Posted on 05/19/2013 11:30:38 AM PDT by Mark
"I know noth-ing! Noth-ing!" said John Banner in his memorable role as Sgt. Schultz on the popular late 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes."
Schultz, a big, blubbery, teddy bear of a man chose to stay willfully ignorant of troublesome events happening right under his nose. Amazingly, this comedy was set in a German POW camp during World War II, not exactly fertile ground for yucks. Still, Banner was so likeable in the role that audiences looked past his German uniform and laughed along with his feigned ignorance.
If only we could laugh at President Obama's feigned ignorance.
Or Attorney General Eric Holder's "I know noth-ing!" routine.
Certainly nobody found former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's infamous "What difference does it make?" retort funny when she was asked how our Ambassador Christopher Stevens was murdered in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.
This trinity of trouble for the Obama administration might be catnip for conservatives gleeful to finally see the president and his team in hot water, but conservatives aren't the source of the president's problems.
Barack Obama authored this mess.
While another Democrat from a different America famously kept a sign on his desk announcing, "The buck stops here," this president specializes in passing the buck. Quick to take a bow when there's good news, President Obama goes AWOL when trouble arrives, acting as if he's just a bystander, a passive witness to his own administration's foibles.
"I learned about it when you learned about, on the evening news," said the president on more than one occasion.
Because the stakes are so high at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, every presidential administration produces its share of dirty laundry. That's a bipartisan fact of life. However, even by Washington standards three major scandals erupting simultaneously is dramatic.
And the source of all three scandals appears to be hyperpartisanship on the part of the administration.
While Republican/conservative excesses have been well-documented by all the major news outlets with the Tea Party blamed for sins both real and imagined, suddenly the heat is on President Obama and the country is asked to confront a disturbing possibility: Has the man who promised to "change the culture in Washington" out-Nixoned Nixon?
With all his impeachable flaws Richard Nixon only threatened to sic the IRS on his enemies. The Obama administration appears to have actually done it.
I'll save for another day the debate over whether the Tea Party or any of the 70,000 applicants for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) designations deserved them. But there's no debate about using the IRS to cut the fundraising capabilities of one political viewpoint while granting the privilege to the viewpoint friendly to the administration.
The IRS outrage is an egregious violation of principle and most likely the law.
And while it may turn out there were legitimate national security reasons for the Justice Department to scoop up thousands of Associated Press reporter phone records, thus far Attorney General Holder hasn't offered any, and amazingly, denies any knowledge of the subpoena that authorized the seizures.
This doesn't pass the smell test from a Justice Department already on thin ice from the disastrous "Fast and Furious" gunrunning debacle that Holder also insists happened without his knowledge.
"Noth-ing! I know noth-ing!"
Meanwhile the president's continued insistence there is "no there, there" to the Benghazi controversy is debunked by the very emails he produced to make his case.
Then CIA Director David Petraeus, in writing, told the State Department they were feeding U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice bad Intel on Benghazi. Yet worries over how the actual facts might affect the 2012 election carried the day and Ambassador Rice was sent out to spread a phony story.
If the pin on a political hand grenade has been pulled, it was pulled by an administration that put political considerations ahead of principles.
History tells us that never ends well.
Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. You can reach him at Doug@KABC.com.
The Germans would have classified them as useless eaters and had them shot.
The Black actor, Ivan Dixon (Sgt. Kinchloe) on Hogan’s Heros died in 2008.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0228853/
I guess this is just another “identity” that FUBO wants to assume. But there’s a problem since “Kinch” was a patriot!
Except that Holder would is more of a Major Hochstetter type person.
At some point, even Democrat aficionados were going to start worrying about the blowback, and here they are. If Barack is mainly a figurehead, it’s still got to be worrisome to the puppetmeisters who manipulate him. As P. T. Barnum put it, it is impossible to “fool all of the people all of the time.”
No, Obama and Holder wouldn’t fit in “Hogan Heroes”.
It was a comedy without any truly evil individuals.
This is at least the second MSM source comparing Holder to Sergeant Shultz I’ve seen in threads today. I think FOX had a little montage of it on TV as well. It has become too obvious to ignore.
Without any unusually glaring evil that is....
Now, let's not get into Obama-Care.
They would have sent them to the loving care off Dr. Mengelr.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.