Taking the Fifth

Lois Lerner took the fifth amendment and refused to be questioned when faced with Congressional quizzing, according to this story in The Washington Post. What should we conclude from this lawful, constitutional choice?

Some will conclude that it means she is guilty of wrongdoing. I believe this is not warranted. On the other hand, I think it fair to conclude that she, and her legal counsel, probably believe that, guilty or not, her testimony would be open to multiple interpretations.

At least some of these interpretations could make her look wrong-footed, foolish, or even guilty. And, as we know from the Nuremberg trials, following orders is no excuse if the orders tell you to do something wrong.

A Mixed Message

Last night Vice President Biden was speaking to a group of Jewish leaders. He went on at considerable length about the "outsize influence per capita" of Jewish people in America (Jews make up less than 2% of the U.S. populace).

Obviously, the Veep's intentions were to be very positive, very appreciative of the contributions of American Jews. No surprise that Joe didn't mention that Jews were also most of the conservative neo-con movement? 

See Biden's remarks and a nervous "appreciation" of those remarks by Jonathan Chait for New York Magazine. It is interesting that Biden calling attention to Jews' large influence is not entirely welcome by those being honored.

They know it becomes fodder for those whose intentions are anything but positive, a point that Chait makes. The Council on American-Islamic Relations will likely find ways to use the Vice Presidents's words in their fund-raising and membership drives. If there is video of his speech, I'd expect to see it run repeatedly on Al Jazerra.

Suicide By Cop

Stabbing an armed FBI agent with a knife sounds like a strategy for accomplishing the well-known "suicide by cop," in this instance the variant "suicide by FBI agent." I hope the FBI agent who was stabbed is okay.

If that is the case, all that is lost is the possibility of extracting addition intelligence about further members of the Boston marathon bomber terrorist cell. On the upside, the state saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in trial and incarceration costs. See the ABC News article for details.

More on the IRS Scandal

Curious about who might be in the chain of command for the IRS unit in Cincinnati that was holding up tax-exempt status for Tea Party groups? Someone at Fox News (no surprise) has sussed out that info, the link is here.

It turns out the IRS agents whose names were on the documents all report to different managers. That doesn't sound like something happening accidentally in one over-stressed group -- the explanation we've been given by the Obama administration. It sounds like a policy coordinated from above, in Washington.

This article is for COTTonLINE readers who are really into the details of the IRS story, not the casual browser. It does, however, give the story new weight.

How To Read His Numbers

A Washington Post article by Jon Cohen and Dan Balz reports that President Obama's approval rating remains steady at around 51%. This seems unusual in the context of the three scandals belaboring the Obama administration.

How to understand this apparent anomaly? Two days ago we remarked in a trailing comment on another story as follows:

That would be true if the people who voted to reelect Obama paid attention to the news - with their votes they demonstrated they do not. Many are voting on criteria other than performance in office.

Perhaps it is now time to amplify these remarks. I believe many Obama voters support him, less for what he does, more for what he is, what he represents to them merely by being President.

As a black man, Barack Obama represents an end of the hegemony of white men in the control of this nation. That has to be an immensely powerful symbol to the tens of millions of black, Hispanic, and Asian voters.

Perhaps the symbolism works for white women as well; about that, as a man, I am much less certain.

The Pain of Spain

George Friedman writes for RealClearWorld about the dilemma of Southern Europe, with youth unemployment rates running close to 50%. He writes of driving in Spain and finding the roads nearly deserted. Of seeing middle class young men begging.

Friedman believes this level of youth unemployment will lead to anomie, even to rage, as it did during the Great Depression. See what he concludes:

Driving in Spain, things look quiet, neat and empty. But in that emptiness there is something ominous, perhaps not so much post-apocalyptic as pre-apocalyptic. Spain is still under control, and the European elite still believe an answer will be found. But I don't see the path that leads to the redemption of a generation's hopes. 

As a person who is interested in the direction the world is taking, perhaps you might read Friedman's article.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote is Stein's Law, attributed to economist Herb Stein as cited by Glenn Harlan Reynolds in a USA Today article:

Something that can't go on forever, won't.

Reynolds here reviews a book America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity In The 21st Century by James Bennett and Michael Lotus. Believe it or not, the book's view of our future is positive. How nice is that for a change?

It Figures

The three scandals whirling around the Obama administration have energized conservative viewers. Fox News viewership is up.

Logically enough, the scandals have discouraged liberal viewers. MSNBC viewership is down. See this Deadline Hollywood article for details.

The Company You Keep ....

Did you know that Chelsea Clinton's father-in-law is Ed Mezvinsky, a former Democratic congressman. He is also a convicted federal felon who served 5 years in prison for bank fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud?

According to Snopes, Wikipedia and a couple of other sources, this is on the level. As Casey Stengel was fond of saying, "you could look it up." Hat tip to friend Earl for putting me onto this bit of scurrilous gossip.

Ralph Peters on the Arab Winter

New York Post military analyst Ralph Peters has an intriguing column on the Middle East. His bottom line - the U.S. needs to stay out. See three of his insights:

We’re witnessing a titanic event, the crack-up of a long-tottering civilization. Arab societies grew so corrupt and stagnant that violent upheaval became inevitable.

We don’t even know how many new states will emerge from the old order’s wreckage. But the Scramble for the Sand is on, with Iran, Turkey, treacherous Arab oil sheikdoms and terrorists Sunni and Shia alike all determined to dictate the future, no matter the cost in other people’s blood.

We need to back off from Syria, if for no other reason than a strategist’s golden rule: If you don’t understand what a fight’s about, stay out.

I'd add the aphorism that we don't have a dog in this fight. The rest of the column suggests that Col. Peters takes a dim view of past U.S. actions in the region.

More Straight Talk from Bob Woodward

Here is more from Woodward's NBC News Meet The Press appearance yesterday as reported by RealClearPolitics. 

Well, I think on the whole Benghazi thing, you look at those talking points. And I mean the initial draft by the CIA very explicitly said, "We know that activists who have ties to al-Qaeda were involved in the attack." And then you see what comes out a couple of days later, and there is no reference to this. This is a business where you have to tell the truth. And that did not happen here.

Woodward knows CYA behavior when he sees it. He saw plenty of CYA as a young reporter digging out Watergate.

"This is a business where you have to tell the truth. And that did not happen here." With an election seven weeks away, the truth contradicted Obama's claim that al Qaeda was on the ropes.

Weird Foxy Science

Not all the news we comment on here at COTTonLINE is bad, only most of it. Here is a piece of strange good news from the Associated Press via Yahoo News. First, a quick geography lesson.

There is a chain of eight mountainous islands a few miles off the California coast. The northern five, opposite Ventura and Santa Barbara, have become the Channel Islands National Park. On clear days these are visible from the coastal highway - US 101.

Perhaps the most famous of the eight is one of the southern three: Santa Catalina. According to the Four Preps song lyric, it is 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. Now back to the weird science story.

The AP reports that the California island fox population is on the rebound, after nearly disappearing just thirteen years ago. It is a story of a chain of unintended consequences.

Island famers let some pigs go wild, or more likely, some of their wily hogs escaped and became a feral population numbering eventually in the thousands. The pigs then became a food source which lured in a population of golden eagles, flying killers which also preyed on the foxes, eating up most of them.

To restore the balance, the pigs were killed and the eagles were live-trapped and relocated. Meanwhile bald eagles, which don't prey on foxes, have been reintroduced. Foxes without flying predators have made a healthy come-back.

The AP article has a very nice picture of an island fox, a cute cat-sized predator. I suspect some population of ground-nesting bird will now be threatened by the foxes.

Five Benghazi Myths?

Michael Hirsh is chief correspondent for National Journal; here he writes for The Washington Post. His article is entitled "Five Myths About Benghazi." Hirsh finds both Democrats and Republicans subscribing to one or more of these myths.

I don't necessarily agree with all five of his myths. However, if you're following the Benghazi mess you'll find Hirsh's column interesting.

Power Corrupts

Tom Keane writes a column for the Boston Globe. Here he comments on the current Washington scandals.

Rules can be bent or ignored, people are venal, and in the pursuit of what government officials think are good ends, any means become acceptable. Power, as the saying goes, corrupts, and absolute power — and surely, we’re getting close to that point, aren’t we? — corrupts absolutely.

Keane believes the Obama administration has handed Republicans a major opportunity for a come-back.

That would be true if the people who voted to reelect Obama paid attention to the news - with their votes they demonstrated they do not. Many are voting on criteria other than performance in office.

Quote of the Day

Famous Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, as quoted in a  The Wall Street Journal blog about the scandals confronting the Obama administration:

This is not Watergate, but there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian, and that’s a very big problem.

What has been called by some the Obama "trifecta" may end up to be a bigger mess than Watergate; and Nixon was bad enough.

Balz Sums It Up

Dan Balz is perhaps the Washington Post's best political writer, among several good ones. In this column he summarizes the current state of the four scandals now confronting the Obama administration.

Balz minimizes one issue but otherwise does a fine job. Like many liberals, he makes little of the Benghazi screw-up, calling it mostly political.

To be sure, Republicans have been those harping on the failure to provide security to Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and his staff. And, yes, the CIA was certainly involved in Benghazi.

Nevertheless, bad State Department judgment certainly is evidenced in allowing an ambassador to be in a dangerous place where he cannot be protected lest another war result. Some imply that was what took place in Benghazi.

I believe protecting the reelection chances of President Obama and the 2016 prospects of Hillary Clinton are much more probable motivations for what, in fact, occurred - for the failure to defend Ambassador Stevens and the consulate.

Worst Scandal Since Watergate

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan is seriously angry about the current set of scandals in Washington. Let me share with you some of her recent column, she begins:

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. (snip) No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. 

She concludes:

This is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.

The whole long column in between is excellent. Noonan calls for a special prosecutor.

Another Battlefield

We've described the Syrian civil war as a war between the Sunni majority rebels and the Assad government to some degree representing everyone else - Alawites, Shias, Christians, Druze, etc.

The government is backed by Shia Iran and Hezbollah (of Lebanon), as well as Russia, for its own reasons. The rebels are backed by the Sunni Arab nations with oil wealth. In other words, it is a battle between Shia and Sunni nations, fought by proxy forces.

The Sunni-Shia conflict is also underway in Iraq as this Reuters article for Yahoo News indicates. It is rare when several days go by without a suicide bombing in Iraq aimed at gatherings of one group or the other, this particular bombing aimed at Sunnis. Sectarian conflict is also prevalent in Pakistan.

The New York Times weighs in with an article saying Syria is splitting into three zones: Sunni jihadi, Shia Government, and Kurd. That works.

Kurds are tired of Arabs of either sect. They are trying to create Kurdistan, cobbled together out of northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and maybe more if they can pry it loose from Turkey.

Obamacare Already a Problem

Did you believe Obamacare had a chance? One very personal indicator that it doesn't: my long-time neurology physician just announced he is closing down his private practice, effective July 31, 2013.

He plans to look for other work, perhaps as a salaried doctor somewhere. His reason for abandoning an established practice - Obamacare and the uncertainties and costs associated therewith.

So I must find a new neurologist ... bummer.

Quote of the Day

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, normally a reliable liberal and Obama supporter, writing about the President's current problems. The first sentence of Milbank's column says:

Four months into a fresh four years, President Obama is already assuming the familiar crouch of a scandal-struck second-termer. 

Ouch, that hurts.