Well, [according to the Beltway pundits](http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-villagers-will-not-be-ignored.html), Obama has himself three scandals. Amazingly enough, one of them, about which the Republicans will take the least umbrage, actually does involve an abuse of power by people for whose actions Obama is responsible. I refer to his Nixon like pursuit of information about members of the press. Charlie Cook [says these scandals are unlikely to hurt Obama much](http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/off-to-the-races/while-republicans-rant-about-benghazi-and-irs-public-mostly-yawns-20130513), and he gives some good reasons, but I'd like to add one more.
This is an example of the Republicans being hoist on their own petard, so to speak. Another way to put it is that they have inoculated either Obama or the electorate (or both), such that the one is unlikely to be tainted by scandal, and the other is unlikely to be impressed by charges of scandal.
Reagan was famously called the “teflon president”, and the complaint had merit. Obama has a teflon coating of his own, a coating generously applied by Republicans. The Republicans have been calling him a socialist gun stealing liberty hating, Kenyan-born Muslim terrorist for the past six years or so. People have learned to ignore stuff that comes from the Darrel Issas of the world, and the folks who do listen are not the folks the Republicans need to impress if they decide to go the full crazy and start impeachment proceedings. What makes them think they can get people to listen to silly charges about Benghazi given their track record of crazy? The press stuff has some merit, though it’s hardly an impeachable offense, given that Congress has fallen over itself giving the President carte blanche to spy on Americans as long as the “t” word is used in the right places.
The Beltway folks think what they think is what we think. They thought that with Clinton too, though there it was more nuanced. With Clinton, they thought that we thought what they thought we thought and could never come to grips with the fact that we didn’t think like that at all, and that we were even more capable than them of looking beyond a blow job. With Obama, they truly think we think what they think. They think they know us. But they don’t. It may be there town, but the rest of the country belongs to us.
There is an opportunity here, if Obama and the Democrats would grab it. People are tired of a do-nothing Congress, half of which is obsessed with getting the President, no matter how flimsy the pretext. They are more interested in jobs than Benghazi. A counter attack might work, but don’t hold your breath.
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