GorT has been busy time-traveling and gathering information…well, ok, really, I’ve been swamped with work and family stuff.  So, I thought I’d take a few minutes on a quiet, misty Sunday morning to reflect on the current issues facing the Obama Administration.

Several times in the past few weeks, I’ve been party to conversations, both online and in-person, where some of my liberal acquaintances have written off these “scandals” as meaningless and ascribe it to just the GOP (or sometimes the Tea Party) trying to make mountains of out mole hills.  But is that really the case?  Are these events a bunch of disconnected, minor issues that we should all brush away with the flip of a hand and move along?  Let me outline a few things and we’ll revisit that question later.

Consider for a moment that we, as the citizens of the nation for whom this administration works and by whom it is held accountable, has yet to explain the following:

1.  By whom and for what reason were the “talking points” regarding the attack at Benghazi were changed?  Keep in mind that the President is the top of the Executive branch, which includes the FBI, CIA, and State Department.  So why did someone under Obama, within his lanes of responsibility, alter what was presented to the public when they knew otherwise and why was that allowed to be made public as such?

Current answer by those close to the President: Eh, the CIA changed them, it wasn’t us.

As the story unravels and the emails are being reviewed, you find things like the State Department’s Victoria Nuland’s concerns that the failure to act on the CIA intelligence would give the Republicans ammunition against Obama in the then upcoming 2012 election.

2.   We still don’t have a clear understanding of why the Administration isn’t more forthcoming with the information regarding the “Fast and Furious” case, why it had to go to court to enforce a subpoena, and why Holder continues to stonewall the oversight committee regarding this case.

Current answer by Obama’s Executive branch: Eh, this is part of the give and take between the Executive and Legislative branch (who has oversight responsibility) and the Judicial branch shouldn’t get involved.

3.  We don’t know how pervasive is the IRS’ political discrimination abuse.  Did officials outside of the IRS know – specifically those in the White House?  Many think that with Obama dodging the question of assigning a special investigator to look into the matter, that maybe there is more of a connection than what is known.

The President has at least stated his displeasure over the events.

4.  We don’t know why the Justice Department seized a significant block of telephone records of AP reporters with what appears to be no adherence to standard, legal practices. 

Current answer (kind of) by the Obama Administration: Well, Holder is claiming he doesn’t know why possibly due to his recusing himself from the case since he had the information.  Others say that it was to investigate a leak regarding a CIA sting operation.

Keep in mind that the Obama Administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers using the Espionage Act of 1917 than all the previous administrations combined.  The AP – and others in the press – are now getting concerned that this administration really is abusing its power.

So you read through these and you say, so what?  It sounds like a bunch of random scandals, cover-ups, mis-steps by an administration.  But wait, look at the answers and reactions by the administration.  They are shielding themselves behind the “I didn’t know” – some of which is a paper-thin shield that’s falling apart as we speak.  This seems to be a pattern of behavior and one, that I would argue, the country and the complicit press corps has enabled.  Through the course of his first campaign until recently, the press largely failed to ask any pressing questions that would have at least presented some degree of scrutiny to this administration.  Instead, the complicit nature of the press corps over the last 8 or so years, has, I would argue, empowered this administration into pushing the envelope in what it does and brushes aside.  One cannot argue that the press corps did not take the previous administration to task over a variety of issues but it’s hard to say that they’ve done so here.

The road forward should be pretty clear:

1.  The IRS clearly has a corrupt culture and all of those employees who allowed this behavior to go unchecked – with even raising a hand and asking, “isn’t this wrong” – should be let go.  Not transferred, like the political appointee who is now going to oversee the IRS involvement in Obamacare.  Let go.

2.  Eric Holder should be removed – while the President can repeatedly say that he has the utmost confidence in Holder, clearly many of us do not.  And to hold that position with that kind of power, even that of blocking Congress from doing it’s job of oversight, is unacceptable.

3.  A special investigator should be named to look into what exactly happened regarding Beghazi.  The story is so muddled and shrouded, that it is discomforting and people need to know what happened.

So should we brush aside these issues?  I’d argue not…I’d argue that there is a systemic problem within the Obama Administration that, to date, has been largely “accepted” by the press and those on the left.  They should imagine for a moment what would happen if the political parties were switched for a moment, would their reaction be the same?  If not, why?

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.