Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward appears on 'Face the Nation' in Washington, D.C., in March. Woodward, the media's authority on all things Watergate, compared Benghazi to Watergate during a Friday morning appearance on MSNBC’s 'Morning Joe.' (Courtesy of Chris Usher/CBS News/Reuters/File)
Bob Woodward compares Benghazi with Watergate. Is he right? (+video)
Bob Woodward compared Benghazi to Watergate during a Friday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The famous Washington Post reporter and former antagonist of President Richard Nixon said the US government’s editing of talking points used by public officials in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, is “a very serious issue.”
“I would not dismiss Benghazi,” Mr. Woodward said.
Woodward’s own main talking point was that he believed there are similarities between the process used to produce the Benghazi talking points and Nixon’s release of edited transcripts of the White House tapes.
Citing the lengthy e-mail chain detailing the production of the talking points, released by the Obama administration earlier this week, the Watergate press hero said that in the wake of the Libyan tragedy “everyone in the government is saying, ‘Oh, let’s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to Al Qaeda. Let’s not tell the public that there were warnings.’ ”
Forty years ago, Nixon went line by line through his tape transcripts and made his own edits.
“He personally went through them and said, ‘Let’s not tell this, let’s not show this,’ ” said Woodward on “Morning Joe."
Nixon, of course, was trying to deflate the increasing public and congressional pressure for him to release the tapes themselves. He wasn’t successful. The tapes revealed the extent of his involvement with the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover up.
As to Benghazi, Woodward concluded that the edits “show the hydraulic pressure that was in the system not to tell the truth.”
Is Woodward right to make this comparison? After all, he is the media’s official arbiter of all things Watergate, and his words here carry special weight.
Well, it’s certainly possible that he’s hit upon the reason the talking points got changed around. But having read the 100 pages of e-mails on the editing process ourselves, we’d say it’s also possible that he’s jumping to conclusions. For at least some of the officials involved in the process, the reason to take out references to terrorists and Al Qaeda was not to hide the truth, but because they did not know what the truth was.
For instance, early in the editing process Stephen Preston, the CIA’s general counsel, e-mailed talking-point participants that “in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements with statements as to who did this, etc. – even internally, not to mention for public release.”
And the scrubbed “warnings” Woodward referred to were fairly vague references to past CIA internal statements. The Post journalist may be right that the public should have heard about them. State Department officials, though, were transparently annoyed that the spy agency was trying to cover its rear end at their expense.
Look, things don’t have to be as bad as Watergate to be important malfeasance. Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein made that point earlier this week on his A Plain Blog About Politics.
But loosely comparing current scandals with Watergate is to forget the full extent of the Nixon-era scandal, wrote Mr. Bernstein in a post titled, “You Call That a Cover-Up?”
In Watergate the cover-up was essentially personally directed by the president, overseen by the White House chief of staff, and run by the White House counsel, Bernstein writes. They concocted a false story, destroyed important evidence, and raised hush money used to attempt to buy the silence of underlings who were facing jail time.
Oh, and the president of the United States ordered the CIA to falsely tell the FBI that national security was involved in the Watergate mess, so the FBI needed to pull back its investigation.
By the way, the Watergate hearings began 40 years ago on this date. Bernstein has been writing a fascinating series of pieces outlining the unfolding of the Watergate scandal day by day, as if it were occurring in real time. You can read that to catch up on the bad old days and decide if today compares.
A portion of pages of e-mails that the White House released Wednesday that document how the Obama administration crafted its public talking points immediately following the Sept. 11, 2012, deadly attack on a US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, are seen at the White House in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Why Benghazi talking points make US government seem like Dunder Mifflin (+video)
The White House on Wednesday released 100 pages of e-mails that detail the editing which produced the initial government talking points on last September’s attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
Our read on this drove of internal documents? There’s no bureaucracy like a classified bureaucracy. While lots of lawmakers and pundits have argued over who was responsible for particular changes, there’s been much less attention paid to the editing process as a whole. The e-mails arguably depict that process as lengthy, ad hoc, contentious, and ineffective at producing information with any added value.
In fact, by the end, the nation’s national security team seems more than a bit like Dunder Mifflin, the dysfunctional paper company that’s at the heart of the TV series “The Office.”
Here’s how the Benghazi talking points story arc played out:
THE FIRST EFFORT SOUNDED FINE. As distributed by the CIA’s Office of Congressional Affairs at around 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, the talking points were a mix of the obvious and the reasonable, though there was one mistake at the beginning.
They began by noting that, at that time, the CIA believed the attacks were “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo.” This was wrong, but it’s one of the only talking points that no one ever tried to edit.
The document added that “this assessment may change.” That’s pretty safe to assume, right?
Then the points said “the crowd was almost certainly a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society.” That’s also safe to assume, if not blindingly obvious.
“That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to Al-Qaeda participated in the attack,” the CIA continued. Again, given the group’s spread, that’s likely. But “know”? OK, maybe that needs changing.
Then the third talking point: “Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia.” Note the reference to press reports, which lawmakers could read at the time. The CIA itself at no point said this extremist group was involved.
Then the CIA noted that the “wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya” probably made the attacks worse. Duh. The agency ended by noting the public fact that there had been previous attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi.
UNDERLINGS MADE IT WORSE. Right away other intelligence officers started messing with this template. Shortly after the first draft was circulated, the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis noted that “warnings” should be added.
Shortly thereafter, intelligence analysts added to the first point, putting in a sentence that read “we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.”
What was the point of that? It is hard to see this add as anything other than rear-end covering. This was emphasized by another addition further down: “The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to Al Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya.”
The e-mails show that this sparked a lively interagency debate as to whether the CIA was trying to make the Utica office – sorry, the State Department – look bad. That was the point of the now famous e-mail from State spokesman Victoria Nuland that lawmakers would use the proposed wording to “beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.”
HIGHER-UPS THEN MADE IT USELESS. Of course, as “The Office” teaches us, it doesn’t really matter what the underlings do, because they’re just moving the chairs around waiting for the powers-that-be to arrive.
Given the way State and the CIA were tussling over the talking points, White House deputy national security director Ben Rhodes called a timeout, scheduling a Saturday meeting at which the problems could be resolved “in a way that respects all of the relevant equities.”
The results of this meeting aren’t reported in the e-mail chain. But the documents released by the White House include a copy of the talking points that is heavily edited by CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell.
Mr. Morell crossed out the disputed CIA “warning” sections. But then he went further, ditching entire sections about the press reports on Ansar al Sharia, the possible involvement of extremists linked to Al Qaeda, and even the wide availability of weapons in Libya. Given the nature of the violence that ousted Muammar Qaddafi, isn’t the weapons thing a given? Taking it out is like taking out a reference to Libya as full of sand.
The remaining talking point language was bare bones. This is what the CIA ended up giving to lawmakers who were looking for guidance. In essence, they said that attacks were likely inspired by protests at the Embassy in Cairo (wrong), that that assessment might change “as more information is collected” (obvious) and that the investigation is ongoing (redundant).
One last point: finally on Saturday afternoon, then-director of the CIA David Petraeus weighed in. (Why does the head of the nation’s preeminent human spy agency take the time to review stuff like this? That’s what chiefs of staff are for.) His conclusion was that he’d “just as soon not use this,” given its lack of information, but that he knew it wasn’t his call.
“This is certainly not what [Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Dutch] Ruppersberger was hoping to get,” wrote Mr. Petraeus. “Regardless, thx for the great work.
In other words, this is awful, but gosh you guys did a good job. Doesn’t that sound like “The Office” Scranton branch manager Michael Scott, aka Steve Carroll?
President Obama speaks on the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday. Obama announced the resignation of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, the top official at the IRS. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Why furor over IRS tea-party scandal won't subside, despite ouster
Editor's note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. EDT.
The heads are starting to roll at the Internal Revenue Service, but it will take a lot more than a single high-profile resignation to quiet the storm raging over the IRS targeting scandal.
In a delayed act of damage control, President Obama announced Wednesday evening the forced resignation of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. It was, of course, only a matter of time, an expected move to assign blame and accountability, as well as provide catharsis for an angry public.
The president wasted no time naming a temporary replacement, on Thursday selecting Daniel Werfel, controller of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to take on the unenviable task of rebuilding the tarnished agency's reputation.
“Americans are right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday when revealing Mr. Miller's departure, adding that he “will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has.”
The Obama administration also released a letter from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that demanded that Mr. Miller resign in order “to restore public trust and confidence in the IRS.” (The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.)
The resignation came six days after news emerged of the Internal Revenue Service's targeting actions and a day after a watchdog report concluded the agency used “inappropriate criteria” to screen groups seeking tax-exempt status. The IRS used keywords and phrases such as “tea party” and “patriot” to target conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
In fact, the targeting occurred not under Miller, but during the tenure of former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. Still, lawmakers say Miller did not inform Congress about the targeting practice, despite inquiries from Republican lawmakers.
Not surprisingly, Republicans aren’t satisfied with his resignation.
“Simply allowing the acting head of the IRS to resign is not enough,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement, calling on Obama to apologize to the American people.
In a tweet he added, “This is clearly a scapegoat that distracts from answering the core Qs.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio also said he’s looking for more.
“My question isn’t about who is going to resign. My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?” he said Wednesday.
The answer will have to wait for the outcome of a Justice Department criminal investigation, which Attorney General Eric Holder announced earlier this week.
To say that Mr. Werfel, who takes over as acting IRS commissioner next Wednesday, is tackling one of the least-envied jobs in Washington would be a gross understatement. He faces gargantuan challenges.
Among them, he will have to address the faulty protocol that led to the inappropriate targeting in the first place. And because the scandal exposed problems in the tax code’s designation of politically oriented nonprofits, Werfel may need to call for an overhaul of the auditing process for 501(c)(3)s and related groups.
Perhaps most important, however, as Politico has pointed out, the successor at IRS will have “a massive public relations job to carry out, convincing Congress and the American public that the agency can get back on track and become a trusted government entity again.”
Mr. Obama acknowledged as much in a statement announcing Werfel's change of assignment. "As we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time," Thursday's statement said. It might help a little that Werfel, who has held a number of posts at OMB, also worked for the George W. Bush administration on the Federal Accounting and Standards Advisory Board.
Perhaps his only consolation is that there is already an end in sight: Werfel plans to serve as acting IRS commissioner through the end of the fiscal year – now 4-1/2 months away.
Actor and honoree Warren Beatty arrives at the 7th Annual California Hall of Fame induction ceremony at The California Museum in Sacramento, California March 20, 2013. (Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS)
President Obama wants to 'go Bulworth'? What's that? (+video)
Beset by a cycle of bad news that is threatening to stall his second term, President Obama has talked wistfully of “going Bulworth,” according to a report in Thursday’s New York Times.
“Going Bulworth”? What’s that? The phrase sounds kind of ... ominous and energetic at the same time.
“Bulworth” was a 1998 political movie starring Warren Beatty that made a bit of a splash when it was released but since has faded into obscurity. In general, it was much cleverer than Beatty’s bland “Dick Tracy” and more entertaining than his long and boring “Reds.”
Its central premise was this: Jay Billington Bulworth is a veteran California Democratic senator who left his liberal principles in the dust long ago. Now he takes money from special interests to bottle up bills in his committee.
But he’s in danger of losing his seat in a reelection bid. Tired of the whole game, he starts speaking his mind, telling audiences exactly what he does and the extent of Washington’s soft corruption.
At one point, for instance, he admits to an African-American audience that his Democratic Party is doing nothing for blacks. “So what are you going to do, vote Republican?” he says. “Come on, you’re not going to vote Republican.”
The movie also feature an assassination subplot and Halle Berry as Beatty’s love interest, but those are immaterial to the message Mr. Obama appears to have extracted from the movie.
The Times quotes longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod on the “Bulworth” desire, saying every politician wants some catharsis at some point, but you have to be “practical” about what you say.
We’ve got a point to add there: We think it’s possible the “Bulworth” reference is something Obama should avoid.
The movie is not exactly analogous to “Network,” that famous 1976 flick in which a deranged anchor cries that he “just can’t take it anymore.” Beatty’s Bulworth character is partly a prophet, but he’s also long been complicit in the system. To a certain extent, his speaking out reflects not just a disgust with the system, but disgust with himself and how he has let the system corrupt him.
GOP pundits could make a fairly decent talking point out of that, couldn’t they?
As the late great Roger Ebert noted in his review of the movie, “ 'Bulworth' made me laugh – and wince.”
If Obama wants to talk about emulating fictional characters, perhaps he’d be better served to mull over the prospect of “going Bartlet,” after the pretty-much-saintly President Jed Bartlet of the television drama “The West Wing.”
The John Weld Peck Federal Building, shown Tuesday, in Cincinnati, houses the main offices for the Internal Revenue Service in the city. The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was 'inappropriate' targeting of conservative political groups in the 2012 election cycle. (Al Behrman/AP)
Five ways the IRS scandal will change Washington (+video)
Toss a pebble into a lake and the ripples spread far and wide. Lob a scandal, in which the anti-tax tea party is under attack by its nemesis, the Internal Revenue Service, into the shark-infested waters of Washington, and well, the political ramifications are huge.
Whatever comes of the investigations into the IRS’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups in the 2012 election cycle, this much appears certain: the scandal will unite conservatives, invigorate the tea party, and potentially affect the 2014 midterm elections.
Here are five ways the IRS scandal will change Washington:
1) Invigorate the tea party and its small-government movement
For thousands of tea party members across the nation, it’s an “I told you so” moment. You have to admit the scandal is perfectly scripted. Big government, and taxes in particular, are the movement’s central grievance. Heck, the group even takes its name from the Boston Tea Party, the iconic historical protest against unfair taxation.
How perfect, then, that the latest scandal to hit Washington confirms the tea party’s anti-big government, anti-tax, anti-IRS crusade. What’s more, it confirms countless complaints by tea party groups and allegations by right-leaning websites like The Blaze that the IRS was going after conservative groups.
In Washington, the tea party had been losing its luster almost ever since the shining glory of the 2010 midterms. The IRS scandal could be the rallying cry of a reinvigorated movement.
2) Unite conservatives
The GOP’s 2012 election square dance – two steps to the right in the primary, one step to the left in the general election – exposed a rift between the Republican Party and its conservative base, one that’s only widened as the party is forced to reconsider issues like gay marriage and immigration.
Yet, as every tactician knows, nothing unites like a common enemy. As such, the IRS scandal unleashed a golden opportunity for conservatives.
“The accusations of IRS abuse are sure to fuel an effort that appears to be uniting dispirited Republicans and their conservative political base: investigating Mr. Obama and his administration,” The New York Times reported Monday. “Republicans are pushing a portrayal of an administration overreaching its authority and punishing its enemies.”
Enemies that are sure to leverage the situation to their advantage.
3) Impact midterm elections
Yes, believe it or not, it’s true. If conservatives can sustain, even strengthen, that unity, and launch a big-government attack on Democrats, the IRS scandal could influence the 2014 midterm elections.
In a recent column, political polling guru Nate Silver predicts the IRS debacle “could have a substantial political impact,” and has “the potential to harm Democrats’ performance in next years’ midterm elections, partly by motivating a strong turnout from the Republican base.”
He uses a five-point test to argue that the scandal “has legs”: it can be described in one sentence, cuts to the core of a candidate or party’s brand, and reinforces a negative perception about a candidate, among other points.
Expect reverberations in 2014.
4) Invigorate the tax code reform movement
For years advocacy groups and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle – from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana to libertarian Rep. Ron Paul of Texas to Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas – have advocated for tax reform. It’s an uphill, if not vertiginous, climb and a goal that has remained elusive for decades.
If they’re smart, lawmakers and tax advocacy groups will use the IRS scandal – and its revelations about tax code loopholes (recall that 501(c)(4)s are often used by political groups to avoid paying taxes and to hide donors) – to invigorate their cause.
A case in point: For the first time in more than 25 years, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Baucus wants to launch the first full-scale rewrite of the 5,600-page US tax code.
Ambitious? Yes. But given the current climate in Washington, the timing couldn’t be better.
5) Derail bipartisan cooperation
Alas, as if partisan bickering and congressional gridlock weren’t enough, the IRS fiasco throws another wrench into legislative wrangling on issues like gun control, immigration, and the debt ceiling debate.
President Obama’s chummy dinners and golf games with Republicans? All for naught, as Politico explains.
“The IRS developments couldn’t come at a worse time for the White House, which has spent months courting GOP support for everything from gun control to an overhaul of immigration laws,” it reported. “If the administration’s recent GOP charm offensive bought any goodwill, it seems to be on short supply now.”
Or, as the Washington Post said, “We aren’t likely to see Republicans and Democrats in Congress join hands and sing Kumbaya any time soon.”
US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul leaves Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow on Wednesday. Ambassador McFaul has been summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with an alleged spy detention in Moscow. (Misha Japaridze/AP)
Russia spy case: Was US diplomat set up? (+video)
Russia expelled a US diplomat on Tuesday after Kremlin security services charged that they had caught him trying to recruit a Russian agent. Russian officials said they were shocked, shocked that such (alleged) espionage was still occurring in the post-Cold War period, and that the diplomat in question, Ryan Fogle, was an incompetent spy to boot.
They displayed several ill-fitting wigs that they said Mr. Fogle brought to his recruitment attempt, along with packets of cash, a map and compass, a pocketknife, and a cellphone that appeared old enough to have the 1990s on speed dial. Officials also said Fogle had carried a letter from the CIA addressed to his target.
“To say the least, we are surprised by the extremely crude and clumsy recruitment,” said Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, according to ITAR-TASS.
RECOMMENDED: Vladimir Putin 101: A quiz about Russia's president
Was Fogle set up? That seemed the consensus among US analysts in the wake of this development. Overall, the whole thing seemed a spy scene from a Judd Apatow comedy, as opposed to a brooding John le Carré novel. Many noted that the wigs were laughable, and that the “recruitment letter” sounded a lot like Nigerian Internet scam e-mail.
After all, the letter promised $100,000 merely to “discuss” cooperation and “up to $1 million a year” for long-term help. That’s a lot of money for an uncertain espionage asset at a time when the US government is suffering from sequestration. Oh, and the letter reminded the recruitment target to find a coffee shop with WiFi to set up a Gmail account for spy communication, and offered reimbursement if the rookie spy had to buy a tablet or other device for their new career in espionage.
“Hey, Russian official, if that promise of $1 million a year wasn’t enough, Uncle Sam may be willing to hook you up with an iPad. How could you possibly say no to this offer?” joked Elias Groll of Foreign Policy on the magazine’s Passport blog.
Others noted that the whole thing smelled of payback for the most recent Russia-US spy scandal, the notorious 2010 incident in which a group of alleged deep-cover Russian spies were kicked out of the US despite the fact that they never seemed to have engaged in any actual espionage.
Dan Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., pointed out that the undercover Russians incident spawned the current FX series, “The Americans,” about undercover Russian spies living in the US.
The male lead in “The Americans” uses lots of wigs in his tradecraft, wrote Mr. Drezner on his own eponymous Foreign Policy blog.
“One must stand back and gape in wonder at how reality breeds fiction, which then breeds reality,” wrote Drezner.
Look, human superpower espionage has long been something of a game. Fogle was posted to Moscow as third secretary of the political department, a job listing which for both countries often really means “spy." People at that level used to get followed routinely. In Washington, you’d have lunch with a Soviet third secretary, and then the FBI would come to your office afterward to ask what went on.
Remember the “Bug House," the new US Embassy building in Moscow that was so riddled with wiretaps during its construction in the 1980s that the US had to tear parts down and then put another building on top, as a kind of hat?
Soviet workers arranged darker bricks on that building’s façade to spell out “CCCP," the Cyrillic initials for the USSR. US diplomats, for their part, quickly realized that a nearby house of worship was serving as wiretap headquarters. They dubbed it “The Church of the Holy Telemetry."
The difference is that much more was riding on that game during the Cold War. Real secrets were passed on both sides. Espionage could be life and death. CIA officer Aldrich Ames passed names of US spy assets in the Soviet Union to his handlers. Ten were executed. Mr. Ames himself is serving a sentence of life in prison.
Today, the espionage tit-for-tat can seem laughable. Maybe that’s a good thing, a reflection of improved relations. Russia and the US still clash on many, if not most, geopolitical issues. But they work together on some. The superpower standoff of the Cold War is gone, and thus the spy wars have less riding on their outcome.
RECOMMENDED: Vladimir Putin 101: A quiz about Russia's president
President Obama reacts after answering questions about the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya, during a joint news conference with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (not pictured) in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday. Americans are not paying much attention to Benghazi news, according to a Pew survey. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Are IRS, Benghazi flaps affecting Obama's standing with US public? (+video)
So far, new revelations about the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service have had only modest effect on President Obama’s standing with the American public.
However, that could change as Republican-led investigations into the administration’s actions roll on. There’s reason to believe the IRS scandal, in particular, could hurt Democrats at the polls in the 2014 midterms, according to New York Times polling guru Nate Silver.
“The IRS story probably entails much more political downside for Democrats,” Mr. Silver writes on his FiveThirtyEight blog Tuesday.
As for Mr. Obama himself, right now his approval rating is about one point lower than it was a month ago, according to the RealClearPolitics rolling average of major polls. Some 48.6 percent of respondents say they approve of the way Obama is doing his job, while 46.1 percent disapprove.
Many polls included in that figure were conducted after ABC News reported that, contrary to the administration’s previous statements, the White House and State Department heavily influenced edits to Central Intelligence Agency talking points on Benghazi.
In general, Americans are not paying much attention to Benghazi news, according to a separate Pew survey released Monday. Only 23 percent said they have followed Benghazi closely.
This does not necessarily mean they are shrugging off the whole Benghazi situation, however. Forty percent of respondents say the administration has generally been dishonest about providing information on the attack. Thirty-seven percent say the administration has been generally honest.
Interest in the Benghazi subject is split along partisan lines, with twice as many Republicans in the “closely following” camp as Democrats.
However, not much of the presidential approval/disapproval polling reflects the IRS story yet. That broke last Friday and has been growing in severity since.
Republicans might have good reason to believe that Obama will be more affected by news that the IRS used keywords such as “tea party” to search for groups to single out for special scrutiny – whether the action is directly tied to the White House or not.
Everybody understands the IRS, point out Washington Post political bloggers Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan Tuesday in “The Fix.” Domestic issues typically generate more interest than foreign ones. And Democratic lawmakers are lining up to denounce the practice almost as fast as Republican ones are.
Political scandals generally have much less long-term electoral effect than the press and Washington insiders suppose, Silver at the NYT notes.
But some have legs, and the IRS flap might be one of those.
The scandal is easy to describe, but hard to refute, Silver judges. It cuts against Obama’s claim that he is a president who is trying to reach out to the other political side. It’s also coming in a slow political news cycle.
The IRS story “has the potential to harm Democrats’ performance in next year’s midterm elections, partly by motivating a strong turnout from the Republican base,” writes Silver.
President Obama gestures during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Monday, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Obama himself has slammed the reported IRS actions regarding tea party and other conservative groups during the press conference. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
IRS tea party scandal: How bad for Obama? (+video)
The Internal Revenue Service applied special scrutiny to applications for tax-exempt status from tea party and other conservative groups, according to a draft inspector general’s report obtained by the Associated Press.
IRS officials on Friday apologized for what they said was “inappropriate” targeting of such organizations in the 2012 election. They blamed low-level employees in the tax agency’s Cincinnati office, which handles most applications for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status.
But contrary to IRS public statements, senior officials at the agency knew of such targeting as early as June 2011, according to the document obtained by AP. And the IRS looked especially hard at applicants who “criticize how the country is run” or who sought to educate the public on ways “to make America a better place to live,” says a CNN report.
President Obama himself slammed this activity at a press conference Monday.
“If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, then that’s outrageous and there is no place for it. They have to be held fully accountable,” Mr. Obama said at a joint appearance with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
But inevitably, Republicans will attempt to link the White House to this activity. Is this as bad as it looks for the Obama administration, politically speaking?
The full answer to that may depend on one’s own ideological disposition. But yes, as far as apparent scandals go, this one is bad. It’s likely to generate headlines for weeks to come.
First of all, the facts don’t look good.
It is true that the IRS was facing a flood of new applicants for 501(c)(4) status in the wake of changes in campaign law and that many of those applicants leaned Republican due to the fact that the White House and Senate are controlled by Democrats. It is possible that IRS officials tried to push a broader approach to special scrutiny, only to have GOP-specific code words creep back in.
But that doesn’t make what’s come out so far right. Even partisan Democrats agree with that.
“This needs to stop, instantly, and it’s legitimate to question how the practice started and how extensive it became,” writes Ed Kilgore, senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, in his Washington Monthly “Political Animal” blog.
Second, the IRS revelations are appearing to confirm what tea party groups have long believed anyway: The White House is using all means at its disposal, including government agencies, to target them. That means Republicans will dig at this all the harder.
Washington Post political bloggers Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan have a good post making this point Monday.
“Any political scandal that begins by validating previously held contentions of a political opposition is bound to be trouble,” says a Senate GOP staff member quoted by Messrs. Cillizza and Sullivan. “When it includes denials that have been proven false, it gets much worse.”
And third, there are the inevitable historical associations. Richard Nixon used the IRS against his enemies. President Nixon resigned facing near-certain impeachment. A few Republicans, such as Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, have already begun using the “I word” in connection with the administration’s response to the fatal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. [Editor's note: The original version of this paragraph incorrectly described impeachment proceedings as they related to Nixon.]
Not all GOP figures see the scandal going that far. But the party as a whole will surely attempt to link the White House with the IRS actions.
“I’d b shocked if WH told IRS 2do it, but when O vilifies Tparty & VP likens them 2 terrorists, bureaucrats follow the culture,” tweeted former Bush administration press spokesman Ari Fleischer on Monday.
First lady Michelle Obama, introduces a surprise visit from Prince Harry at an event in honor of military mothers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Why does Prince Harry make Washington swoon? (+video)
Yes, Prince Harry is wowing Washington. That’s pretty apparent only one day after the British royal (third in line to the throne!) showed up in D.C. for a round of visits to various serious locales.
Here’s how magnetic his effect has been: He’s interrupting congressional hearings without attending them.
It’s true. On Thursday, a Senate Armed Services subcommittee was in the midst of pondering the un-monarchical subject of ballistic missile defense when cheering and catcalls erupted outside the hearing in the halls of the Senate Russell Office Building. Harry was somewhere in the vicinity, sweeping past on his way to view an exhibit on land mines.
“I’m trying to think of something disparaging to say about our British cousins because I think the uproar out in the hall is because Prince Harry is in the Senate,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D) of Colorado.
The noise continued.
“Originally I thought it was because ... they were waiting for the results of our hearing, but I think that’s ... “ said Senator Udall, throwing up his hands, to general laughter.
For the record, most of the 500 or so people in the crowd lined up to watch Harry walk past consisted of female congressional aides. That is just a fact – don’t get on us for being predictable and/or jealous. Harry’s host and fellow military aviator Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona noticed this.
“I’ve never seen, in all the years I’ve been here, such an unbalanced gender crowd,” Senator McCain told Harry.
Harry, a captain in the British military who’s served two deployments in Afghanistan, had a similarly unsettling effect on a White House Mother’s Day tea hosted by first lady Michelle Obama and second lady Jill Biden.
His visit to the tea was something of a surprise, and Mrs. Obama sounded a tad breathless announcing his appearance. She also warned that not everyone would get to personally greet the prince, sounding like the world’s highest-ranking PR handler as she did so.
“So we are absolutely thrilled that he could be with us today, that he took the time. He just arrived in D.C. and only has a limited time with us because he has a very busy schedule,” said Mrs. Obama as the crowd snapped cellphone photos.
So we’ve got to ask, why does British royalty have this effect on otherwise blasé Washingtonians?
OK, he’s handsome, young, and rich. Point 1! What congressional staff letter opener who lives in a group house and eats frozen burritos wouldn’t dream of being swept away to a life of ease? Movie stars cause the same disturbance in the normally staid Capitol Hill force.
Royalty is exotic. That’s our second point. The United States has never had it, and it predates our own democracy. Thus it has mysterious status. Why else did rich US debutantes flock to England during the Gilded Age to snag a title?
But British royalty is also safe. Not that you can always trust them to behave with propriety in Las Vegas hotel rooms – Harry himself has proved that. But they lost the Revolutionary War and no longer threaten our democracy.
In the early years of the republic, there were fierce political fights over whether Alexander Hamilton, say, secretly wanted a king. It’s hard to imagine a royal visit going off well back then. The first British king to visit the US, George VI, didn’t show up until 1939.
Since then, the US has increasingly viewed the British royals as quaint. So Harry causes a stir in part because he’s a character in a show – “Downton Abbey” come to life.
Though we will say that Harry is doing his best to represent his nation with dignity. On Friday, he paid a solemn visit to Arlington National Cemetery and laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknowns and the section where vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
Over the weekend, he’ll be in Colorado Springs, Colo., for a visit to games that feature wounded or injured soldiers from the US and Britain. After that, it’s back to the East Coast, where among other things he’ll play in a polo match in Greenwich, Conn.
Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing on the deadly assault of the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi in Washington on Wednesday. (Cliff Owen/AP)
Benghazi whistleblower: Has diplomat Gregory Hicks suffered for speaking out? (+video)
Has US diplomat Gregory Hicks suffered political retaliation for revealing details of the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11? That’s a big question raised by Wednesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Mr. Hicks was the deputy chief of mission in the US Embassy in Libya at the time. Yesterday, he gave a gripping account of the day’s events, from the moment he was alerted that the Benghazi consulate was in danger (he was in Tripoli, watching TV at the time) to the “saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life," which informed him that US Ambassador Chris Stevens had died.
But the part of his testimony that has Washington buzzing Thursday deals with allegations that he’s been punished for speaking out, both publicly and within the State Department bureaucracy.
RECOMMENDED: Quiz: How much do you know about terrorism?
Hicks described at length a phone call from Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Mills was “upset” that he’d met with House investigators looking into Benghazi after being told he should not, he said. She questioned why a State Department lawyer wasn’t in that meeting. Hicks said the lawyer didn’t have the proper security clearance.
Hicks also asked other superiors why Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, had said the attack might have been a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamic video. That video was a “non-event” in Libya, Hicks said, adding that it seemed clear from the first that the assault was a terrorist attack.
“The sense I got was I needed to stop the line of questioning,” Hicks told the House panel.
Since then, he’s been demoted, Hicks said. He’d been told he could expect a “good level of assignment” in the wake of his performance in the Libya tragedy. Instead, he’s been returned to Foggy Bottom and given a desk job as a foreign affairs officer.
“ 'Foreign affairs officer’ is a designation that is given to our civil service colleagues who – frankly who are desk officers.... So I’ve been effectively demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer,” said Hicks.
This charge jolted the hearing. As Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler writes in his roundup of what came out yesterday, Hicks's "description of the internal dynamics – and reported retaliation for questioning the administration’s public posture – is certainly new."
Republicans say that the charge proves Obama officials attempted to downplay the attacks in the immediate aftermath and are now trying to cover up that fact. Hicks has worked for the State Department 22 years, served in Afghanistan and Syria, among other places, and won numerous internal awards, points out conservative commentator Allahpundit on Hot Air!.
“Suddenly, after he started asking questions about Susan Rice, his ‘management style’ was unacceptable,” he writes. “How does a guy with management deficiencies rise to number two in Libya, one of the most perilous diplomatic posts in the world? Should we start asking State instead to explain why they’re promoting alleged incompetents?”
The State Department rejects this characterization of events.
“The Department has not and will not retaliate against Mr. Hicks,” said Patrick Ventrell, acting deputy spokesman for the State Department.
Hicks asked to be reassigned from Libya in the wake of the attack due to understandable family issues, said Mr. Ventrell. But that meant he was out of step with the annual assignment cycle. Finding a suitable post isn’t always easy under such circumstances, he added.
An anonymous source was harsher. A US diplomat told Foreign Policy’s Gordon Lubold that Hicks is a “classic case of underachiever who whines when big breaks don’t come his way."
The fact that after 22 years of service Hicks remains an FS-1 grade, the equivalent of a colonel in the military, shows that he has not exactly been a fast tracker, the source told Mr. Lubold.
More facts about Hicks’s fate will undoubtedly emerge in the days ahead. But if nothing else, he provided a service with his vivid testimony of what it was like on the ground on a confusing, terrible, and deadly night for US diplomacy, adds Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple.
“Whatever the impact of Hicks’s words – whether they keep this story alive, whether they puncture the political standing of Clinton, whether they cause a Defense Department shakeup, whether they annoy the White House – they delivered the sort of person, visceral account that the country deserves after its people are killed in a terrorist attack,” Mr. Wemple writes.
RECOMMENDED: Quiz: How much do you know about terrorism?
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