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| OBAMA: Does the president feel ... |
While
it may well be true that a public official is responsible for those who answer
to him, I can’t help but wonder how much of the Tylenol Barack Obama is
consuming these days.
FOR
ONE RIGHT on top of the other, a pair of stories have cropped up that would
have us think that Obama deserves to be thought of in the same class of people
as J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon – if not Joe McCarthy (not the Yankees
manager version) himself.
The
ideologues are getting all worked up over recent Washington Post reports about
how the Internal Revenue Service was giving extra scrutiny to certain groups
claiming tax-exempt status.
None
of the groups ultimately was denied that status, but it seems they resented
having so much attention paid to them. Particularly since many are politically-motivated
groups whose desire is to promote candidates who push their conservative
ideological thoughts on issues.
We’re
hearing the screaming that the government is out to get them – although coming
from these ideologues, I wonder if what they’re really upset about is that
anyone would have the nerve to “scrooten” them (remember Mayor Daley, the
second?).
MAYBE
IT’S ONLY okay when their opposition is the one facing the scrutiny from the
government?
Now
I don’t mean to downplay the concept of the government turning into “big
brother” and deciding to meddle into the private affairs of people. It is a
serious problem, and Obama himself quickly joined in the gaggle of people
criticizing the IRS.
Although
I suspect he’s more upset about the fact that everybody on the ideological
spectrum against him is going to blame this on him. He’s going to have to take
the heat for this – particularly when the sympathetic leadership of the House
of Representatives decides to hold hearings to give those voices a microphone
and television camera to amplify their thoughts all the moreso.
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| ... something more like this these days? |
But
what makes it worse is that this has to crop up in the public ear at the same
time that the Justice Department decides it has to resort to
reporter-harassment in order to advance its criminal investigations.
THAT’S
WHAT IS usually behind any incident where prosecutors decide they need to go
after a reporter-type person’s notes or telephone records – they are unable to
figure out a case by themselves, even though they have subpoena power.
In
this case, the Associated Press learned that federal prosecutors had managed to
get records of about 20 telephone lines – both at AP offices and, in some
cases, the home telephone and personal cellphone lines of reporters.
It
seems that a Central Intelligence Agency disruption of a plot to bomb an
airliner became known, and someone was upset enough to want to punish someone –
most likely whoever let it be known to reporter-types that this was going on.
Personally,
I can appreciate how someone might be offended by having prosecutorial-minded
people wading through lists of places one called on their telephone. Although
if anyone tried subpoenaing my home phone records, all they’d really get is a
list of which restaurants I patronize for carryout food.
BUT
THERE’S THE greater principle at stake about some respect for privacy – which I
suspect the ideologues facing what they see as harassment from the IRS
oftentimes are not willing to respect for others.
It
is why I am less than sympathetic – even though we may well have IRS agents who
stepped across the line of decency in their investigatorial behavior. And a
president wondering what he ever did so bad in life to deserve all the
harassment he gets dumped on him on a daily basis!
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