Days of Change

Culture of Corruption

It is not a good idea to heed the advice of your enemies. It is important to listen to what your enemy says, especially the lies. Scandal Month is being defended by the left in any number of ways. Some are in denial. Others are suggesting actions are “isolated.” Some are misstating facts. Others are exaggerating, using straw men to claim that enemies of Barack Obama think he is a secret Muslim foreigner actively trying to coordinate terrorist attacks and bring down the economy. That’s all crap, of course. The legitimate outrage at administration overreach is about 1,000 greater that the few people who have a global conspiracy in mind. Here’s the reality. When Obama supporters push the edge of the criticism and lay the marker that Obama will never be tried to these scandals, they are right.

Look at the Chicago Way. In that city and others, there is a political machine where graft and corruption perpetuates itself. It is heavily tied to the Democratic Party because their platform is most conducive to big government and more flexible money. Still, Republicans connected to the machine often get a taste and can be easily controlled. Everyone who works for the government knows that their job depends on defeating the forces of fiscal responsibility. It is only necessary for supervisors and politicians to encourage a culture of corruption. It is rarely necessary to dictate the terms.

In a corrupt government, money is king. Buying votes is a necessary expense to win elections. Barack Obama’s campaign ran around 1 billion dollars and brought an immediate return of $800 billion in stimulus a McCain administration would never provide. As such, the politicians are minor figures. They are the conduit to keep their benefactors from paying taxes and giving them the occasional government contract. Obama did not order the tax breaks that went to his wealthy donors. He simply put the people in place who could get that job done.

Most political machine figures come in two types. One is the technocrat who comes from a union background and gets things done and doesn’t make friends. The other is the smooth operator. This is the guy who rose up by giving speeches and giving people good feelings about themselves. This is Barack Obama. He was always the most interesting guy in the room because no one knew much about him. He said all the right things and knew how to moderate his message. He gave his ideological equals a thrill up their legs and made his political opponents feel bad for opposing him.

The low-level employees and the underlings are the most important part of the machine. The Republicans would do well to take every one who is sacrificed to Congress and extract whatever they can out of them. The reason why the Tea Party became enemy #1 was because they destroyed a lot of future Democratic seats around the country and redrew Congressional districts with state house wins. If the Republicans stop trying to attack Obama directly and go after the people who do the dirty work, those government employees will fear for their futures and they will turn on their superiors.

Break the machine from the ground up.

Instant Karma

One of the drawbacks of sounding the alarm on the consequences of Obamanation is that people need to fall into the ocean before they accept that the bridge is collapsing. Over the last decade, Democrats have been trying to separate actions from consequences long enough for their plans to materialize before they can be dismantled. The Obama administration has had big plans with long expiration dates.

His problem is that Democrats have a history of overreach and incompetence. What’s worse is that the media is complicit in hiding the apparent until it becomes the blatantly obvious. When Republicans try to overreach, the media will report on any dead canary in the coal mine. For Democrats, the media won’t cover a problem until there’s a tunnel filled with dead miners.

The Buddha has apparently graced the Democrats with some instant Karma lately. The dam has broken on a suspicious amount of investigation of Tea Party and patriotic organizations who applied for tax exempt status. Regardless of what excuse the IRS gives for these actions, the truth is that they offered no explanation to these groups for years, even though they claim it is a common process for new organizations. Worse yet, the IRS are the jack-booted enforcers of Obamacare and we can’t believe in the impartiality now.

Then there is the quagmire of Benghazi. We may never know the real story, so I will offer what this says about the administration. Obama made a number of claims about the wisdom of his foreign policy of coddling Islamic regimes and giving the cold shoulder to allies. Ultimately, Benghazi was a failure from the State Department to the White House.

Now, the American people have a chance to see the consequences of their votes for Obama or non-votes for Romney. They can see what will happen if they don’t slap the Democrats down in 2014. Evil can only succeed when good people do nothing.

I Take Full Responsibility

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of people claim to “take responsibility” for things that they were responsible for in the first place. Taking responsibility in this case is really advocating responsibility. It’s a way of blaming an underling, then being falsely magnanimous by not punishing them. First, whoever is directly responsible should be punished. Second, if you are “responsible,” then you should be culpable. Finally, I don’t care if “mistakes were made.” I care about why and how they were made as well as by whom.

You can take your responsibility and give it to someone who cares.

At Least Chris Matthews is Cancelled

I’ll be interested in how much the network Sunday shows cover (up) Benghazi tomorrow. I’m just not interested enough to actually watch. Also, this will be one of the last Chris Matthews Sunday shows, since his new NBC contract does not include subsidizing a syndicated show no one watched in addition to his weekday show no one watches.

A Third Rate Burglary

Hillary Clinton fans are clever and devoted. Some are still defending her on Benghazi, taking the tact that the Obama administration’s sloppily assembled report is the last word on the attack and anyone who disputes it now deserves the abuse they’ve gotten (or any future character attacks). To support Clinton now requires a huge swig of Obama Kool-Aid because the failures start at State and continue to the White House. There are no longer any Hillary supporters not also supporting the goals of the Obama administration.

It’s good to have friends. One reason Bill Clinton survived the Whitewater investigation was because he had any number of loyal supporters, including Hillary’s obfuscations about his affairs. He was Impeached by the House, but Democrats refused to take the matter any further in the Senate. At least his dealings were about covering up crooked deals from his days as governor.

Richard Nixon had few friends. He managed to alienate the Democrats and his own party. The “third-rate” Watergate break in was initially about his presidential campaign. In 1972, Nixon won 49 states. Whatever was going on with CREEP, it wasn’t necessary to win him the presidency. Nothing that happened on that night would take down a president. It wasn’t until the media discovered that Nixon covered up the break in and his people that it became a scandal.

This White House lives on the complicity of the media. All media needs to be on board, including newspapers, cable news, networks and even the talk shows that stroke the Obamas. The problem with the strategy is that it’s making lamestream media poor and alternative and conservative media rich. At the big three, they’re talking layoffs and Fox News is hiring. CNN, ABC and CBS are showing signs of life, with some reporters deciding to report on Benghazi. Right now, it may be their way to look unbiased right now, but it could be a sign of bad things to come for this administration.

Hold the Line

If the political world responds to one thing, it’s inertia. Democrats failed to pin the economy or Iraq on George W. Bush in 2004 since neither were going badly by Election Day. Months later, they had their weapon in the form of Hurricane Katrina. The Bush administration had an air of confidence in the first term, so much that Democrats often attributed it to Cheney to keep Bush from getting credit. Katrina led the way for the narrative that Bush was not good at caring about people, domestic problems or being a leader.

In 2006, Saddam was captured, UBL was somewhere in Pakistan (unbeknownst to the American people) and troops were still dying. Bush had eroded his base by pushing immigration and Medicare reform that meant more government spending. Democrats took back the momentum and took back Congress. somehow, they used the fact that they were completely unable to stop the war to argue that they needed the White House as well. When Obama won in 2008, Democrats were able to get an essentially unstoppable majority and passed a more expensive expansion of government regulation on health care. By 2010, they lost their momentum.

The good news is that agenda items are unlikely to pass in a stagnant, divided Congress. Democrats would need to turn about 6 Senate seats and 40 House seats to get back their majority in 2014 and it’s not going to happen. The GOP doesn’t need a majority in both Houses anymore. They just need to hold the line on new regulation. No one is willing to fight for Obama. Benghazi is the scandal that will taint the Obama presidency. Reagan had Iran-Contra and Clinton had Whitewater. Bush had Katrina. All of those were momentum killers.

The great failing of political parties is to fight hard for a second presidential term. It never seems to end well and frequently damages the brand. Obama has done so much damage to the Democratic brand, I almost want to thank him.

Almost.

Go Home and Study

Some liberal website (it doesn’t really matter) tried to argue that Republicans overplayed their hand when talking about Benghazi. Instead of staying in the shadows and dropping a bomb after a “long investigation,” (like the pre-internet media) conservatives have been trying to get every bit of the story out as they can unearth it. Aside from the style attacks, the straw man argument was made that there is a fictional Obama hater who claims the president coordinated with AL-Qaeda to storm the consulate. Since that particular straw man is wrong, anything less than being a traitor is a win for Obama.

First, this is some dime store reverse psychology saying that it’s good to hide a light under a basket which also has the same effect as not letting people know what’s going on. It’s like the “stay home and study” advice pundits offered to Sarah Palin so she would disappear faster. Conservatives know that they can’t coordinate a narrative like the left thinks. For one thing, they only have one cable voice and no broadcast ones. Fox News blows even network news away in ratings, but not when you add together every media outlet.

We will not go gentle into that good night. We rage against the dying of the light. Yes, that can dilute the message. When Andrew Breitbart set off explosions of news with ACORN videos, he managed to catch the organization in a number of lies. The media simply ignored the story, some until the day Congress voted ACORN have its funding taken away. More voices are better, but there are many paths.

It’s a good rule of thumb that if your enemy thinks you should do something for your own good, do the opposite.

Day 1645

More Americans were killed by Muslim terrorists on 9/11/12 than on 4/5/13. There were more calls for help in Benghazi before the attack. Truth was discarded in place of wrong speculation. The Secretary of State stonewalled being interviewed until days before her departure. Lawyers willing to represent Congressional witnesses still don’t have sufficient clearance to talk to them about what happened.

We haven’t even started learning about Benghazi.

The Second Term Blues

In the 80 years or so, only two elected presidents could not win reelection. Both faced economic downturns plus a third-party challenge. If you run a strong enough campaign and demonize your opponents, reelection is almost certain. Another near certainty is that the second term becomes a referendum on the presidency. The sins of the past four years come back.

The current administration has been uniquely poised to put the consequences of its actions until the people have no electoral recourse. The Stimulus was an early investment in the government unions and programs friendly to the Democratic Party. Obamacare is completely untenable, but the pain is being put off for the average person until the 2014 elections are over. I guess it’s no surprise that when Al-Qaeda invaded an insufficiently defended embassy, the administration decided they could downplay it until after the election.

Benghazi is a case of the crime being as bad as the cover-up. We know that the White House had a policy of declaring Al-Qaeda dead and making Muslim outreach a priority. The State Department had a suspicious disinterest in adding security in Benghazi, The administration then went about lying and redacting information to the public and the press. Some are bad decisions. Some statements are lies and some are illegal.

This White House is mired in failure. Benghazi won’t change that. I only wish it would lead to the end of this administration. Obama should have packed up and went home when he had the chance.

Global Something

Hot in the Northeast, snowing in the Midwest. Let me know when the Earth worshipers figure out which way we’re all gonna die.