Posted on 05/14/2013 2:24:15 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
You keep using that word “if.” I do not think it means what you think it means.
The White House revealed an interesting new threshold today for determining whether a wrongdoing has occurred. In the case of the IRS scandal, an admission and apology from the agency is not enough to say that its actions were “inappropriate,” according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. President Obama used the same oddly conditional construction Monday in his press conference. Instead of acknowledging improper behavior has already occurred, both Obama and Carney are in patented, Obama administration “wait for the investigation” mode, which conveniently precludes them accepting any responsibility for the admitted wrongdoing or promising specific action to rectify it.
Rich Lowry noted a plan being put into action:
1st step,say can’t comment until IG report comes out; 2nd step, initiate an internal review; 3rd step, say can’t comment bc review ongoing
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) May 14, 2013
To which I’d add Step 4: “That IRS story happened a long time ago.”
Here are reporters asking about the White House’s repeated use of the word “if” in describing the IRS’ misdeeds, and Carney’s response:
“If I could then go back to the IRS issue,” said a reporter from the AP. “The president did use the word ‘if these activities had taken place,’ but there has been an acknowledgement on the part of the IRS leadership that these things did indeed occur. I wondered why the president used that phrasing in claiming that it was outrageous?”
“Those from the IRS that have spoken about this obviously have much greater insight into what took place than we do. We have not seen the report. We have not independently collected information about what transpired. We need the independent inspector general’s report to be released before we can make judgments. One person’s view of what actions were taken or what that individual did is not enough for us to say something concretely happened that was inappropriate,” said Carney.
Later in the same press conference, Carney seemed to contradict himself when responding to another reporter’s question: “Don’t we know that part of it is fact? It’s not in the if area anymore. It’s fact.”
“I agree with that, and I think that was reflected in the tone and the nature of the comments you saw from the president,” Carney replied before reverting to “wait for the facts” mode and reserving judgment once again. The motivation for the misdeeds and the question of the extent of the scandal and Obama involvement can be up in the air, but the inappropriateness of the scrutiny has already been established. Obama and Carney can even read about that in press reports, where they find out everything else.
It wasn’t the only point on which Carney contradicted himself Tuesday. Early in the press conference, a reporter asked if he could “categorically deny” that anyone in the White House or on his political team was involved in or had knowledge of the IRS’s improper scrutiny of conservative organizations. Carney quickly said “yes,” but was later pressed on that assertion. Watch how fast it gets downgraded:
Categorical denial——> “I have no reason to believe.” ——> “I can tell you I’m not aware of anyone here knowing about it.”——> “I am certainly not aware of and confident that no one here was involved in it.” ——> “I think I can say that I feel confident in that.”——> “You’re asking me to prove a negative.”
An IRS admission of wrongdoing isn’t enough to prove wrongdoing, but Carney’s general hunch, absent thorough interviews of White House and political staff, was enough to categorically deny involvement.
Another point out of that exchange: The White House Counsel’s office knew for several weeks that an IG report would show this kind of clearly inappropriate action against the president’s ideological adversaries and didn’t tell Carney or the president, so he found out through press reports Friday?
Let’s end with Carney pretty much reduced to trolling Chuck Todd during a tough exchange about Obama’s position the press and DOJ’s powers: “You’re obviously free to ask him the next time he has a press conference.” Good one, Jay.
And, for good measure, I’m trolling Carney.
White House campaign ,campaigning for what ,campaigning is over ,time to do your job
Shame, shame, shame on those who have none.
Carney will be fired in the next few months. He’s too much for anyone, even 0bama, to stomach.
Oh, like "The police acted stupidly..."? or, "Trayvon, my composite son... killed in a senseless, racially motivated shootdown..."? or, "Major Hassan acted alone... it was nothing more than workplace violence..."? //That mode? Very selective mode, obviously.
Gimme a break. This denial of White House involvement sounds as completely unlikely as Susan Rice’s press conference talking about some video as being the culprit for the Islamist Benghazi slayings and mayhem.
Charcoal Gray...
He’ll end up at NBC or some other God-forsaken Comcast company.
What I like about this ‘short bus’ Administration is that if the deficit comes down fifty cents, BO, jobama and the crew ‘throw a party’, taking ALL the credit.
However anything REMOTELY ‘bad’ is blamed on BUSH first, REPUBLICAN Congress second, then they may get around to an Agency involved, NEVER a Director (Patreaus is not a typical firing) or ‘hand picked’ Czar or such, always some underling WHO acted entirely on his own, AND BY GOD I just heard about it this morning when I sat down to breakfast with the family and the radio was on. Ruined my breakfast. I was putting milk on my Fruit Loops and I turned to Michelle and whispered (I don’t want my daughters to be involved politically)
“Hillary was definitely correct— as to a VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY and, as that Limbaw fellow said, ‘I WANT OBAMA TO FAIL’.”
As I was packing the girls lunch I pondered how hard it must be for them in school because of all the meanness directed at ME.
Re: AP phone call investigation
If there was a leak that compromised highly classified information and if there was strong evidence the leak came from high up or inside, was there not a duty to investigate the likely sources and the receiver, the AP?
It seems reasonable that the correlation of administration phone records with AP records would yield the source and destination of the leak.
Having watched 13 episodes of House of Cards, I know that such work is done on cell phones. hat means the effort was not likely to turnup the desired correlation
“We are certain Benghazi was not an act of terrorism by Muslims” “We don’t know how committed the bombing in Boston, but we’re sure it’s an isolated incident.”
It must be fun to have a job where you are constantly on the lookout for getting axed for something your boss did.
If the White House press corp had any stones they ask Jay to leave the podium and send someone out who had a clue.
Which means the White House and the campaign were behind it.
Not any body, just "mistakes were made"
Oh, look, there's a mistake that made itself!
Bart Simpson. “I Didn’t Do It, Nobody Saw Me Do It, There’s No Way You Can Prove Anything!”
Kids these days.
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