The “it’s Ruemmler’s fault” narrative continues apace
White House Counsel Ruemmler was just protecting the president, says the WaPo:
But they agreed that it would be best not to share it with President Obama until the independent audit was completed and made public, in part to protect him from even the appearance of trying to influence an investigation.
This account of how the White House tried to deal with the IRS inquiry ”” based on documents, public statements and interviews with multiple senior officials, including one directly involved in the discussions ”” shows how carefully Obama’s top aides were trying to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency.
Many of the commenters at the link seem to buy this entirely, which just goes to show you how gullible people can be when they want to believe—or how well they can follow the party line even if they’re not really all that gullible.
There are so many problems with this story it’s hard to know where to begin, but the first one is whether it’s believable at all; I don’t think so, but many people will believe it anyway. The second is whether the lawyer tasked with “advising [the president] on all legal aspects of policy questions…[and] ethical questions” would ever, or should ever, withhold such information, and why. Even the WaPo says that a goodly part of Ruemmler’s motivation would have been political, “to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency.”
My translation of those words is that Ruemmler wanted to afford Obama plausible deniability, and also to shield the American people from knowledge that might cause them to turn on the Democrats before the election. I actually don’t believe he was shielded, as I’ve said—I believe Obama was told, but there is no proof and never will be any proof, unless someone decides to spill the beans and has documentation to back it up. But even if he was shielded, a third issue would be: who created an atmosphere where the most important function of the administration was to protect the president from any knowledge that might harm him politically, rather than to help him actually govern knowledgeably and effectively? My answer would be: Obama himself.
Apparently, in the Obama White House, ignorance (or the appearance of ignorance) is bliss.
Again I note that this is becoming the “When did the president not know and when did he not know it?” bit of legerdemain.
My impression is that Obama pretty much delegates everything. It gives him at least two benefits. I see him as fundamentally lazy, so he gets a free ride. It also more or less lets him keep his hands clean. A possible third benefit us that he has a big problem with making a decision and following through on it, so this is a workaround for that too.
The article just takes the above and repackages it into an arguably acceptable form.
Obama knew. And of course they’re lying to provide plausible deniability, as till 2016 he’s the one irreplaceable man. The proof of that is Obama’s demeanor. He’s not upset, much less angry. Had he not known, had he been ‘surprised’, only learning of it when the public did, or even shortly before, he would not have been able to conceal his fury and sense of betrayal. Not by what they had done but by being so incompetent as to have been caught and thus harming his reputation and even placing his Presidency in potential jeopardy.
His very equanimity, the superior, above-it-all tone of disapproval he affects is a dead giveaway.
He’s had plenty of time to adjust to the idea of it becoming public and to approve of the political strategy adopted to deal with it.
All of this makes it even more probable that Obama himself directed the IRS to conduct a campaign attacking American’s 1st amendment rights. And that he did so when he met with Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley, the day before the IRS attack began.
So now the defense is that Obama wasn’t told about what his administration was doing because he was supposed to be shielded from political repurcussions? That doesn’t ring true. Especially when they claim they wanted to shield him from a second-term scandal. The IRS abuses occurred in his first term. It appears Obama’s handler were trying to shield the public from knowing about the first-term scandals so that Obama would be sure to get a second term.
Here is a great summary of the IRS abuses of the non-profit approval process from attorney Cleta Mitchell http://www.scribd.com/doc/143132009/IRS-Targeting-of-Conservative-Groups-A-History-Overview-and-Status-Report
Ms. Mitchell makes it clear that the delay in approval for conservative groups is still occurring. Why isn’t Obama directing his IRS administrators to stop the stonewalling and approve the applications using the reasonable pre-2010 standards? Why is this IRS abuse still happening?
Amazingly prescient. I noted you comment on “if only Stalin knew” from 2009. History is unfolding exactly as we feared. I quoted from you liberally here.
I think Michael Ledeen has a very wise recommendation here:
http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2013/05/22/dont-criminalize-the-investigations-immunize-the-witnesses/
In summary he says it is more important to find out what happened in order to clean up the mess than it is to convict and punish. Therefore, witnesses should be immunized and only those who do not tell the whole truth should be punished. Without such an immunization, the more one knows the more likely he or she will be to clam up; and appointment of a special prosecutor would augment that problem.
Uh huh, right, Jim.
Where and when has that worked before.
In other words, bend over (American citizen) and take it.
I understand you mean well, but when has meaning meant results. Why not follow the law and make the lawbreakers reap their just deserts?
And doesn’t the wise counsel by Ledeen mean all contumacy is pardoned?
Sharpie…
That’s how the Ervin committee rolled back in the Watergate hearings.
IIRC, John Dean was given immunities. His was the mouth that started the anti-preference cascade.
So he never did any jail time — however, he was disbarred from practice.
IIRC, wherever he went after Watergate he was greeted as the Judas he was.
He wasn’t a non-person — he was an anti-person.
If LIddy is right John Dean destroyed himself while looking out for number one.
blert:
Somewhat incorrect about John Dean. He did do time, although it certainly wasn’t what you’d call hard time:
He was then disbarred because of being a felon.
But afterwards he was not destroyed. Au contraire—although he was mostly a pariah among conservatives. But the left likes him now (he wrote a book on why Bush II should be impeached). And he’s made quite a career as author and lecturer, and made money as an investment banker.
He was forever tarred. He was a pariah on the right and that Watergate turncoat guy on the left. Nobody likes a snitch. If he was really a snitch, strictly speaking. Many argued his credibility was bogus at the time.