President Obama knows he's in trouble when Andrea Mitchell—Andrea Mitchell!—proclaims the IRS and AP scandals to be among "the most outrageous excesses I've seen"
in all her years in journalism [which pre-date Watergate]. The
strength of Mitchell's statement drew gasps from Scarborough and
Brzezinski. Then Ron Fournier, former AP editor now with the National Journal, darkly described the White
House being "consumed" if it turns out someone there or in the Obama
campaign had been aware of the IRS targeting of conservative groups. It happened on Morning Joe today.
But hey, President Obama still has his hangers-on. Take good old Carl Bernstein. As we reported, on yesterday's Morning Joe Bernstein
blathered that he "can't imagine" that President Obama coudl be
involved in the IRS mess. And there was Bernstein again today. When
Fournier spoke of consequences of White House or Obama campaign
knowledge of the IRS targeting, Bernstein quickly burped out
that "we have no evidence of that whatsoever." Joe Scarborough had to
remind the former Watergate reporter: "that's why you have
investigations. You know that." View the video after the jump.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Yes, they did have to look and see whether some of
these groups were political rather than pro bono. But not in any kind of
non-neutral way. The test had to be neutral. The fact they went after
the Tea Party here as David said earlier feeds the Republican critics --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It really does.
MITCHELL: And this is one of the most outrageous excesses that I've seen in all my years in journalism.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh my gosh.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Wow.
MITCHELL: We knew about the past national security probes, but I think this Associated Press investigation just rises to that standard, as well. The press is not popular, we are not popular. But this is, I think, an outrageous invasion of constitutional rights.
SCARBOROUGH: Andrea, it's remarkable. As long as you've been a
reporter at the top of your game, to say that a scandal that broke on
Friday is one of the most outrageous excesses, the IRS scandal, and then
for us to talk about what happened yesterday that most reporters agree
with Ron and you, it rises to that level as well. To have two of these
falling in two successive business days is going to require a dramatic
reset inside the White House, is it not?
MITCHELL: And I don't see why they don't get that yet.
(More)
1 comment:
Was PUMA PAC targeted by the IRS?? Wondered when read this in Wiki,
“On May 11, 2011, the PUMA PAC was stripped of its status as a recognized Political Action Committee for failure to meet reporting requirements”
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