Two Scandals: The Bridge And The IRS

Media Coverage.Bridge.IRS

Listen, I mentioned that government is coercion:

We allow ourselves to be governed in exchange for a certain degree of order.  We allow ourselves to be subject to the confiscatory practice of taxation in order to pay for that order, that law and order.

And we give power to men that we wouldn’t otherwise give.

Power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is true independent of who is in power – my guys or their guys.  So it’s no surprise that there is crisis in government at any given time.  What IS surprising, or maybe not, is the fact that crisis is different depending if you are one of my guys or one of theirs:

In less than 48 hours, ABC, CBS and NBC deluged viewers with coverage of Chris Christie’s traffic jam scandal, devoting a staggering 88 minutes to the story. In comparison, these same news outlets over the last six months have allowed a scant two minutes for the latest on Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service scandal. The disparity in less than two days is 44-to-one.

From Wednesday through Friday morning, the latest on Christie’s Traffic-Gate led 11 out of 13 news programs. NBC produced the heaviest coverage, over 34 minutes. CBS followed close behind with more than 30 minutes. ABC came in third with just under 23 minutes.

To be sure, the IRS scandal broke some time ago and a comparison to disparate time frames is problematic.  However, the facts are pretty clear:

1.  The IRS scandal was far more widespread and premeditated.

2.  Both represent political retribution.

3.  The IRS has dramatically more power than any individual involved in the bridge fiasco.

4.  Christie took positive and forceful actions – Obama has yet to even acknowledge that his administration did anything wrong.

It’s simple, Obama grew up in Chicago, learned how to manipulate power in Chicago and is accustomed to governing in a manner consistent with Chicago.

The most ironic statements in all of this Christie controversy?  That the tone is set  at the top for the administration.

Indeed.  No serious person doubts that those responsible for the IRS scandal felt that what they were doing was exactly what Barack Hussein Obama wanted to be done.

15 responses to “Two Scandals: The Bridge And The IRS

  1. I bet you could add pretty much any scandal of this Administration to that number and it wouldn’t even come close to the Bridge-Gate minutes of coverage.

    Personally, I hope it backfires and people see true leadership characteristics in Christie – like him or not – that we don’t see in the current Administration.

    Regardless of how Bridge-Gate turns out, the guy has the balls to own up to things, make some hard choices, take action, and face questions head-on instead of playing rhetorical and political games in order to keep himself pristine.

    • I bet you could add pretty much any scandal of this Administration to that number and it wouldn’t even come close to the Bridge-Gate minutes of coverage.

      This is true – the Obama administration is shielded from controversy.

      Personally, I hope it backfires and people see true leadership characteristics in Christie – like him or not – that we don’t see in the current Administration.

      That can only happen if the typical liberal voter pays attention to this stuff – and they don’t. The concept of an adept manager/leader is foreign to them.

      Regardless of how Bridge-Gate turns out, the guy has the balls to own up to things, make some hard choices, take action, and face questions head-on instead of playing rhetorical and political games in order to keep himself pristine.

      Sing it sistah!

      • the guy has the balls to own up to things,

        Um, you two are kidding, right? He’s said that he didn’t know anything about this and was misled by his staff. What has he owned up to? What hard choices did he make? What action has he taken?

        • Um, you two are kidding, right?

          I don’t think so. Christie admitted that he assumes responsibility for the actions of his administration. Within what, 48 hours, he fired the lady and diminished another guy.

          Contrast this with Obama and the handling of the scandals he’s faced.

          What action has he taken?

          Besides the personnel move he drove across the bridge and apologized.

          Look, I’m not sold on Christie – I like how he straight talks and hammers unions – so if he cooks he cooks, but he’s handled this dramatically different than Obama has.

          I also enjoy the folks on the left that claim Christie created the atmosphere that allowed his staff to think this was alright…

          • Christie admitted that he assumes responsibility for the actions of his administration.

            Except he keeps making excuses like “I was misled” or “I never knew this was happening.” Saying that you bear responsibility out of one side of your mouth while claiming ignorance out of the other isn’t really taking responsibility.

            Within what, 48 hours, he fired the lady and diminished another guy. Contrast this with Obama and the handling of the scandals he’s faced.

            You mean like when Obama ordered a full investigation into the matter (as opposed to Christie, who waited until other people did one and then claimed ignorance)? Or how three officials in the IRS “resigned”?

            Besides the personnel move he drove across the bridge and apologized.

            Wow, he apologized. That is “making hard choices” and “taking action” all right. You guys are so drunk on his kool-aid that you can’t even hear the words coming out of your mouths! You aren’t sure if you like Christie but you think he’s tough and decisive because he … apologized for something he insists he had nothing to do with.

  2. I am pretty sure that the IRS scandal has been debunked. Groups from the left and the right were looked at because IRS agents (probably correctly) realized political groups were violating tax laws. I want the IRS to look into those groups, left and right, if they are tax cheats. The bridge thing, well, that might have cost lives! (To be sure, I don’t follow either story closely because I’m not that interested in those kinds of stories, so I’m going on limited information). I still think Christie is a viable Presidential candidate – one scandal shouldn’t disqualify him.

    • I am pretty sure that the IRS scandal has been debunked.

      Maybe maybe not. The point is that we have government interference in both cases and one is being reported, the other hasn’t been.

      I still think Christie is a viable Presidential candidate – one scandal shouldn’t disqualify him.

      Yeah, though I am less and less a Christie fan. The scandal isn’t big enough, handled poorly enough and has occurred to soon in the cycle to make much of a difference later.

  3. 1) This is comparing coverage of the bridge scandal starting with the first story, which is when you get lots of coverage, to a period beginning almost two months after the IRS story broke. Chris Cillizza at the Post points this out, along with the fact that his column spent days on the IRS story at the time. More details here.

    2) As Scott points out, the story has been debunked. Your “maybe maybe not” equivocation is absurd. Of course at some level of abstraction you can compare the two, the same way Hitler and George Bush both have circulatory systems and bilateral symmetry. It doesn’t mean the two are comparable. Everyone who has looked into the IRS story found that (1) there were no orders from on high (unlike bridgegate, where it directly came from the mayor’s top staff) and (2) they targeted liberal groups too (unlike bridgegate, again).

    • This is comparing coverage of the bridge scandal starting with the first story, which is when you get lots of coverage, to a period beginning almost two months after the IRS story broke.

      I think that’s a valid point.

      the story has been debunked.

      I dunno man, it would be fun to see what the numbers are – but it’s hard to argue that an agency like the IRS, targeting groups and then sharing personal data to outside groups, qualifies as debunked.

  4. It’s simple, Obama grew up in Chicago

    Obama moved there in his mid 20s and lived there for three years between college and law school. He then lived in Massachusetts for three years while we went to law school, before moving back. Do people “grow up” between ages 24-27? Is that how we use the term now?

    • Obama moved there in his mid 20s and lived there for three years between college and law school. He then lived in Massachusetts for three years while we went to law school, before moving back.

      No no no, I know he grew up, elsewhere. I’m talking about politically. He grew up inn Chicago politics….

  5. The difference between the many Obama scandals and the Christie scandal is so glaringly bright that everyone seems to be missing it. The Governor actually acknowledges that this is a big deal. There was a scandal. Real people got hurt.

    Contrast that with the Obama scandals. No big deal, nothing to see here, move along, nobody got hurt, nobody was bullied, no abuse of government power, nobody died. Uhh wait. What’s the big deal? What does it matter?

  6. Hundreds of Tea Party groups targeted by the IRS and a whopping four leftist ones – two of which were the same group with a different name. The Leftist groups were of course blessed within two months, meanwhile there are still Tea Party groups out there waiting for approval to participate in the 2012 election…

    [[[After brewing for months, the IRS effort exploded into wider view on Friday when Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, apologized for what she called the “inappropriate” targeting of conservative groups for closer scrutiny, something the agency had long denied.]]]

    Hey, but stealing an election is nothing compared to inconveniencing some motorists…

    Anyways, this debunked activity which never happened is going to repeat itself in 2014, now with the left-of-center party (GOP) getting in on the action to help the Leftists silence everyone to their right…

    [[[What the rule in fact does is recategorize as “political” all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.

    It’s IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting “tea party groups out of business.”]]]

  7. Pingback: IRS: Taregtting Conservatives And Liberals | Tarheel Red

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