Libertarian Leanings

Never Mind

Today, Aaron David Miller argues that President Obama's Egypt policy makes perfect sense.  It doesn't just make sense, it makes perfect sense.

The only thing that's really clear about U.S. Middle East policy these days is its stunning lack of clarity. Neocons and liberal interventionists alike protest the confusion loudly, and a great many others with less ideological baggage silently scratch their heads.

Anomalies, contradictions, confusion, and more than a little hypocrisy abound...

Still, even while it seems confused and directionless, Barack Obama's Middle East policies have logic and coherence. Indeed, they follow strict directives that the president has imposed. I call them BHO's Five Commandments, and they tell you all you need to know about why the president does what he does from Cairo to Damascus.

You may be startled to learn that the first of BHO's five commandments is to pretty much ignore the middle east:

Commandment No. 1: Care more about the middle class than the Middle East.

Obama may not be able to fix either one. But there's no doubt he'd rather be remembered as a president who tried to repair America's broken house than one who chased around the world on a quixotic quest to fix somebody else's. Immigration reform, the budget, making Obamacare work, continuing to focus on infrastructure, education -- these are things that are important to the American people and to the legacy of a president who is of one of only 17 elected to a second term. Time's running out. Why squander it on problems he cannot fix, like Syria? 

I suppose ignoring Egypt altogether might make sense to somebody, somewhere, but it really doesn't sound like the sort of analysis you would find in a magazine that calls itself Foreign Policy, which is where this article appears.  So I perused the editorial titles from a list of columns written by Mr. Miller and found one entitled Dumb and Dumber.  It argues that the United States should not suspend aid to Egypt, even though there is a U.S. law that forbids foreign aid to a country whose government has just been overthrown by a military coup.  Mr. Miller opens that article with this:

I've come up with some pretty dumb ideas during the course of my career in diplomacy and government (see: inviting Yasir Arafat to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum). But what I'm hearing in Washington these days about suspending U.S. assistance to Egypt is even dumber.

Truth be told, I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Miller.  While I really can't say how dumb his other ideas might be, I agree that aid to Egypt should not be suspended.  But, poor Mr. Miller.  No sooner does he open his trap about it, the Obama administration announces plans to cut aid to Egypt.

The Obama administration has temporarily halted the delivery of weapons to the Egyptian military as well as some forms of economic aid to the government, despite deciding not to officially describe the military takeover as a coup. The office of Senator Patrick Leahy, the head of the Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, told The Daily Beast on Monday that the administration has implemented these changes over the past month as it formulates an official determination on the coup.

Well, does that make the Obama adminstration dumber than dumb in the view of Mr. Miller?  Not exactly.  Let's go back to Obama's perfect Egypt policy and commandment number two to find out why.

Commandment No. 2: Pay attention to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama's critics argue he's already paid too much attention to the wars, drawn the wrong lessons from both, and as a result overcorrected and abdicated U.S. leadership. But you really can't pay too much attention to the two longest wars in U.S. history -- wars that cost more than 6,000 American lives, thousands of serious casualties, trillions of dollars, and a great deal of U.S. credibility.

Obama's current approach toward Syria and even Egypt has in fact drawn the right lessons from these wars: he's intuitively grasped the limit of U.S. influence in changing the nature of Middle Eastern societies caught up in internal conflict. If we couldn't reshape what happens in Kabul and Baghdad with hundreds of thousands of troops and trillions of dollars, how are we going to have an impact on what Egypt's generals do or don't do with a trifling $1 billion or so?

Fascinating analysis we have here.  Did you get that part that asks, how are we going to have an impact on Egypt's generals with a trifling billion dollars or so?  A short four weeks ago Mr. Miller said that the idea of pulling that trifling billion was even dumber than some of his own dumb ideas, but today?  Oh, never mind.  Now it's a perfect idea.

It's a little scary that we have what seems to be an entire industry, the mainstream media, fully prepared to declare Obama the embodiment of perfection, regardless of which direction his decisions take.  For Obama's admirers "yes" and "no" are equally brilliant answers.  

Why The Economy Stinks

T.J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, explains:

Silicon Valley is today's brightest example of the traditional American dream still at work. The investments for most startup companies must come from individuals who can wait 10 years to get a return on investment. Only very wealthy Americans can afford that.

Like many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, I have reinvested in the next generation of entrepreneurs, in my case via the Sequoia Fund and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, two venture-capital firms that gave me a shot at the American dream. I also serve as a board member of their portfolio companies.

Does anybody really believe that moving investment decisions from Silicon Valley to Washington by raising taxes on venture capitalists and their investors would make Silicon Valley more productive? Consider the Solyndra debacle: It was obvious to most of us here that the solar-energy company had zero chance of survival. That's why the company had to be government-funded near the end; no real investors were willing to step up.

There's an investment choice for you.  Silicon Valley or Washington, DC?  Differences get back to motivations.  Progressives just deplore the profit motive in free enterprise, but they have no problem engorging themselves at tax payer expense.  Call it the government profit motive.  Adding another layer of government is such a safe investment.  It soaks up billions in taxes, and provides its returns to specific targeted constituencies (investors) who express their gratitude in the form of compaign cash and fundraisers.  Solyndra.

Compare that to the painstaking, time consuming, and very risky pursuit of investing in and developing a product on the bet that people will like it enough to choose it over a myriad of alternatives. 

Progressives are not into alternatives.  They seem to have this aversion to investing their own money unless the government is guaranteeing their profits.  The taxpayer is the source of their profits.  It's a sure thing.  The taxpayer has no choice but to pay up.

Who Is This Person...

...who says:

Why is it that America’s roil family always seems better in abstract than in concrete? The closer it gets to running the world once more, the more you are reminded of all the things that bugged you the last time around.

The Clintons’ neediness, their sense of what they are owed in material terms for their public service, their assumption that they’re entitled to everyone’s money.

Are we about to put the “For Rent” sign back on the Lincoln Bedroom?

You may be shocked to discover that it's none other than Maureen Dowd.  Who could ever have imagined Ms. Dowd complaining about Democrat money in politics.  Even more shocking, she complains about the Clintons' sense of entitlement to everyone else's money?  Did Ms. Dowd just join the Tea Party?

Alas, no.  Turns out she's still dumber than a box of rocks.  Says the gullible Ms. Dowd:

The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl.

The Clintons don't want to do big worthy things you, dunce.  They just want power.   If Bill had to change his spots and sign a Welfare Reform bill that went completely contrary to Democrat governing philosophy, so be it.  It's all but undone now, anyway.  And "worthy" does not describe the Clintons' brand of health care reform any more than it applies to ObamaCare.  It's the power that's important. 

Another hint for Ms. Dowd:  It's not just rich people's money they're after.  The Clintons have never cared where the money comes from.  They'll squeeze it out of anybody.

David Sirota asks...

...what if the president lied to us?

Yes, Obama has an obvious political interest in trying to hide as much of his administration’s potentially illegal behavior as possible, which means he has an incentive to calculatedly lie. For all of these reasons, it seems safe to suggest that when it comes to the NSA situation, the president seems to be lying.

But hey, if Obama partisans and the Washington punditburo want to now forward the argument that the president has just been “wrong” or inaccurate or whatever other euphemism du jour avoids the L word, then fine: They should be asking why, by their own argument, the president is so completely unaware of what his government is doing. After all, if he’s not lying, then something is still very, very wrong.

In other words if the president lied, nothing.  I think Sirota has his sights on a silver lining.  Look at it this way.  The media can't just ignore this (formerly) phony scandal, so they need to act all indignant and outraged about it, at least for a little while, and then wait until the whole thing blows over.  Even phony outrage would give a boost to their cred.  The media give themselves cover and cover to Obama until he is able to enlist the NSA along with the IRS and the FEC in his quest to save America from the Tea Party.  So it's all good, wouldn't you say, Dave?

The Imperial Presidency

When Richard Nixon claimed executive privilege during the Watergate investigations it was my fear that congressional and judicial acquiescence would give us a de facto dictator. There was reason to be fearful.

In a 1977 interview with Richard Nixon, David Frost asked: “Would you say that there are certain situations . . . where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation . . . and do something illegal?”

Nixon: “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Frost: “By definition.”

Nixon: “Exactly, exactly.”

I had a similar fear of Bill Clinton.  He was so "in your face" with his denials, whether it was about Whitewater or Monica Lewinski that I thought he would successfully innoculate himself against any and all charges of wrong doing.  But his denials ultimately led to impeachment, a contempt citation, disbarment, and a $90,000 fine for giving false testimony.  Though my fears were not realized, Clinton's impeachment served to tarnish the Republican brand, so much so that we are extremely unlikely to go down that road again.  So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a de facto dictator.

Liberal commentators didn't really pick up on it yesterday, but for conservatives the key moment of Barack Obama's New York Times interview was his dismissive answer to a question about the employer mandate delay. Asked whether he'd consulted with lawyers before making that call, Obama dodged, then derided the idea.

If Congress thinks that what I’ve done is inappropriate or wrong in some fashion, they’re free to make that case. But there’s not an action that I take that you don't have some folks in Congress who say that I'm usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my authority by having the gall to win the presidency. And I don't think that's a secret. But ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions -- very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers.

Congress will never make that case that Obama has usurped its authority while the Senate remains in Democratic hands, but the Courts are a different matter.  The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, has stated it quite forcefully in its decision concerning nuclear waste storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which requires approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In a major rebuke on Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unusual writ of mandamus, which is a direct judicial order compelling the government to fulfill a legal obligation. This "extraordinary remedy" is nominally about nuclear waste, writes Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the 2-1 majority, yet the case "raises significant questions about the scope of the Executive's authority to disregard federal statutes."

...

Judge Kavanaugh then offers some remedial legal education in "basic constitutional principles" for the President who used to be a constitutional law professor. Under Article II and Supreme Court precedents, the President must enforce mandates when Congress appropriates money, as well as abide by prohibitions. If he objects on constitutional grounds, he may decline to enforce a statute until the case is adjudicated in the courts. "But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections," writes the court.

That is especially notable given that ObamaCare's employer-insurance requirement and other provisions are precisely such unambiguous statutory mandates, with hard start dates. The executive has broad enforcement and interpretative discretion but not the wholesale authority to suspend core parts of laws, even ones he co-wrote.

All of this highlights that Mr. Obama is not merely redefining this or that statute as he goes but also the architecture of the U.S. political system. As with the judicial slapdowns on his non-recess recess appointments that the Supreme Court will hear next term, Judge Kavanaugh warns that endorsing the NRC's legal position "would gravely upset the balance of powers between the Branches and represent a major and unwarranted expansion of the Executive's power."

There is nothing, so far, to indicate that Obama will abide by the decision of the court.  The very idea seems so contrary to his nature.  He is, after all, a community organizer who follows the Alinsky playbook as his governing blueprint.  He will accuse anybody who has the gall to oppose him of racism: 

"Some of those folks think I usurp my authority by having the gall to win the presidency."

Can there be any doubt what he meant by that?  Whether he believes it himself or not, he wants everybody else to believe that those who disagree with him do it because of the color of his skin.  It is an accusation frequently made by Democrats and repeated in the media.  And it just may turn out to be very effective in this way:  Unless something extraordinary occurs, impeachment is effectively off the table.  What, then, will make him abide by the decision of the court if he chooses to ignore it?

plus ça change...

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  It sounds so much more sophisticated in French, though, doesn't it?  And cynical, too.  Pessimists often thought to be quite sophisticated.  One makes claim to a certain sense of superiority by being pessimistic.  There is a better way, if only "they" were as smart as "me."  But no.  Nothing changes.  The country remains broken.  It's all quite hopeless.  If only we could find somebody smart enough to run things. 

Ah, but we did!  We found Barack Obama!  The brilliant Barack is running things now, and he has been for the past five years.  So things are so much better now, right?  Well, not so much.  In fact they're much worse, but how can that be?  

Barack Obama was supposed fix the economy, end all wars, and spread Social Justice throughout the world.  He was going to slow the oceans' rise, too, and that may help to explain why things aren't going as well as they ought to be.

Peggy Noonan's column entitled How Obama Wooed the Middle Class talks about the extensive and intensive research that went into shaping Barack Obama's successful 2012 campaign message.  The goal was to find out what was important to the middle class.  What were middle class Americans thinking?  (I wonder that myself now.  What were we thinking!)  

An Obama adviser summed up the man's stated grievances: "I can't send my kid to college next year. . . . I haven't had a raise in five years. . . . I am sick and tired of giving bailouts to the folks at the top and handouts to the folks at the bottom. I'm going to fire people [politicians] until my life gets better."

That is as succinct a summation as I've seen of how the American middle class has been thinking the past few years: The guys at the top and the bottom are taken care of while I get squeezed.

The Obama people took his comments seriously. It would be nice to say they were primarily looking for policies to help him, but their job was politics: They sought ways to reach him, to make him an Obama voter.

A bit of irony.  If Obama really had any idea what middle class Americans were thinking maybe his campaign wouldn't have had to do so much research.  But he didn't, so his campaign did the polling.  The result?  A plan to show how Mitt Romney had no idea what middle class Americans were thinking.

The Obama campaign decided not to make the campaign about the state of the economy but about who could look after the interests of the middle class in a time of historic transition. At the same time they decided to go after Mitt Romney hard, and remove him as a reasonable alternative. His selling point was that he understood the economy and made it work for him: He was rich. They turned that into a tale of downsizing, layoffs and rapacious capitalism. An Obama adviser: "He may get the economy, he may know how to make money . . . but every time he did, folks like you lost your pensions, lost your jobs."

It would be one thing if there was some truth to that accusation, but Obama was not interested in truth, only in winning.  Focusing on the plight of GST Steel the Obama campaign painted a portrait of Romney as a corporate raider, plundering the company, throwing people out of work, and even causing the death of one worker's wife.  The real story?

At the time, GST's union blamed the company's bankruptcy on the political class, for failing to hamstring imports. "We can't compete against the steel imports that are being sold under cost," said the president of GST's union in 2001. "Our pleas fell on deaf ears in the political arena." The Bush administration would ultimately slap on giant tariffs.

The bankruptcies were led by unionized companies that, like airlines and textiles and Detroit, had negotiated pay and benefits that helped drive their employers under. GST's pension benefits would get passed on to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which in 2002 received $7.5 billion in claims from the steel industry alone. The PBGC covered GST's basic pension payouts.

The Obama ad doesn't note that the broader company, GS Industries, employed 3,500 and that the Kansas City plant (with 750 workers) was the only one shuttered. Other plants were bought and operate today. Nor does it mention Bain's other steel investment in the early 1990s, in an Indiana start-up called Steel Dynamics. The firm touts innovative technology and a nonunion workforce. It today reports $6.3 billion in revenue—25 times what it claimed in its 1996 IPO—and employs 6,000.

A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a company—to "suck" the life out of it—does not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy.

Things just never seem to change.  After five years of Barack Obama we have people losing their jobs, their pensions, or both.  It's the Obama economy and it's the effect of Obama's regulatory and tax policies.  He knows it, too.  Didn't he just admit as much by granting ObamaCare waivers to our largest corporations.  He's delaying the ObamaCare employer mandate until after the election.  Campanies will not have to choose among 1) spending what Obama says they should on employee health insurance, 2) laying off workers, 3) shifting some full-time workers to part-time, or 4) paying a hefty fine.  Can't have people thrown out of work this close to the vote now, can we?

As it has always been, progressive policy is not aimed at promoting economic growth, but on syphoning more of it into their own hands by way of the government.  That stifles growth.  Build the Keystone Pipeline?  Not if he can prevent it.  His friends oppose it.  They're into electric cars and solar panels.

Now, just as in the campaign, Obama's every effort will be focused not on how to make things better for Americans, but how to blame the somebody else when they aren't.  It's who he is, and because of it Americans will continue to struggle, unemployment will remain high, and the gap between the haves and have-nots will widen. Things just never seem to change.

John Henry Buys the Boston Globe

John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, has entered into an agreement to buy the Boston Globe from the New York Times.  The sale price is $70 million.  The Times bought The Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion.  The Times reports:

The New York Times Company, in its latest move to shed assets and focus more on its core brand, has agreed to sell The Boston Globe and its other New England media properties to John W. Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox.

The sale, for $70 million, would return the paper to local ownership after two decades in which it struggled to stem the decline in circulation and revenue. The price would represent a staggering drop in value for The Globe, which The Times bought in 1993 for $1.1 billion, the highest price paid for an American newspaper.

$70 million.  That's less than the Red Sox paid for center fielder Carl Crawford.  

The Globe Reports:

In 2009, the Times Co. tried to sell the Globe, but it took the paper off the market because it did not fetch the price it was seeking. It received wage concessions from the newspapers’ union members and management afterthreatening to shutter the paper because the company was losing money.

The Globe’s financial health is stronger now, but the company is still working to turn around declining advertising revenue, a problem that persists industrywide.

Henry is known for his keen grasp of numbers and a disciplined approach to statistics and analysis that he brought to commodities futures and to the Red Sox. His models for making smart bets on the market, he told the Globe in 2004, focused on “what is, not what should be.”

After many years of investment success, the funds managed by John W. Henry & Co. began to falter after the financial crisis. Henry shut down the hedge fund firm last year, although it continues to manage his personal money.

When asked last year about whether his financial resources were diminished in such a way that it could affect his Sox ownership, Henry said, “I have no interest in reducing that. If anything, I expect it to increase over time.”

While Henry has shown himself to be a long-term investor, how he plans to run the Globe is still largely unknown.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that he'll turn it around.  After all, he did bring a World Series win back home to Boston after the 86 year Curse of the Bambino.  But how will he revive the fortunes of the Globe?  Maybe the sale of the Nashua Telegraph earlier this year will provide some insight.  

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Ogden group to buy Telegraph

By Telegraph Staff

HUDSON – An agreement has been reached for The Ogden Newspapers Inc., a family-owned company with 40 daily newspapers in 12 states, to become the new owner of The Telegraph, Publisher Terrence L. Williams announced Monday.

Independent Publications Inc., which has owned The Telegraph since 1977, announced in late December that it would sell the daily newspaper and its associated weeklies and websites.

Williams introduced Robert M. Nutting, president and chief executive officer of Ogden Newspapers, to Telegraph employees Monday afternoon.

A little more than a year earlier I had cancelled my subscription to the Telegraph.  I was incensed over Telegraph coverage which sought to discredit Project Veritas for demonstrating the ease with which James O'Keefe was able to walk into New Hampshire polling places and improperly obtain ballots.

In 2009, a Project Veritas worker posed as a prostitute and O’Keefe pretended to be her boyfriend to obtain damaging statements from the advocacy group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Congress froze federal funding for ACORN after O’Keefe’s videos appeared to show workers offering advice on how to get away with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution. Afterward, it was determined the videos were heavily edited and conversations were changed.

Project Veritas also recorded an NPR executive in controversial conversations that touched on Islam and Christianity. The organization faced the same charge that the video was selective.

I sent the following letter to the editor with my cancellation:

The Telegraph deliberately mislead in its story on the Project Veritas individuals who were able to obtain presidential primary ballots by posing as registered New Hampshire voters. Project Veritas staged and recorded a demonstration of the frightening ease with which voting can be corrupted, even here in “live free or die” New Hampshire. The Telegraph attempted to discredit Project Veritas by claiming that earlier stings recorded by Project Veritas against ACORN "were heavily edited and conversations were changed," implying that the charges against ACORN were untrue. Congress and the US Census disagreed and ACORN was forced to disband.

To the issue of voter fraud, in the bad old days the Democratic party of the old south disqualified African Americans from voting through unfair poll taxes and literacy tests. Today's preferred method for disenfranchising voters is by manufacturing votes, as was recently seen in Troy, New York where certain Democratic party officials plead guilty to filling out absentee ballots on behalf of voters who had no idea that their votes were being cast. Manufactured votes are, of course, intended to cancel out legitimate opposition votes.

Sadly, by opposing passage of any law that would require voters to provide proof that they are who they say they are, the Telegraph sides with those who hope to retain fraud as a viable election tactic. This betrayal by the Telegraph is the reason I have canceled my subscription.

I got a call from the editorial page editor a few days later.  Nick Pappas wanted to ask why I would so abruptly cancel after more than 10 years, and would I reconsider?  I told him I would not.  But I've reconsidered now, now that the Telegraph is under new management.  

As it happens, a couple of weeks ago I got another call from the new Telegraph asking if I would take two free Sunday papers as a trial.  The caller told me that I was not the only one who objected to the Telegraph's leftward slant and that he was calling other disenchanted former subscribers to tell everybody how things had changed.  

I agreed to the trial, but I was disappointed to find the first Sunday paper had gotten rained on and was ruined, and the second one didn't include an editorial section.  So I went the Telegraph website to see if the editorial page had really changed any.  A look at the National Columnists page said yes, it had.  Columnists representing the center and left were Jules Witcover, Robert Reich, Mark Shields, and Froma Harrop.  Out weighing them on the right were Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Barone, Brent Bozell, Andrew Napolitano, Patrick Buchanan, Scott Rasmussen, and Thomas Sowell.  On the other hand the Telegraph follows the Tweets of uber-leftist Paul Krugman.  Not a good sign.

But aside from that it appears that under the Ogden Group the Telegraph has taken a turn towards the right, a turn which puts it more closely in tune with the American public which is largely conservative.  It's much too soon to tell whether or not this will pay off financially for the Telegraph.  (I don't know that it will get one more subscriber.)  Nor do we know if the Boston Globe will also ease away from the political left under the ownership of John Henry.  It's what I'd do, but that's neither here nor there.  

But on the bigger story, do we detect a movement away from the radical left by elements of the mainstream press.  The fortunes of the Telegraph and the Globe may be telling us, yes.  We can hope so anyway.

Belated update:  Peter Ingemi has more on the sale of the Globe.

Red Mass Group expands on why John Henry of the Boston Red Sox is the perfect buyer for the paper:

John Henry on the other hand is a long time Democratic donor and activist. According to his donation records Henry has donated over $1.1M to Democrats and special interest groups, while $1000 went to a lone Republican.

$1,000 Republican
$1,003,250 Democrat
$101,500 special interest
total: $1,105,750

Seemingly the New York Times Corporation may have not fulfilled it’s fiduciary responsibility to get the most money for an asset it was selling. Furthermore, it seems to be based on the politics of the bidders.

Oh well.  It looks like balanced viewpoint and news coverage out of the Globe are too much to hope for.

Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?

Kimberly Strassel has more on the "phony" IRS scandal that continues to plague the administration.

In late summer of 2008, Obama lawyer Bob Bauer took issue with ads run against his boss by a 501(c)(4) conservative outfit called American Issues Project. Mr. Bauer filed a complaint with the FEC, called on the criminal division of the Justice Department to prosecute AIP, and demanded to see documents the group had filed with the IRS.

Thanks to Congress's newly released emails, we now know that FEC attorneys went to Ms. Lerner to pry out information about AIP—the organization the Obama campaign wanted targeted. An email from Feb. 3, 2009, shows an FEC attorney asking Ms. Lerner "whether the IRS had issued an exemption letter" to AIP, and requesting that she share "any information" on the group. Nine minutes after Ms. Lerner received this FEC email, she directed IRS attorneys to fulfill the request.

This matters because FEC staff didn't have permission from the Commission to conduct this inquiry. It matters because the IRS is prohibited from sharing confidential information, even with the FEC. What the IRS divulged is unclear. Congressional investigators are demanding to see all communications between the IRS and FEC since 2008, and given that Ms. Lerner came out of the FEC's office of the general counsel, that correspondence could prove illuminating.

Keep in mind that Lois Lerner is the former head of the exempt-organizations division of the IRS who took the fifth when questioned by congress about IRS targeting of conservative groups.  Releasing that information as she did is against the law.  As Ms. Strassel points out, Ms Lerner was at the IRS in the summer of 2008.  This was prior to the election of Barack Obama when he was not yet President Obama.

Would candidate Obama have been shielded from knowledge of the improper release of confidential tax information by the IRS?  Is it possible that his campaign staff would have acted independently, without Senator Obama's knowledge?  Keep in mind, this is the president who has promised to bypass congress and take action by executive order or by regulatory means to achieve his policy (or more accurately political) goals.

Obama may be an abysmal president, but he is a brilliant politician.  Can you be a brilliant politician without paying attention to detail?  He is a community organizer.  Community organizing tactics are about getting in people's faces.  Take power, then see what anybody is going to do about it.  It's my opinion that President Obama didn't know specifically about Lerner's improper actions because he and his staff knew that he shouldn't know about them.  The term is "plausible deniability".

Church Committee

A U.S. Senate committee, the Church Committee, in 1974-1975 conducted an investigation of the intelligence agencies. In the course of the investigation, it was revealed that the CIA, going back to the Kennedy administration, had plotted the assassination of a number of foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro. But the president himself, who clearly was in favor of such actions, was not to be directly involved, so that he could deny knowledge of it. This was given the term plausible denial.^[3]

Non-attribution to the United States for covert operations was the original and principal purpose of the so-called doctrine of "plausible denial." Evidence before the Committee clearly demonstrates that this concept, designed to protect the United States and its operatives from the consequences of disclosures, has been expanded to mask decisions of the president and his senior staff members.

—Church Committee^[4]

It would seem that the doctrine of plausible deniability also protects a president from the inconvenient inquiries of an opposition party.  His administration cronies and his boosters in the mainstream press are on board with that.  They say this IRS stuff is a phony scandal, there's no evidence of White House involvement.  But, there is.  Circumstantial, maybe, but yes there is evidence of White House involvement.

Obama has only to suggest, and sycophants leap to his bidding.  Like King Henry II of England who asked, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"  The murder of Thomas Becket followed.  King Henry, of course, denied that he ever meant for that to happen.  Of course not.

Speculation Error

I was wrong in yesterday's speculation as to the employment status of Lois Lerner.  Lerner was the former head of the exempt-organizations division of the IRS who admitted that the Internal Revenue Service was guilty of singling out conservative groups for heightened scrutiny and harassment.  Yesterday I said:

[T]he likeliest status of Lois Lerner's employment is that she awaits her promotion.

On the contrary, Lois Lerner has already have collected her rewards.  My emphasis below.

While President Obama claimed when the IRS scandal came to light in May that "It's inexcusable ... and I'm angry about it," Politico reports this week that tax-exempt organizations commissioner Sarah Hall Ingram received "bonuses of $26,550 to $35,400 in fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012 ... 15 to 20% of her annual salary," while Lerner from 2006 to 2012 "was paid a combined total of $110,035 in bonuses." And senior IRS official Faris Fink, better known as Mr. Spock in the IRS' taxpayer-funded "Star Trek" parody, got "$149,506 in bonuses between 2007 and 2012." Clearly, someone above them was pleased.

The notion that President Obama was unaware of what was going is absurd.

Lew, Carney and Obama himself act like people worried about a threat lying a little farther under investigators' shovels. And they should be considering the suspicious timeline of Obama-appointed IRS chief counsel William Wilkins visiting the president on April 23 last year; IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visiting the White House the next day; and Wilkins' office sending the IRS "guidance" on the Tea Party the day after that.

The Obama administration is clearly a criminal enterprise.