Benghazi The Daily Banter

If You’re Freaked Out by the AP and IRS Scandals, Blame a Republican

My Wednesday column and blame where blame is due:

Call me a hopeless dreamer, but there ought to be a rule in politics banning anyone who caused a crisis from later bitching about the crisis. For the last four years, we’ve witnessed the Republicans, who voted for every Bush-era spending bill and irresponsible tax cut, crapping their cages over the size of the resulting deficit and debt — again, a deficit and debt that they themselves created without uttering even a shrug of protest during eight years in which a surplus transformed into a record deficit. Not a word — except to condemn the Democratic president who was unfortunate enough to inherit the chaos.

Likewise, as we observe the mayhem surrounding the dueling “scandals” of Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press phone records subpoena, the Republicans, true to form, are tripping over each other in a mad dash to scream “Impeach!” into the next nearest cable news video camera. There’s only one problem: when it comes to the IRS situation and the AP phone debacle, the Republicans created the chain-reactions that led to these scandals.

Let’s begin with the IRS scandal first. [continue reading here]