change a comma to a semicolon. The person who was delegated to bring it back to me for that correction approached my desk very cautiously as I glared at him. When he told me what was needed, I kept saying “you are kidding me, aren’t you?!” As I repeated that phrase a few times with a note of irritation in my voice, I opened up my desk drawer, pulled out a black pen. Then, I proceeded to put a black dot above the comma on the original and all ten copies, which took about 30 seconds. I was told later that not one person of all the people involved in that letter noticed that I did not make the correction on the word processer and reprint it for the 46th time. This is a great definition of the “epitome of assininity”. Fox News and today’s Republicans are other definitions of that phrase, which I first heard from a history teacher in high school.
Ron Fournier might be right that Hillary will be hurt to some degree if she decides on a run in 2016. But the complexion of the media has change considerably since the 90’s. The internet and social media was in its relative infancy back then, and the shit that was dumped on Hillary basically went unchecked. Maybe occasionally a letter to the editor would offer a voice of support, but on the whole, the right winger smear machine was unopposed through the dominant means of mass media back then.
I remember reading an article about Hillary packing up in the White House and heading for New York. The article claimed that auditors from the GAO had to count the silverware for fear that Hillary was going to drag it off with her to her new digs. She was accused of pillaging the White House.
Hillary has gotten the most thorough going over of any politician I can think of, and to me she’s earned her stripes. I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to vote for her if she decided to make a run for the Presidency. And when you look at the horizon of the three potential repug hopefuls, Hillary shines like a beacon of hope.
My feeling is that the harder they attack her the stronger she will get.
How measurable it their IQ?
They couldn’t spell it if you spotted them the “I.”
Swami,
For a lot of the pundits in the MSM, the Clinton “scandals” of the 90’s, were not only when a lot of them ‘cut their chops,’ but when the younger one’s entered the field, and learned their “craft.”
To a lot of them, those were “The Halcyon Days of Yore,” which they then turned into ‘The Hellish Days for Gore,’ as they decided to continue bashing the Clintons through the guy they saw running as their proxy. This, despite the fact that, mistakenly, Gore had distanced himself from Bill, because of the taint of his “taint,” and the “spot” it left on his record.
And then, these folks had the largest terrorist attack in US history, and the first major American “war” since Vietnam – “Desert Storm” and the Balkans were seen as the US working in conjunction with the UN, and they saw early on that W and his puppet-master Cheney, were willing to go it alone into Iraq this time.
And, while agree I partially with Maher that Hillary eats scandals for breakfast, I think a goodly chunk of our pundits will want to relive their youth by continuing to bash Hillary from now until she wins – if she runs – and then beyond if she does.
It’s easier to relive your youth, and follow a script you know, than to do any actual work and report something called “the news.” It’s so much easier to use talking points to “report” on manufactured scandals.
PS: I watch Chris for about a few minutes yesterday when he had a panel to discuss IRSgate, and frankly, I was sick. He had the same beady-eyed look, and his mouth juice was flying so fast and far, it made me sorry for his guests that they didn’t have umbrella’s, raincoats, and goggles.
He was laying the IRS problem on the President, in the little I saw.
And I don’t dare turn on Cup O’ Schmoe’s Morning Zoo Crew, because he’ll be trying to show he can fight a scandal war on two fronts – Benghazi, and the IRS.
There’s a lot we know about Benghazi, and none of it is a scandal. And the Republicans are trying to manufacture some scandal based on diction and semantics, because there’s ‘no there there’ for a scandal as to “how” it happened – just in how the administration talked about it in the MSM in the immediate aftermath.
In other words – they’re dicks, trying to pull some antics.
Because, what else does “an act of terror” mean, other than terrorism?
A ‘tickle-fight?”
The attack on the Benghazi consulate was an isolated act, you idiots, and therefore, “an act of terror.” “Terrorism,” is the strategy, in which isolated ‘acts of terror” are combined, to “terrorize” the public.
By the way, MSM, you sure missed a hell of a lot of scandals in the 00’s. Legitimate ones, not ones crafted by Luntz and his wordsmiths banging away at keyboards, and testing the marketability of the results in front of panels of ordinary people, to see what will do the best job of “catapulting the propaganda.”
There’s a lot we have yet to know about the IRS situation. It would be nice if the reporters and pundits held off on opining, and just reported what they had dis/uncovered that day, and at least let some narrative build – but, if that were ever to happen, then all of the denizens of Hell could have their own Stanley Cup playoffs.
“Please proceed, congressman.” Heh. I’d forgotten about that.
Hillary eats scandals for breakfast and they just make her stronger.
Nice.
“How many Republicans does it take to make a measurable IQ? That’s what I want to know”
Apparently more than two hundred seventy eight!!!
If this prevents Hill from obtaining the nomination in 2016 I’m all for it. I don’t see that she really accomplished much as Secretary of State, she’s no more qualified to be president than she was in 2008 and I would not have voted for her then. Enough Clintons and Bushes, time to move on.
“Here’s The Galactic Emperor of Cluelessness, Darth Cheney, from TPM:
Continuing his intense criticism of President Barack Obama, former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday said that the security failures in Benghazi, Libya were a stark contrast to America’s readiness on Sept. 11, 2001.
“In my past experience when we got into these situations — especially after 9/11 — we were always there, locked and loaded, ready to go on 9/11,” Cheney told Fox News Channel commentator Sean Hannity in a phone interview.”
LOL!
While crying torrents of bitter, salt tears!!!
“…especially after 9/11…”
“Well, Mrs. Kennedy, you’ve got to at least admit that we gave your husband GREAT protection on the way to the Hospital!”
The man(?) is completely untethered to reality.
Anyone with one single brain cell that worked, and one Higgs-Boson particle of shame, would sit at home, atoning in whatever way he/she thought was best, for the most catastrophic administration in this countries history, and the millions of dead, injured, and/or displaced persons, my involvement created.
Instead, this hubristic sociopath is on TV crowing that he and his puppet accomplished anything, except those deaths, injuries, and displacements, as well as the near collapse of America’s and the world’s economies. And that’s WITHOUT accounting for torture, here, and rendering people to be tortured abroad.
“Pure, out of control sociopathic and hubristic evil,” is the only way to describe him.
uncledad.. After watching Bush’s performance as president the concept of qualifications for that office becomes moot. If you set the bar at Bush, I’d consider an idiot like myself to be over qualified solely by the fact that I at least I possess the quality of being curious.
I agree with you that the office of the Presidency should get past being a family affair, but considering the nature of things as they are Hillary is far better qualified then anything anybody has so far suggested for contention. As a Senator and Secretary of State she keep a low profile only because she was busy doing her job. She wasn’t mugging for the cameras and creating a bunch of nonsense to propel herself into the limelight like many of the young turks from the Repuglican party. To me that shows maturity.
“She wasn’t mugging for the cameras and creating a bunch of nonsense to propel herself into the limelight like many of the young turks from the Repuglican party”
I agree but what did she accomplish? I would of course vote for her over the obvious clowns in the republicant party, but I would like to see defeated in the primary or decide not to run at all. The problem with Hill is that she would discourage new leaders from emerging in the democratic party. Also I have not forgotten the work of Mark Penn one of her goons she sent after Obama.
Locked and loaded? It sounds bad, like heavy duty war dog stuff, but what does it mean? As far as I can understand it… it’s Hollywood bullshit…”I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory”.
I’m still trying to figure out Paulie Ryan’s no-scent scent that he uses on his bow hunting expeditions.. What does he do? Sprinkle himself with Pine-Sol and disguise himself as a pine cone?
Swami,
More like a helmet, and makes believe he’s a mushroom – which insults the intelligence of the real mushrooms in the forest.