Mouthpieces

In a way I pity the poor Obama administration's mouthpieces ... for they clearly are living under rigid constraints about what they can and cannot say ... even when they are constantly beaten up in the process. Josh Earnest, the administration's press secretary (and his predecessor, that common streetwalker, Jay Carney), Bernadette Meehan, the National Security Council spokeswoman, the State Department's Spox, Marie Harf (you know, the blond bomb-shell wannabe) ...  and even some of the Defense Department shills.  All of them must embrace the tortured and often inane language that is obviously imposed from above when they are issuing statements about the latest ISIS atrocities ... saying 21 Egyptian citizens instead of 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded in Libya ...required to say that Islam is a religion of peace ... and pointing to the gang affiliation of the latest Copenhagen gunman and not his Muslim motivations.

Can we say that these language constraints come directly from the president? It is not a stretch to so conclude ... since he himself goes to remarkable lengths to call the shooting at a Kosher deli in Paris "random" ... to say that ISIS is not Islamic ... and will only use the term "radical extremism" when we all know the source of 99.9% this blood-lust is some of the teachings of Mohammad.

Carny

At old-time carnivals there was always a spiel mister who, waving his bamboo cane, huckstered rubes into the various sideshows full of geeks, freaks and flabby female ecdysiasts … or one who offered you a chance to beat an unbeatable tent game. Such was called a “carny” … short for carnival worker. Yesterday was Jay Carney’s last day as the White House Press Secretary … kinda like the modern-day equivalent of a carny … the head spinner of administration misdirections. This Carney carny however did not wave a cane nor stand in front of a sucker’s game. But then again?

Jay Carney … or the “common streetwalker” as I liked to call him … grew into this job … learning to lie with aplomb. He benefited from a complacent and lackluster press corps (corpse?) who were led around by the nose … even asked to submit questions in advance … see: Pantomime. The most recent whopper this carny ask us to believe was that that IRS tyrant, Lois Lerner, had never contacted the White House by e-mail … see: Michelle Malkin Squib. This is despite the fact that there were 155 White House meetings between Lois Lerner’s boss and Obama’s henchmen … see: Daily Caller Story. Pleeease …

One Fox News wag opined that Carney was not paid enough to do all these tap dances around Obama’s malfeasances … but I think he was being overpaid. Now we can expect to see Carney slip back into the media in some fashion or another … moving between news-making and news-faking.

Fish Head

Former Obama National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor was quizzed by Bret Baier last night on Fox News. When asked about whether he changed Susan Rice’s talking points for her five Benghazi TV appearances on Sept. 16, 2012’s Sunday talk shows … from using the word “attack” to “demonstration?” His reply was “Dude, that was two years ago” … see: Breitbart Story.

It seems to me that such disrespectful talking-down is endemic in the current administration.  Remember, Attorney General, Eric Holder’s response to a Congressman’s question about whether he was upset about being held in contempt of Congress? “You don’t want to go there, buddy!” … see: Buddy.  I would humbly opine that the Obama administration (including that common streetwalker, Jay Carney) is in serious need of an attitude adjustment.

And, as is well known, a fish rots from the head down …

Pantomime

A cub reporter in Arizona recently spilled the beans … relating a off-the-record comment from that common streetwalker and White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, that his daily press briefing is virtually rehearsed … questions being submitted ahead of time and answers returned in writing for the reporters convenience … see: Weekly Standard Story.  After a salvo of arm-waving denials, this poor reporter was given a variety of tasty condiments in order to eat her words … which she promptly did.

Now Sharyl Attkisson, that courageous veteran CBS reporter, who just resigned for being continuously squelched by her network, has verified at least parts of this original revelation … see: Breitbart Story.  Reporters do, from time to time, engage in this kind of pantomime with Jay Carney … making them little more than stenographers (Rush Limbaugh’s term) for the administration’s message.

This all goes to show how closely this and other administrations understandably try to manage the news.  However, what seems to be different today is how milk-toasty the media reporters now appear to be.  Think back to George Bush’s press briefings … was David Gregory reluctant to go after a story hammer and tongs?  Much as I dislike David Gregory’s politics, he was then a good reporter … and was doing his job. Now, reporters who attempt equivalent vigor are either denied access to the White House or are squelched by their bosses … witness Ms. Attkisson.

Perhaps the American public would realize what a farce these daily White House press briefings were if Jay Carney was in white-face and pretended to be blocked by an imaginary piece of glass?

Hear No Evil

I guess it’s human nature.  When we are confronted with information that crosses our ideological grain, we cut short the speaker or stop reading the story.  I, myself, must confess that I have done this … and, I suspect, so have you.  More and more frequently these days, when the subject of one of Obama’s scandals comes up (generally not brought up by me), many of my liberal friends respond, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

What does this mean?  To me, this avoidance indicates the seriousness of these moral breaches on the part of our current administration.  This can be measured by the number of unanswered or unanswerable questions that linger like a miasma around Jay Carney and those other unfortunate Obama spokespersons. 

Just this last weekend, Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama senior political adviser, went on five Sunday talk shows (shades of Susan Rice), trying to hold back the tide of negative disclosures about the multiple scandals enveloping his boss … see: National Review Story.  He did not do a very good job … even saying at one point, “the law is irrelevant,” when ask about White House dissembling … see: Townhall Story

I’m actually somewhat surprised that Pfeiffer didn’t put his fingers in his ears … but maybe this asinine statement was the equivalent.

Peeling the Onion

Last fall, White House spokesman and common streetwalker, Jay Carney, repeatedly avowed that neither the State Department nor the White House had anything to do with editing the Benghazi talking points that Susan Rice then used to lie to the American public … other than changing the term “consulate” to “diplomatic facility.”  It now appears that Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson and Hillary Clinton rump-swab was involved in revising these talking points twelve separate times … resulting in the removal of all references to terrorists involvement in the attack and any before-the-fact CIA warnings about the growing peril to our diplomatic operations in Benghazi.  Please read the details here: ABC News Story.

Here are a few significant quotes from this story:

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?  Concerned …”

The significant edits – deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA’s warnings – came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows.  

Like with the Nixon Watergate investigation, this Benghazi onion is being daily peeled  … each new layer confirming a State Department and White House conspiracy to cover-up what was their shameful derelictions of duty in the murder of four Americans.  And like the Nixon scandal, this all seemed to revolve around political considerations running up to a Presidential election. But this time there is one difference …the Internet and social media could well cause the denuding of this Benghazi onion to proceed at a more rapid pace.

Afterward: To see an additional, albeit parallel slant on this subject, please read Powerline Blog.

Screw Job #5

This is not so much as a screw job as it is a fake screw job.  President Obama said in a recent news conference that Capitol-hill janitors just got a pay cut and are going to have problems making ends meet.  This result supposedly is because of the recent government spending sequestration  This whopper was endorsed both by White House Economic Council’s Director, Gene Sperling, and Obama’s common streetwalker, Jay Carney … basically, as later explained, because there will be less overtime available to these janitors.  This blatant exaggeration won him and his two acolytes four Pinocchio's from the Washington Post’s Fact Checker (see: WaPo Fact Checker).  Actually, the overtime pay there is very small when compared to their total salaries … generally less than a 1% kick … yet, so far, this overtime pay still totals more than all of last year.

To see more details of this sky-is-falling lying on the White House’s part see: More WaPo Story   (Actually, making around $50K a year as a Capitol “cleaning technician” ain’t such a bad gig.)