“He acts as if he’s suddenly stumbled on the scene of an accident and is trying to catch up” – Charles Krauthammer, Fox News contributor of President Obama’s remarkable response to the plethora of scandals he faces; he simply claims that he has no idea what happened!
In the midst of the IRS scandal, the AP/Fox News scandal, the NSA scandal, the Benghazi sandal, the DoS prostitution allegations, and of course Operation Fast and Furious, Obama and his administration are sticking closely to their established playbook…
1. First claim total ignorance of the breaking news and deny any knowledge of the incident before the story hit the news
2. Second, blame rogue agents and/or employees at the lowest level
3. Third, claim that there is no way to actually be aware of what is happening in a large department of the government
4. If Congress demands the release of documentation from the department in question release thousands and thousands of unrelated documents as a smoke screen, and then stick to the following mantra; “We’ve already released more than 15,000 documents” and hope the media sticks to that
5. If documents actually do surface that don’t support your narrative, claim that hundreds of documents are signed every week and there is no way to actually read all of them so the signature of a key official really means nothing
6. If witnesses are called to Congress have them claim no knowledge of the incident whatsoever, or simply don’t send them; instead claim executive privilege, and if necessary move potentially damning witnesses not legally covered to new positions that are protected by executive privilege, or retire them
7. Since Congressional investigations move so slowly you have time to punish many of the whistleblowers; do this immediately and attempt to break some of them for fear of total loss of income entirely, and of course to discourage anyone else in the department in question from also coming forward
8. Of course once someone actually does start an “official investigation” you can simply claim that you cannot comment further because the entire matter is under investigation
9. If you are totally and righteously busted then point to similar instances in the past where Republicans were to blame… and of course if it’s at all remotely possible blame President Bush directly
10. And of course – as always – see if you can get the media to throw the race card… it is as the saying goes “an oldie, but a goodie!”
Lastly, of course keep the media on your side at all costs. Grant interview only to those media organizations that you know will be friendly to your cause, and appear on late night comedy shows… maybe take a trip to Europe or take the family on a vacation – to Africa at an estimated cost of at least 60 million dollars.
These steps are not always taken in order and many should be done concurrently.
The American people have short memories and most don’t follow the news anyway. They’re watching American Idol. The best solution for any of these sorts of scandals is for the media to simply ignore the whole thing. Eventually the story is old news, the scandal blows over and you’re in the clear.
Stick to the message, stay the course, drag your feet… time heals all wounds – well except for the wounds that killed four Americans in Benghazi.
Of course previous administrations have used many of these same tactics, and I am not an apologist for the Republican Party despite what at least a couple of you out there have alleged. But the Obama administration is clearly the most practiced at these of any previous. That’s good because they are also the most corrupt and secret of any since at least the Nixon administration.
