Republicans are destroying their own party.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Plomp asses

[DinoDoc]

Counterpoint:

The GOP’s Free Pass
It’s almost impossible for Republicans to overplay their hand on the IRS scandal. And they are just getting started.
By John Dickerson|Posted Wednesday, June 5, 2013, at 9:16 PM

Ever since the Obama administration ran aground on a series of scandals, Republicans have been trying hard to go from zero to Watergate. No matter how hard they stomp on the accelerator, the car won't go. On the left, there is a similar desire to go from zero to McCarthy. The main target: Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who has been investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups. On Sunday, Issa called White House spokesman Jay Carney a "paid liar," in keeping with the Republican congressman’s general temperament, which is to accuse first and find the facts later. Democrats are trying to promote the idea that Republicans are overplaying their hand with these controversies. Several times, analysts have raised the specter of the 1990s House Republicans who took their party over the cliff with mad passion in the investigations of Bill Clinton.

Republicans have not overplayed their hand. Unlike the late 1990s, they have the country with them in their pursuit of answers. Americans want to get to the bottom of the IRS mess, the issue that has prompted some of Issa's extravagancies. New revelations, like this week's disclosures about IRS profligacy, are offering fresh reasons for outrage, and the disciplining of two IRS officials for receiving gifts against ethics rules ratifies the investigations. New polls show that the country thinks the president is less trustworthy, so the chances the public will rush to his defense against the meanies going after him is shrinking.

First, a little history: In 1998, Dan Burton, Issa's Republican predecessor as chairman of the Oversight Committee, said, "If I could prove 10 percent of what I believe happened [about Bill Clinton], he'd be gone. This guy's a scumbag. That's why I'm after him." That’s a lot worse than saying mean things about Jay Carney. Sen. Harry Reid once called President George Bush a liar. Rep. Joe Wilson yelled, “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Issa has some distance to go before he reaches the current standard for bruising words. Burton once shot a watermelon in his back yard as a part of some home investigation into a dramatic theory he had about the suicide of Clinton White House aide Vince Foster. When you're shooting the fruit, that's overreach. If Issa starts going in for the gourds, we can reassess.

The notion of overreach is based on the idea that Republicans will get so nutty that they will turn off voters in the 2014 election. Since that will be a nonpresidential year, the chance for overreach is already diminished. The electorate is likely to be filled with far more politically active voters. Die-hards have a greater tolerance for partisan circus acts. Still, you can go too far. There are two dangers: You either inspire the other side's partisans to mobilize, or you present yourself as such a menace to the citizenry that you scare voters who might sit out the election, and they go to the polls to vote you out.

The IRS scandal isn't likely to encourage either of these outcomes. The public seems to think the matter is worth pursuing. Fifty-eight percent surveyed in a recent Bloomberg poll say Congress is spending the right amount of time on the investigation or should spend more. Forty-three percent of those surveyed in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said IRS scrutiny of conservative groups was part of a widespread effort by those in government, compared with 29 percent who saw it as a case of a few officials acting on their own. Even 63 percent of Democrats want an independent prosecutor to investigate the IRS abuses.

When it comes to other scandals, the public seems to think there's enough smoke there, too. In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll respondents were asked separately about Benghazi, the IRS scandal, and the Justice Department’s monitoring of journalists, and in each case at least 55 percent said the incident raised doubts about “the overall honesty and integrity of the Obama administration.” In January, self-described independents gave Obama high marks for being "honest and straightforward." Now only 27 percent do. According to a recent Bloomberg poll, 47 percent of Americans say they don't believe Obama is telling the truth when he says he didn't know the IRS was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups. (Forty percent say he is being truthful).

In a nonpresidential election year where base motivation is even more important, the IRS investigations offer perhaps the greatest opportunity for Republicans to score free points in the history of politics. Grassroots Tea Party activists are invited to Washington to tell their stories of harassment and discrimination, and even Democrats have to tell them how wronged they were. Republicans can baste their supporters in love and vindication. Tea Party members have had their specific fears about government targeting ratified, and this week they're getting more validation for their broader view about government bloat. An IRS inspector general's report out this week catalogued roughly $50 million spent on agency conferences, with loose attention to cost in some cases. High-profile items in the report included $17,000 to hire an artist to paint portraits of Michael Jordan and Bono and $50,000 to produce videos that included a Star Trek parody.

The long-term danger for Chairman Issa may not be overreach but ineffectiveness. When you overhype evidence, people will notice if you don’t have the goods, and ultimately you lose credibility. But we are a long way from that. Right now, the public wants Republicans to make their case.

[OzzyKP]

Keep plummeting your ratings Republicans, and keep helping Obama's rating to go up.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/17/poll-obamas-approval-ratings-dive-in-wake-of-surveillance-scandal/

Poll: Obama’s approval ratings dive amid surveillance controversy

The president’s approval ratings have dropped eight points to 45%, according to the latest CNN/ORC International poll, following news that the government is broadly running surveillance on Americans who interact with foreigners. It is the president’s worst approval rating since November 2011.

The polling shows a marked drop in support from people under the age of 30, black Americans, and independents, whose support for the president fell by 10 points, CNN reported.

It’s been a rough couple of months for President Obama: a leak revealed the National Security Agency’s anti-terror policy of widely running surveillance on Americans who interact with those abroad, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it had targeted Tea Party and Conservative nonprofits, Congressional hearings continued to hunt for more on the handling of the Benghazi attacks, and the Justice Department admitted it secretly subpoenaed journalist’s phone records while investigating a leak of classified information.

Support for Obama held on during the first weeks of scandals, but the controversies, particularly the news of the NSA surveillance, have clearly caught up to him—for the first time since Obama took office, 50% of Americans do not think the president is “honest and trustworthy.”

The 1,013 Americans polled last week were torn on which NSA programs they support: just over half support the government’s monitoring of phone records of Americans contacting those abroad, while a majority, 66%, support the government monitoring the internet behavior and communicators of Americans interacting with foreigners.

Despite that, 62% of those surveyed feel the government has become so ‘large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,’ and 61% disapprove of how the president is handling surveillance—more than the number of Americans who disapproved of of George W. Bush’s surveillance methods, 52%.

Another poll, however, found a distinct partisan shift when it comes to surveillance, where a majority of both parties approving the programs when their own party held the Oval Office, and disapproving when the opposing party was in power.

Obama is now less popular than George Bush.

[Sava]

Interesting how people of the political persuasion who seem to hate the media so much also seem to celebrate it when the effects of such coverage begins to shift public opinion.

[kentonio]

A) it wasn't

Yes, it really was.

Interestingly enough, you know who was in favor of Citizens United? That damned conservative group, the ACLU.

Who know who else the ACLU defended? The Klu Klux Klan.

Obviously this does not make the ACLU a bad organization nor their defense of either Citizens United or the Klan a wrong choice. It does however illustrate the worthlessness of pointing at an organization as if their name alone has some deeper power. The ACLU supported Citizens United on freedom of speech grounds but also laid out quite clearly the obvious dangers that came with the decision.

[kentonio]

Obama is now less popular than George Bush.

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

[Sava]

Obama pretty much is Bush.

He just makes me feel morally superior to Republicans because I'm not a racist Islamaphobe.

[giblets]

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/17/poll-...lance-scandal/



Obama is now less popular than George Bush.

That's not what the text you quoted actually says.

[MrFun]

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/17/poll-...lance-scandal/



Obama is now less popular than George Bush.

[MrFun]

Why did you change it from "Republicans sabotaging their own party" to "Republicans are destroying their own party"? It's obvious the Republican party isn't going anywhere.

[MrFun]

Interestingly enough, you know who was in favor of Citizens United? That damned conservative group, the ACLU.

You drop the name of an organization as if this settles the entire discussion. Is there some magical power about the name, ACLU?

[Imran Siddiqui]

The ACLU supported Citizens United on freedom of speech grounds

Yes, exactly.

As was defending the KKK's right to free speech was a good decision.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You drop the name of an organization as if this settles the entire discussion. Is there some magical power about the name, ACLU?

Apparently the author the moronic article in the OP thinks dropping the name "Citizens United" settles the entire discussion as if by magic. I assumed I'd attempt the same tactic since you respond so favorably to it.

[Sava]

shooting those cracker ****s in the head would be a better decision

[rah]

Apparently the author the moronic article in the OP thinks dropping the name "Citizens United" settles the entire discussion as if by magic. I assumed I'd attempt the same tactic since you respond so favorably to it.

You're assuming he reads what he cuts and pastes with a critical eye.