gracchusdixit

A trifecta of so-called “scandals” has given the dysfunctional Republican Party a new chance to distract public attention from its own lunacy and incompetence.  After losing a Presidential election they should by all odds have won, after months of trying to rationalize their defeat and deny their own mistakes, after the tragic embarrassment of refusing to pass even the most innocuous measures for gun control, Republicans finally got lucky.  The IRS, America’s least-loved department of government, did something stupid.

It has been said before, and it should be said again: if the IRS scrutinized conservative 501(c)(4) organizations for explicitly political purposes, either on its own account or because it was instructed to do so by the White Office, that would be a genuine “scandal.”  There is, thus far, not even a shred of evidence suggesting that either was the case.

The greater problem is that the IRS’ mistakes have enabled Republicans to gin up interest in two other “scandals,” one old, the other new.  If it hadn’t been for the missteps of the IRS, the old “scandal” of Benghazi would have been forgotten long ago, while the new one concerning the Associated Press would have caused most Americans to shrug, for, next to the IRS, there is probably no public institution less loved than the press.

All of this is undoubtedly embarrassing for the White House and unquestionably lucky for the Republicans, but none of its amounts to anything even remotely resembling “scandal.”

The White House just released 100 pages of emails regarding the “talking points” that were prepared in wake of the attack on our embassy in Libya, emails that were discussed in closed-door Congressional hearings months ago.  Several days before they were released to the public, ABC News made the claim, based on hearsay, that these emails documented an attempt by the State Department to “scrub” the record for political purposes.  That claim has since been debunked, but ABC News, to its shame, has issued only the most tepid of apologies and continues to “stand by” its original story.

If you care to read these emails for yourself, you can easily download them from any number of sources on the web.  Be forewarned: they are, with few exceptions, boringly procedural and innocuous.  What you will find is plenty of bureaucratic muddle and hairsplitting, but you will also find a surprising amount of bureaucratic integrity.  Most of what Republicans want to interpret as a “cover up” was clearly the opposite: an effort to get the facts precisely right before drawing conclusions or pointing fingers.

If there’s a true “scandal” here, it’s that Republicans in Congress refused to authorize sufficient funding for the protection of our embassies and consulates around the world, where attacks occur routinely and thousands of diplomatic personnel go about our country’s business in danger every day.  The refusal to protect these public servants wasn’t done to save money.  It was done to spite the State Department and its then Secretary, Hillary Clinton.

The Justice Department’s decision to subpoena the telephone records of the Associated Press, while lamentable, doesn’t qualify as a “scandal” by any standard.  In a free society, we may abhor this decision (I certainly do), but it wasn’t illegal, and its only political purpose was to placate the very people who are now hollering in protest: the Republicans in Congress.

If there’s a “scandal” here, it’s the shameful contradiction between the Republican Party’s blind defense of the right to own guns and its reluctance to defend—indeed its unseemly eagerness to violate—the right to free speech.  It was Republicans who vociferously demanded an investigation of these particular “leaks” to the press.  It was Republicans who loudly proclaimed that any failure to conduct such an investigation would be put the country in danger.  Now, when it suits their political convenience, it is Republicans who are singing a different tune.

Let’s be clear about what’s actually going on here.  When Republicans lost a second Presidential election to Bill Clinton in 1996, they did everything in their power to bring him down.  Having lost a second Presidential election to Barack Obama, they are trying to do the same thing again.  This time, they are desperate, because they see the specter of Hillary Clinton on the horizon.  As dumb and vicious as they are, they are smart enough to realize that Hillary Clinton could do more than defeat them; she might destroy them as a viable political party.