Barack’s Brolly And Other Scandals
In case you were otherwise distracted this past week,
another major scandal wracked the scandal wracked Obama Administration.
No, not Benghazi, nor the IRS. Not even the AP wiretapping. This one was so profound, so consequential,
and so troubling that I urge people not to read the rest of this post before
bedtime. More particularly, pregnant
women and nursing mothers may be advised to step back from the computer screen.
I refer, of course, to the spreading stain of OBI, the Obama
Brolly Incident.
What is OBI? Well,
this shameful episode occurred during a joint press conference held in the Rose
Garden with Mr. Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During their remarks, some rain began to fall
(no doubt, a heavenly reproach to the President) and Mr. Obama asked the
Marines standing guard if they could hold a brolly over Mr. Erdogan’s head.
OBI did not go unnoticed.
Conservatives everywhere were scandalized at this breach of Marine
protocol. Marines don’t hold umbrellas
outside. At least, male Marines don’t. Female marines are permitted a small discrete
black umbrella, but the pair standing guard were clearly male.
Fortunately for the honor of the service, Tucker Carlson’s
Daily Caller was right on it “Obama breaches Marine umbrella protocol.” The New York Post ran a picture of OBI on the
front cover. Lou Dobbs was properly
outraged, tweeting “Obama expects our troops to hold damn umbrellas rather than
go inside: It’s disrespectful, inconsiderate, classless.”
Even worse for Mr. Obama, a Marines spokesman, approached
after the tawdry affair concluded,
referred to Title 10 of the US Code; Marines shall “perform other duties
as the President may direct.” Clearly,
this was not just another Obama overreach, but an abuse of power. I would add my own aside that Mr. Erdogan is
a Muslim, so, naturally, Mr. Obama would be especially concerned that he not
get wet. Very typical Obama, I think we
would all agree.
I think I’ve given Barack’s Brolly as much attention as is
medically prudent for the adult reader, so it’s time to pivot to more
conventional political news. Back to
Benghazi, where new committees spring up faster than Charlemagne baptized the
Saxons (by platoons) and the frenzy continues to build towards an apotheosis. It’s big.
How big? Steve King, the distinguished Congressman from Iowa, described
it as “ten times bigger than Watergate and Iran Contra combined.” And Senator Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) went on
right wing talk radio to opine “Of all
the great cover-ups in history — the Pentagon papers, the Iran-Contra,
Watergate and all the rest of them — this … is going to go down as the most
serious, the most egregious cover-up in American history……People may be
starting to use the I-word before too long,”
So, we are going to impeach this President because American
lives were lost abroad? Well, there’s a
first time for everything, and since Mr. Obama seems to be a person with a lot
of firsts, why not this?
In a nutshell, here is what we (the rational among us) think
we know about Benghazi: a) the State Department didn't give Ambassador Stevens enough
money for security, b) Mr. Obama didn't send in troops during attack,
apparently because there was concern over the possible success of the operation
and addition loss of life, c) the State Department and the CIA got into what we
can gently describe as a pissing match over what statements to put out and, d) Susan
Rice in specific and the Administration in general made a series of confused
and muddied presentations afterwards. In
short, errors in judgment, bureaucratic infighting, and a little spin.
If those are impeachable offenses, we better not waste our
time on things like swearings-in. Let’s
just go straight to the Inaugural Ball so people can trot out their finery, and
by February 1, the new Administration, Democratic or Republican, will have
surely committed all three sins.
Of course, what we really need, on Benghazi (and on the IRS
probes) are serious people conducting serious investigations to determine what
errors were made and how to correct them the next time. There is nothing wrong with naming names,
including Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton, if the evidence leads in that direction
(and we are willing to apply the same standards to all future Administrations.)
But, we aren’t going to get that, because circuses and
scandal mongering and show trials are just too much fun. One moves seamlessly from four dead Americans
to Barack’s Brolly; it’s all part of a great continuum. Once again, we are
indebted to Sarah Palin, who posted on Facebook, “Mr. President, when it rains
it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas.”
This is the lady who was going to be a heartbeat away from
the Presidency. And a party that holds
itself out as the serious one.
Still, not all of last week’s news was bad. The House voted for the 37th time
to repeal Obamacare. And, the FT reported that Titan Arum, perhaps the world’s stinkiest plant, was in bloom at
the Chelsea Flower Show. This little gem,
indigenous to Sumatra, just hangs out quietly for years. It then suddenly begins to grow several
inches per day to a height of up to nine feet, flowering for 72 hours and
producing umbrella-sized petals (not making that up) that open to a diameter of
three to four feet. To pollinate itself,
it has developed the delectable bouquet of rotting flesh (hence, the “corpse
flower” nickname) to attract the carrion-eating beetles and flies that
pollinate it. Then, having achieved its destiny, it apparently falls over and
dies.
Now, that’s an impressive metaphor, don’t you think?
MM
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