Posted on May 18, 2013 by Paul Mirengoff in Benghazigate, Obama Administration Scandals

Obama adminstration talking points scrubbed jihadists from Cairo as well as Benghazi

In the days after the Benhazi attack, the State Department scurried to cover up its failure to heed warnings of such attacks while the White House scurried to cover up the fact that that attacks were the work of al Qaeda-linked terrorists of the sort President Obama supposedly had largely vanquished. The final Benghazi “talking points” and Susan Rice’s talk show appearances represent the product of this scurrying.

To help advance the narrative that the Benghazi attacks were spontaneous, and thus (a) not to have been anticipated and (b) not linked to al Qaeda, the talking points tied Benghazi to the events of the same day in Cairo. There, unlike in Benghazi, a protest had occurred.

Here is what the final version of the talking points said on this subject:

The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.

Through these two sentences, the administration succeeded in misleading Congress about events in both Benghazi and Cairo. The statement about Benghazi is simply false. There was no spontaneously inspired protest; rather, there was a pre-planned attack.

In Cairo, as noted, there were protests. But, as Tom Joscelyn argues, the protests were pre-planned, with jihadists playing a prominent role.

Multiple early versions of the CIA-drafted talking points make this clear. For example, the CIA stated:

On 10 September, the Agency notified Embassy Cairo of social media reports calling for a demonstration and encouraging jihadists to break into the Embassy.

The “social media reports” in question included a September 10 tweet from Mohammed al Zawahiri, the younger brother of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. He called on “the sons of the Jihadi Movement to participate tomorrow in the demonstration in front of the American Embassy.” And he included a banner displaying an al Qaeda-style black flag in his tweet.

That banner featured prominently during the 9/11 demonstration in Cairo. Says Joscelyn, protesters waved dozens of them as they chanted “Obama, Obama, we are all Osama.” The message was clear: jihad in general, and al Qaeda in particular, live on without Osama bin Laden.

This was precisely the message the Obama administration wished to suppress. And, for its part, the State Department wanted to suppress the fact that, not only were there warnings about danger to facilities in Libya, but also warnings about planned jihadist activity at the embassy in Cairo on 9/11/12.

Accordingly, the talking points were edited to remove any reference to “jihadists” threatening the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

As Joscelyn concludes:

The early versions of the Benghazi talking points were right to highlight the threat posed by “jihadists” in Cairo. The thread connecting Cairo to Benghazi is plain to see: Al Qaeda-linked jihadists helped orchestrate both.

The Obama administration’s edits removed them from the story.

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in Barack Obama, IRS, Turkey

As IRS scandal deepens, Obama fetes anti-democracy pal

I don’t contend that President Obama was involved in the decision to target conservative groups for harassment by the IRS. So far, there is no evidence that would support that contention.

I do contend, however, that Obama has little appreciation for the democratic process, including the right to dissent from his agenda without suffering for it. In my view, he regards democracy and dissent as hindrances to the march of history he fancies himself leading. And I suspect that his assertion of outrage over the IRS scandal is feigned.

Am I being too cynical? Perhaps. But there is a certain irony in the fact that, as the IRS scandal gained momentum yesterday, Obama feted Turkey’s anti-democratic President Erdoğan. And, as Michael Rubin points out, Obama chose to write a glowing op-ed about Erdoğan for the Turkish newspaper Sabah — a state dominated organ that Erdoğan confiscated due to its opposition views and gave to his son-in-law.

Erdoğan’s treatment of Sabah is emblematic of his treatment of the Turkish press generally. According to Rubin:

[In] Turkey. . .most journalists assume they are being tapped. It is near impossible to talk politics with Turkish journalists before everyone at the table first takes batteries out of their cell phones. The judiciary has been tapped, as have newspapers.

Erdoğan has stacked previously apolitical bodies with his own party hacks, and transformed technocratic institutions to wield against the press. He has had them, for example, levy fines of billions of dollars to silence some outfits, and seized and sold at auction another

Now, against the backdrop of Obama’s glowing endorsement comes word that a financial body solely consisting of Erdoğan’s appointees has seized one of the last conglomerates which owns independent newspapers and television. . . .

Erdoğan cares little about democracy; he wishes domination, personal enrichment, and a complete transformation of Turkish society that is impossible to achieve if anyone can ask questions or expose his actions. That he uses a state visit to the United States as cover for his actions is truly shameful.

That Obama plays along is shameful, as well.

It has widely been reported that Erdoğan is one of the very few world leaders with whom Obama has bonded. What is the source of Obama’s admiration? I suspect it is the Turkish president’s relentless desire to transform society and the anti-democratic ruthlessness with which he is prepared to proceed.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Environment, Power Line 100

The Power Line 100: Jonathan Adler

It’s about time we start turning our attention to law professors who belong on the Power Line 100 list, and we’ve got a long list of them.  As with the rest of the field of finalists, there is no particular order, so we’ll start with Jonathan Adler, the well-known interior designer whose baubles you can find at Bed, Bath & Beyond—no, wait, not that Jonathan Adler!  We mean the Jonathan H. Adler, who is the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland.  (You can check out his personal website here.)

I once had an environmental reporter from the New York Times tell me that he thought Jon was “scary smart,” and I understand why.  He is one of the most cited legal scholars in environmental law, but with a decided unconventional (that is, non-liberal or non-statist) point of view that emphasizes decentralization, local knowledge, and property rights in preference to bureaucratic control of resources.  A 2007 study identified Adler as the most cited legal academic in environmental law under age 40, and his recent article “Money or Nothing: The Adverse Environmental Consequences of Uncompensated Land Use Controls,” published in the Boston College Law Review, was selected as one of the ten best articles in land use and environmental law in 2008.

To my mind his most notable original contribution to a revisionist understanding of the environment is his article “Fables of the Cuyahoga: Reconstructing a History of Environmental Protection,” which offers a iconoclastic history and analysis of the famous Cuyahoga River fire of 1969.  I quote the abstract in full:

On June 22, 1969, just before noon, an oil slick and assorted debris under a railroad trestle on the Cuyahoga River caught fire. The fire attracted national media attention, and helped prompt the passage of federal environmental laws. A river on fire was a symbol of earth in need of repair, and federal regulation was the reparative tool of choice. Much of the Cuyahoga story is mythology, however, a fable with powerful symbolic force. The river did burn in 1969 – as it and other rivers had burned many times before – and today the Cuyahoga and many U.S. rivers are far less polluted. But so much else of what we “know” about the 1969 fire is simply not so. The conventional narratives, of a river abandoned by its local community, of water pollution at its zenith, of conventional legal doctrines impotent in the face of environmental harms, and of a beneficent federal government rushing in to save the day, is misleading in many respects. This paper revisits the context and history of the legendary Cuyahoga River fire to reveal a more complex story about the causes and consequences of various institutional choices in environmental law. The aim is to provide additional perspective to the questions of institutional choice which underlie environmental policy, and to suggest that the decision to reallocate primary authority over water quality to the federal government was neither inevitable nor an unmitigated blessing.

You can read Jon regularly at the Volokh Conspiracy (maybe the best law blog in the country, whose entire roster of contributors may require a group listing on the Power Line 100).  For some reason he doesn’t get a “hotness” rating at RateMyProfessors.com, which seems clearly an oversight.  What’s the matter with students these days anyway?  Are they intimidated by “lookism” or something?

If you have the time, you can take in Jon in this hour-long talk explaining his environmental viewpoint with his typical cogency:

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Obama Administration Scandals

The Ultimate Nixon-Obama Parallel

How will we tell when Obama is slipping fully into Nixon territory?  I predict it will be when The Daily Show juxtaposes the two images below (though as one commenter suggests, wouldn’t Walter Slobchak be screaming “over the line!”): (more…)

Posted on by John Hinderaker in gun control, Second Amendment

Bye, Bye Beretta

Beretta USA has been headquartered in Maryland for many years. But Maryland’s left-wing governor, Martin O’Malley, has just signed legislation that, among other things, bans the possession or use of average-capacity magazines. Beretta naturally views this as an insult to its products, its customers and its employees, and is looking for a new home. I like Beretta’s statement on the issue:

The question now facing the Beretta Holding companies in Maryland is this: What effect will the passage of this law–and the efforts of Maryland government officials to support its passage–have on our willingness to remain in this State?

In that respect we are mindful of two objectives: We will not let passage of this legislation prevent us from providing on-time delivery of our products to our U.S. Armed Forces and other important customers. We also will not go forward in a way that compounds the insult made to our Maryland employees by their Governor and by the legislators who supported his efforts.

Prior to introduction of this legislation the three Beretta Holding companies located in Maryland were experiencing growth in revenues and jobs and had begun expansion plans in factory and other operations. The idea now of investing additional funds in Maryland, thus rewarding a Government that has insulted our customers and our products, is offensive to us so we will take steps to evaluate such investments in other States. At the same time, we will continue our current necessary operations within Maryland and we are thankful for and welcome the continued support of our employees as we do so.

Texas reportedly has been courting Beretta. Other states, too, would no doubt welcome the company’s high-quality jobs. Beretta might even consider Minnesota: our legislature, despite the fact that it is Democrat-controlled, squelched similarly mindless anti-gun legislation earlier this year. Minnesota is probably just about as liberal a state as Maryland; the difference is that we have a lot more hunters.

Via InstaPundit.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in History, IRS

Nixon’s IRS

One of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon included his alleged misuse of the IRS. Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment was carefully framed to charge that Nixon “endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigation to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”

Nixon’s alleged abuse of the IRS seems to have gone largely unrequited. Note the careful use of the word “endeavored.” It appears to be the operative term.

Turning to Stanley Kutler’s history of Watergate, I find that Kutler devotes remarkably few pages to the issue. Nixon’s efforts with the IRS seem pathetically futile. Robert Haldeman is said to have selected a number of people on various enemies’ lists “for audits and other forms of harassment.”

But who was audited? Kutler mention only Washington Post attorney Edward Bennett Williams, who was audited for three years running. An IRS office (the Special Services Staff), created in 1969 at the urging of Tom Huston, is said to have “compiled information on more than 1,000 institutions and 4,000 individuals.” Kutler makes no mention of anything having been done with the information.

Kutler observes that the White House worked hard on IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters to make him subservient to political needs. Nixon henchman Jack Caulfield astutely complained, however, that the IRS was a “monstrous bureaucracy…dominated and controlled by Democrats.” Kutler doesn’t say it, but the Nixon administration’s efforts with Walters appear to have gone approximately nowhere.

Nixon himself had been the subject of what he believed to have been politically inspired audits in 1961 and 1962. He told John Ehrlichman in 1972 that he had not pursued his opponents with audits because he had “no mandate.” Things would be different in the second term, Nixon promised.

The index for “IRS” in Kutler’s book reveals concisely how it turned out in Nixon’s second term. “Search for politically pliable Commissioner,” reads the subhead. “Not successful,” reads the sub-subhead. Compared with Obama’s accomplishments in this department, it’s almost funny.

Posted on May 17, 2013 by John Hinderaker in Obama Administration Scandals

What If the Obama Scandals Had Surfaced Last Fall?

I was on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show last night, talking about the Benghazi talking point emails. Near the end of the segment, Hugh asked whether I thought the presidential election might have turned out differently if Obama and Clinton had not succeeded in covering up the truth about Benghazi. I was skeptical. The story of the election, I said, was the Obama campaign’s ability to turn out, once again, a large majority of the low-information voters who swept Obama into office in 2008. Few of those low-information voters, I said, would either have understood, or cared about, Benghazi, even if all the facts had been available.

Which is true, I think, as far as it goes. But what if all of the current Obama scandals had broken last fall? What if voters not only knew the truth about Benghazi–that four Americans were killed by al Qaeda because the Obama administration ignored repeated warnings from the CIA, refused the ambassador’s pleas for better security, and failed even to try to rescue them once they came under attack–but also knew that the IRS had been commissioned to harass the administration’s political opponents? And what if, in addition, reporters knew about DOJ’s surveillance of the Associated Press?

We know that the administration fought feverishly to prevent the truth about Benghazi from coming out until after the election. That is what the notorious talking points, Susan Rice’s tour of the TV news shows, and Obama’s and Clinton’s endless references to the phantom video were all about. We also know that the IRS’s improper activities were well known at the upper reaches of the IRS as well as the Treasury Department–and, it is fair to assume, at the White House–well before the election. Yet numerous officials conspired to keep the scandal quiet until the election was safely past, and at least one IRS employee seems rather clearly to have committed perjury to keep the scandal from coming to the attention of voters. As for the AP surveillance, I still don’t understand the legal context of the incident, and I doubt that many voters would have been swayed by the apparently legal, but unprecedented, surveillance of reporters. But what if reporters had been angry enough over the administration’s double-cross (as they might reasonably see it) that their coverage of the campaign’s closing weeks had been less slavishly pro-Obama? Might these factors, together, have made a difference?

I still don’t think the result would have been different. To an extraordinary degree, the 2012 electorate seemed uninterested in the Obama administration’s failures. If voters didn’t care about the economy or about $16 trillion in debt, why would they have cared about Benghazi or the IRS? But the cumulative effect of multiple, mutually reinforcing scandals is hard to predict. It is easy to understand why, last fall, the Obama administration didn’t want to take any chances. They went into full cover-up mode, and carried off their multiple cover-ups successfully. Without doubt, that effort helped to bring about the president’s re-election.

The analogy to 1972 is obvious. Richard Nixon managed to keep the lid on Watergate long enough to enjoy one of the most sweeping electoral victories in American history. After the election, however, his cover-up unraveled; it consumed, and eventually destroyed, his second term. Whether the same will happen to Obama remains to be seen, but already it is clear that scandal will be a major part of the Obama legacy.