Speaking of Iran-Contra, to which I alluded in my previous post, it looks like Obama is now the beneficiary of a phenomenon that I, at least, first noticed at the time of that affair.
The geezers among us remember that at first, the scandal consisted of the fact that Reagan secretly sold weapons to Iran. There was no question that Reagan absolutely knew what was going on. That fact alone would have gotten Obama in the impeachment dock, and should have done for Reagan, but the Reagan people performed brilliantly.
What did they do? They came forward and acknowledged that the money they made on the secret arms deal was used to buy arms for the Contras in Nicaragua, and announced that Reagan was totally unaware of that fact. They knew that the media and beltway folks can only think about one thing at a time, and sure enough, everyone ignored the crime to which Reagan had already pleaded guilty in favor of trying to find out if he had committed the crime to which he’d pleaded not guilty by reason of incompetence. Congress duly wasted its time looking into the one issue, while ignoring the other.
The same phenomenon is on display these days, though not through any obvious White House machinations. Benghazi, IRS, and AP are fading into irrelevance because the one big thing is the NSA spying “scandal”. I’m the first person to agree that the NSA should not be spying on us all, but folks, there is nothing new here. This program, or stuff like it, has been known about for years. It wasn’t that long ago that we on the left were loudly arguing that the telecoms should not be granted retroactive immunity for doing precisely what they are continuing to do, and a guy named Obama said he agreed with us, until the time came to vote on the bill.
The Obama folks must be secretly delighted and would probably like to give Glenn Greenwald and Mr. Snowden a medal. The Republicans could unite around the fake Benghazi and IRS scandals, and the AP thing, which they never cared about, never got any traction, but they’re at a loss on this thing, since they heartily approve of wholesale spying on the American people. They approve of it so much that they can’t take the standard Obama era approach and attack him for doing what they have previously proposed (see, e.g., Obamacare). So while everyone concentrates on this Bush era, Obama continued assault on our liberties, the Republicans’ favored “scandals” are withering on the vine, and the Republican bigwigs find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to defend Obama. One reason the Republicans are able to dominate beltway discourse is that they speak with one voice, but on this issue, they are unable to do that. It helps, of course, that this really is a serious thing, though it is not the shocking revelation that it’s played out to be. But that doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that it’s the latest thing, and all previous things are quickly forgotten, because the collective Washington mind can only contain two things at once: the permanent obsession with deficits (this applies only during Democratic administrations), and the latest thing to come along.
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