One of my favorite cartoon strips in The Post, Mallard Fillmore, had a beauty yesterday. “In retrospect, I knew we handled Benghazi all wrong,” a jug-eared President Obama says. “We should have called in an air strike . . . on those whistleblowers.”
There is much truth in the jest by artist Bruce Tinsley. The punch line captures Obama’s attitude toward disagreement. He confuses dissenters with enemies, and tries to silence them.
That is the theme shared by the scandals roiling Washington — the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, the snooping on reporters by the Justice Department, and the administration’s big lies about Benghazi. All involved attempts to quash anything that could make Obama look bad.
Reports that the thuggish actions are sending a “chill” through media sources must be sending a thrill through the White House. Chilling whistleblowers was the point.
If the squeeze also makes journalists fear running afoul of prosecutors, bingo — that’s a two-fer.
On one level, the scandals reflect an attack on the First Amendment rights of many Americans. More broadly, the scandals show a White House willing to abuse enforcement powers to quash dissent and hide facts that don’t fit its spin. The more we learn, the more it’s clear we know little about the extent of this malicious pattern.
On Monday, for example, we learned that the Justice Department didn’t stop at seizing the office and personal phone records of 20 Associated Press reporters. It also snooped on the phones and e-mails of three Fox News journalists. Are there others?
As with the AP case, prosecutors claimed they were investigating leaks, although they never notified the journalists of the subpoenas they had filed. In one Fox case, they came close to calling routine news-gathering a crime.
There is another troubling pattern, too. Just as the IRS gave tax-exempt status to liberal groups while denying or delaying the same benefit to conservative groups, leak prosecutions also follow the political curve. The Justice Department takes seriously only leaks that cast Obama in an unflattering light.
Put another way, if you dare to say the emperor has no clothes, expect a knock on the door and a spy on your phones and computer.
The AP case involved a story that said the United States and its allies had a double agent who exposed a terror plot, even though the AP held the story until the CIA said publication would be harmless. With the White House planning to release the story itself the next day, it’s hard to see what “crime” was committed.
The two stories involving reporters at Fox News, where I am a contributor, also focused on critical leaks. One was about an intelligence report on North Korea’s nuclear program, and the other was about the disastrous gun-buying operation called “Fast and Furious,” which exposed administration bungling.
Meanwhile, leaks that make the president look strong and decisive don’t lead to real investigations, even when they involve the release of classified national security information.
Consider two New York Times “scoops” during last year’s campaign. On May 29, 2012, The Times flatteringly depicted Obama deciding which overseas terror suspects would die by drone. The accounts of meetings, including quotations from the president, were attributed to “officials present.”
Three days later, The Times revealed the existence of America’s secret cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear program. The reporter quoted the president speaking in the White House Situation Room, and described his sources as “members of the president’s national security team who were in the room.”
As Republican Rep. Pete King said at the time, attendance records exist for such meetings. An aggressive prosecutor need only put every person there under oath and ask away.
It will come as no shock that no such prosecution has taken place. Nor was there a serious probe when Obama’s aides gave secret information on the Osama bin Laden raid to a Hollywood producer.
The pattern is obvious: there are good leaks and bad leaks — depending on whether they flatter or damage Obama.
So Mallard Fillmore had it right: The Benghazi whistleblowers better watch their backs. They dared to tell the truth, a dangerous thing to do with Barack Obama in the White House.
A poison apple only to tax-greedy pols
Hell hath no fury like senators outsmarted, especially by geeks who legally shielded billions from the tax man.
Watching Apple CEO Tim Cook get pummeled by a Senate panel yesterday, I couldn’t tell most Republicans from Democrats because, to both, Apple was stealing their money.
That’s the chief problem in Washington. We are ruled, not governed, by people who believe they have first claim on our money. Having robbed Peter, they give it to Paul — and give themselves a pat on the back. America would be better off with less of their “compassion.”
Cook argued for tax reform, saying America’s top rate of 35 percent put companies at a disadvantage abroad because other countries offer lower rates. But the senators were focused on accusing the company of improperly shifting profits to those nations to escape taxes here. Republican John McCain chided Cook for being a “tax avoider.”
But Apple pays about $6 billion a year in US corporate taxes, Cook said, making it one of, if not the largest, single private source of taxes.
That’s not enough for government. Nothing ever is.
Judge out of order
That’s some “trial” federal Judge Shira Scheindlin is conducting on stop-and-frisk. Even before it was over, she asked the plaintiffs’ lawyer his opinion about a remedy she might require.
Does he favor making cops wear body cameras to record stops, Scheindlin asked Jonathan Moore? Even he seemed to think it a nutty idea, saying it “should be considered” on a limited basis.
Moore and his team failed to show that the anti-crime strategy is race-based and that a monitor should be imposed on the NYPD as punishment. Yet it would be a shock if Scheindlin didn’t order just that.
She encouraged the case and was both judge and jury. She interrupted lawyers and witnesses to shape the record to fit her bias.
It’s not justice when the judge has her thumb on the scale. Remember that when she rules against the cops. Hopefully, she will be overturned on appeal before she wrecks the best police force in America.
Frenemy lines
After watching recent events in Albany, I’ve figured out what Democrats mean when they promise to protect women’s rights. They mean that as soon as the likes of Vito Lopez are through harassing female staffers, and as soon as Speaker Sheldon Silver, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are through protecting Lopez, the state will guarantee these and all women a free abortion any time they want it.
That’s feminism, Albany-style.
Pyramid scheme
News from Belize: “Mayan Pyramid Bulldozed for Gravel.” In other words, dust to dust.