No Mas Pantalones

There has been nothing BUT headline after headline concerning the, if not downright illegality, than at least significant improprieties on the part of various government agencies. Recently, we have heard of inaction when the US Consulate in Benghazi was attacked by terrorists, leading to the death of 4 Americans including the ambassador, the I.R.S. announced agents had improperly targeted conservative groups, and the Justice Department seized the phone records of Associated Press journalists. The common refrain from BOTH President Obama and Attorney General Holder has been that they knew nothing of these events UNTIL the press reported them. That means either a) BOTH Holder and Obama are ineffectual, feckless, asleep at the switch and incompetent, or b) they are lying.


The White House released a hundred emails between the CIA, State Department and the White House concerning the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. The back and forth was slow, laborious, semantic driven and constantly being updated as information became available. The initial talking point parroted by Susan Rice on 5 Sunday morning news shows that the attack was an unpremeditated by-product of a demonstration over an anti-Muslim internet film later proved to be not only false, but patently untrue. Whether that was simple ineptitude, or something driven by politics is the wedge issue. Whatever the case, 4 Americans died waiting for relief which never came, as officials debated distinctions such as US Consulate vs. diplomatic post.


Beginning in 2010, and continuing for more than 18 months, the IR.S. targeted groups based on their names and/or policy positions. The names and policy positions were ones linked to conservative groups and caused extraordinary delays and requests for unnecessary information. BOLOs, a law enforcement acronym for Be On the Look Out, were used to flag Tea Party, Patriot, or subject line references to government spending, debt or taxes. Of course the I.R.S. Commissioner informed us, “We believe the front-line career employees that made the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political and partisan viewpoint." That statement may stretch credulity. The notion however, that both Steve Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, and the Treasury inspector general investigating the complaints, J. Russell George knew of the activities for months, while the Attorney General and President did not, until reportage by the press, appears to stretch the truth in ways that would make Mr. Fantastic and Stretch Armstrong envious .


During April and May of 2012 the Department of Justice obtained the phone records of more than 20 separate phone lines for the AP, its editors and journalists. They did not follow Justice Department policy of giving news organizations the opportunity to negotiate or contest the subpoenas before casting their huge net. The explanation for this irregularity is the old standby of National Security, but more than 50 major media outlets have protested the activity and publicly called for action. Attorney General Holder testified that he recused himself last year from the AP probe so as to “avoid the appearance of conflict”. According to press secretary Jay Carney however, The White House had “no knowledge of any attempt” by the Department of Justice to collect the phone records of Associated Press journalists other than press reports. So the Attorney General knew of an operation with far reaching National Security consequences, which was sure to make headlines once it was revealed, but did not bother to inform his boss. That is certainly something that makes you go hmmm.


I am not a President Obama hater. There are a myriad of musings in which I give him credit where credit is due. Nor have I fallen into the derangement syndrome about his birth certificate or supposed Muslim heritage. Here though, I must pointedly ask how this president, or any president, could have events of this magnitude swirling around him, but NOT know anything about them. Is President Obama’s managerial style such that he reserves only the ceremonial duties for himself and delegates ALL else to underlings? Since he obviously cannot trust Vice President Biden to handle anything of import we must deduce, if we continue to follow the no-nothing defense, that anonymous, unelected officials in the administration are responsible for not only day-to-day functions, but matters of paramount importance too.


As for Attorney General Holder, he has become the Teflon Don of AGs. Black Panthers at polling places, Fast and Furious gun deals and Associated Press subpoenas fall off him like racketeering charges on John Gotti. Holder’s suits are not as nice, nor his hair as coiffed, but his straight faced denials of knowledge would make Gotti as green as artificial turf. State officials and captains of industry have been fired after being publicly excoriated for much less, even when they honestly knew nothing of the goings on during their watch. Holder knows all this but, when questioned about any impropriety, steadfastly continues to simply say, I don’t know.


Okay, so maybe a lack of executive experience could have explained how something got away from the President during his first term, but not this far into a second term. He would have to know something about each of these cases simply because of their magnitude. Would not his daily briefings by Cabinet and Department heads contain at least some mention of some of this? Is he so removed from everything and everyone that none of his aides dared mention the actual business of government to him? Or were those aides leading rogue operations and purposely keeping the President in the dark because the Constitutional scholar in him would never have allowed it? He is smarter than all of us, and knows it, but he relinquishes control to play golf with Tiger Woods? Not likely.


All those options seem outlandish to me. What is more likely, is that a politician schooled in the rough elbows of Chicago politics encouraged, at least in part, some of the actions and took the (im)plausible denial route on the others. With helpful members of the press backing him, and an ever present race card up his sleeve, it is more likely to me that President Obama’s hubris makes him believe that no one will dare challenge what he says. Of course many people will, and have, defended him to death, while declaring that the government is too big for the President to know everything that is going on. If you are reading this and believe that, there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. If, however, you are reading this and agree with me that the President is either incompetent or dissembling, I can only ask, what now? Like those who suffer Mayhem in the Allstate commercials are we but spectators to the disorder, or are we the agents from A-Nother Insurance Company who have no mas pantalones? Because if the President is incompetent or lying and we do nothing, so are we.