Scandal-free? Not so much, actually.
President Obama and many of his supporters have been characterizing his administration as “scandal free”. Really? Something tells me their definition of “scandal” changes based on who’s occupying the Oval Office. Let’s run down a few examples of things that would have dogged a Republican.
And we have some feedback by listener DocH regarding who the extremists really are. (Hint: There are not as many of them as you may think.)
Mentioned links:
Celebrities Walk Back Their Promises To Leave The Country If Trump Is Elected
18 Major Scandals in Obama’s ‘Scandal-Free’ Presidency
‘An amazingly scandal-free administration’
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Show transcript
I have some feedback from episode 161, where I gave my reaction to the reactions over Donald Trump winning the election. DocH wrote in to say this:
Nicely scripted Sensei Payton. I will add only one thing; nearly concentric overlap.
If you honestly map-out the Dems and the Reps and you find the core values and genuine interests of each side of the aisle – – guess what? 90% are standing IN the aisle between the major parties. There is so much overlap with moderates, soft liberals on both sides and soft conservatives on both sides. It is the 5% far left lunacy standing on their desks and the 5% far right stoics hiding under their desks that are driving the wedge between the nation’s good citizenry that fuel the intense kiln we are all feeling. Single issue Lines-In-The-Sand “you will not cross!”… sophistry and specious casuistry to the Nth degree. That is the problem, and vapid Social Media only adds to the bellows that split our once great resolve. (breathing heavily – – I have exhausted all of my 25 cent words for the rest of the year). Check your dictionaries for confirmation. We ’90 percenters’ are not the problem; it is the vocal minority, driving their private agendas the divide all (or most) of us. Whoops. My soap box seems to be collapsing under my own weight.
Fight the good fight folks. Third world status isn’t too far over the horizon if we don’t correct the trajectory we have been launched on over the past 8 years.
Thanks, Doc. I’m with ya’, though I would probably peg that 5% of extremists a bit higher on the Right, and quite a bit higher on the Left. I say that because, in general, the Right wants to be left alone, while the Left wants to force us to accept their social agenda. Again, in general. Still, you make a good point that there is more we have in common than most people realize. I think we might find that out over the next 4 years, as conservatives and liberals alike unite against some of the nuttiness that Trump may do. Indeed, we, not Trump or any President, can truly make America great again.
I have a Celebrity Exit Update. There were a few celebrities that said they would move out of the country if Donald Trump was elected President. As of this episode here is the list of those who have made good on their promise:
[crickets]
I’ll be keeping this list updated as we go forward.
As we finish up the waning days of the Obama presidency, let’s not let those who viewed it with rose-colored glasses define it. His supporters, and Obama himself, have tried to paint the past 8 years as free of any scandal. Clearly, their definition of “scandal” varies based on which political party is in office.
So just as a reminder, here are some things that, if Republicans had done them, would qualify as scandals:
- “If you like your doctor or your plan, you can keep it.” In fact, ObamaCare, with its missing insurance savings, to the sloppy way it was written, to the hoops Democrats jumped through to pass it without Republican input or votes, to the admissions that it was dishonestly sold to us, this fiasco would have sunk a Republican. Instead, it’s sold by the media as Obama’s crowning achievement. And with the way it had to be constantly fixed via executive fiat, Obama acted like he had a crown.
- The Fast and Furious operation that gave guns to Mexican drug cartels caused a body count that would have dogged a Republican President incessantly. Never mind the fact that then-Attorney-General Eric Holder could only keep from perjuring himself by claiming he didn’t know what his subordinates were doing. That claim got him held in contempt of Congress; a scandal just by itself.
- The IRS targeting of conservative groups leading up to the 2012 election. There were so many hard drives full of evidence that crashed and were instantly destroyed that you might think that the primary cause of state-of-the-art hard drive failure was a Congressional subpoena. And the aforementioned Eric “Contempt of Congress” Holder showed just how derelict in his duty he was by charging nobody at all, even though there was evidence that this had all been done. (Clearly, that evidence was on paper rather than those temperamental hard drives.)
- Benghazi. Need I say more?
- The VA health care system. You know, the one where vets were dying because of being put on long waiting lists? You know, the system that ObamaCare was based on?
I could go on, and for people like Valerie Jarrett, David Brooks, Mark Shields, MSNBC blogger Steve Benen, and David Axelrod, I might have to. But this show is noted for its 10-minute-or-less format, so I’ll have to stick to highlighting these. Links are in the show notes for more of them, and there are plenty more.
So what do you think? Are there things about the Obama administration that you’ll miss? Are there things about the upcoming Trump administration that you’ll dread? We’re not a bunch of Republican cheerleaders here; we think for ourselves. But that also means we call out cheerleading from Democrats when we find it, too.