I
have to take a point from Chris Hayes, who has referred to the events
that have come to a head this week collectively as "Scandalgate."
Everyone on the right has been so eager compare any of the events of
the past week as similar to the Nixon Watergate scandal. One of the
comparisons that this commentate used is that these 3 scandals are
similar to the child's story, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
And the manner of which this comparison works is this: There is a
"scandal" here which is a scandal in name only, the one
that is "Too Cold." There is a scandal here that is being
covered as such, but the root of this "Too Hot" scandal is
much different from what the corporate media and conservative
politicians would have you believe. And, finally, there is one
scandal here that is "Just Right," and worthy of the most
attention and scrutiny.
The
non-scandal which is "Too Cold" is, in fact, Benghazi. I
have said that blaming the Obama Administration, including Hillary
Clinton, on the tragedy at the Benghazi consulate is as foolish as
trying to blame 9/11 on the Bush Administration. My friend, Joel,
wrote an interesting piece on how chief neoconservative of the Bush
Administration, Dick Cheney, had said that Benghazi is the worst
incident he had ever seen. How selective his memory is. Dick could be
seen as trying to mend fences with the Tea Party that the policies of
the Bush Administration unwittingly resulted in the creation of, but
that's a topic for it's own essay. The re-ignition of the Benghazi
faux-Scandal was fueled by an ABC report claiming to have direct
quotes from inter-department e-mails damning the State Department for
changing Sunday Morning Interview talking points. As the e-mails in
question were released to the general public and news media later
this week, it was discovered that ABC had, in fact, been quoting from
a source who had access to the e-mails and not directly from the
e-mails themselves as it had originally claimed. The alleged parts of
the e-mails that ABC had reported on were summarized in such a way as
to support the Republican interpretation of what happened when, in
fact, the full text of the e-mails did not support that
interpretation. My understanding is that the full text of the e-mails
put the change of the talking points as a request of the Patraeus
CIA, which had a vested interest in not bringing too much scrutiny to
ongoing investigations into the incident. It was, therefore, the CIA
that didn't want the Talking Points to mention Terrorism in an
investigation into the Benghazi attack which was ongoing at the time.
It is also believed that the Benghazi Consulate was actually a cover
for a CIA operation based on the same property. And so, hindsight
being 20-20 in all tragedies great and small, why are we arguing over
talking points?
The
Scandal in this trifecta that is too hot has connections to a pet
interest of mine: Campaign Finance Reform. I am, of course, referring
to the IRS Tea Party Discrimination Scandal. Reports would have you
believe that the IRS discriminated against the Tea Party and that
this is the end of the story. The story is that, for a period of
time, the IRS was flagging applications for 501(c)(4) Tax Exemption
Status for greater scrutiny. And the story is true. But the story
that only liberal news outlets seem to be covering is that 501(c)(4)
Tax Exemption Status is supposed to be reserved for organizations
that are exclusively dedicated to Social Welfare. They are not
supposed to have any political connections whatsoever. The Tax Man is
not supposed to exempt organizations that run political ads from
being taxed, even if their ads are ostensibly related to Social
Issues. In recent years, and in connection with the Citizens United
ruling which fraked up campaign finance law, the expectation that
501(c)(4) organizations should be exclusively devoted to charity,
education, or recreation related to the social welfare of a community
has changed. The CIA now enforces this law on the basis that 51% of
an organization's funding should go to social welfare purposes while
49% can go to whatever political ads or activities that the
organization may please. The CIA interpretation of the law has gone
from 501(c)(4)'s being exclusively Social Welfare Organizations to
them being primarily Social Welfare Organizations. There is a world
of difference between the definition of the word "Exclusively"
and the word "Primarily," as several independent liberal
media commentators and corporate liberal media commentators are eager
to point out. 501(c)(4) Tax Excemption Status also allows all
donations to such an organization to be done anonymously. Super PACs
have used this privilege to get around the need to disclose the names
of donors under current Campaign Finance Law, using the 501(c)(4)
organization as a sort of political money laundering organization.
The real scandal here is that any political organization right, left,
or center can get 501(c)(4) status at all. All Tea Party
organizations that were flagged for extra scrutiny ultimately got
their Tax Exempt Status, while 3 liberal organizations that had
applied for the same status at the same time of this discrimination
were denied. The scandal is not that the Tea Party was unfairly
targeted here, the scandal is that all political organizations were
not targeted and denied 501(c)(4) status. And I will take this as
another reason why the current tax code is a decrepit failure which
should be burned and remade from the ground up.
We
are left with the scandal that is "Just Right." And that is
the AP phone tapping scandal. Governments should be afraid of their
people, it has been said. All of the AP's confidential sources are
likely afraid that their confidentiality cannot be maintained. The AP
has been damaged in a way that likely can never be made right. It's
freedoms and the sacred trust of those who it has consulted have been
violated. Of the trifecta, here is a proper Scandal. The Government,
here, has truly overstepped its bounds. But whether a person sees it
that way depends on what he or she values most. Is it Safety? Is it
Liberty? Is it both in equal measure? Is it possible to have both in
equal measure? Or do these questions and these truths mentioned
throughout this essay matter in the least? Will we all believe what
we want despite facts? I, for one, certainly hope not.
