The Obama Scandalpalooza continues. It’s gotten so bad that some pundits have even suggested that they’re bringing everything out at once to induce “scandal fatigue” and make it all fade away. Well, maybe — there’s certainly a lot:
1) The journalist-snooping scandal: The Justice Department spied on phone records of numerous AP reporters, as well as numerous Fox News reporters — and, in at least one case, a reporter’s parents — as part of a leak-plugging investigation. In seeking the subpoenas, and to keep reporters from finding out about them, Attorney General Eric Holder’s flunkies engaged in a bit of judge-shopping until they got the answer they wanted. This has led to calls for Holder’s resignation even from liberals like law professor Jonathan Turley.
2) The IRS scandal: Way back in 2009, President Obama “joked” about targeting his enemies for tax audits. The next year, the IRS started targeting Tea Party groups for extremely intrusive IRS questioning — including questions about books they read, prayers said and names of high school and college students attending their training sessions. Many were basically shut down by this onslaught, leaving them effectively (and conveniently) neutralized for the 2012 election season.
According to White House visitor logs, Acting IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman visited the White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011 (a bit more than twice a week, on average). His predecessor, who oversaw the agency under Bush, visited the White House only once in his entire career.
There could be an innocent explanation for Schulman’s regular trips — but he hasn’t supplied it. Asked why he visited the White House so often, he said something about taking his kids to the annual Easter Egg Roll.
3) Benghazi: The 2012 Obama Campaign’s line was that al Qaeda was defeated and terror no longer a major threat. Then the US consulate was overrun by, oops, al Qaeda fighters on last Sept. 11, leaving four Americans dead.
The White House, though it knew better, blamed the whole thing on an obscure YouTube video, and saw the video’s filmmaker hustled off to jail for “probation violations.” Since then, it’s become clear that Team Obama knowingly misrepresented events to Congress and the American public.
4) The Sebelius Shakedown: With Congress not appropriating money for ObamaCare implementation, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius went to people and companies regulated by her department and asked for “donations.” While this may have been legal, it’s plainly inappropriate for a high official to ask for “donations” from people she regulates.
Tired already? I don’t blame you, and I haven’t even mentioned the Pigford scandal, involving payments out of the Treasury’s “Judgment Fund” as part of a settlement scheme that seems rather iffy, even to The New York Times.
I’m reminded of the old “dense pack” missile-basing idea from the 1980s: The idea was to put missile silos close enough together that if one was hit by an atomic bomb, the mushroom cloud would protect the other silos from incoming attacks.
Likewise, it’s argued, by bringing all these scandals out at once — the IRS scandal actually first hit the news thanks to a question planted by IRS official Lois Lerner — the Obama administration may have a few bad weeks, but ensures by the sheer proliferation of scandal that no one of these will get the attention it deserves.
That might work, if you think of scandals as things that, like Watergate, knock out a presidency. But most don’t. The proliferation of scandal in most administrations — think George W. Bush or Bill Clinton — is more like acid rain. There’s no knockout, just an erosion of popularity and clout.
That’s what’s most likely to happen here: The Obama presidency won’t end with a bang, but it just might end with a whimper, worn away by the drip, drip of scandal.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee.