Here is the assessment of the apparently bindfolded and spacewalking David Brooks, this morning:
The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton. We’ve had very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude.
To which Jim Geraghty responds:
“Remarkably scandal-free”? David Brooks works in the news business, right?
Fast and Furious. The IRS scandal. The $2 billion spent building Healthcare.gov. The Veterans Administration letting veterans die waiting for care. The Office of Personnel Management hacking. Lying about Bowe Berghdahl. “Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter, more prosperous future.”
Jonathan Gruber’s declaration that Obamacare depended upon the “stupidity of American voter.”
The NSA and Edward Snowden.
The stimulus “was riddled with a massive labor scheme that harmed workers and cheated unsuspecting American taxpayers.”
Prostitution and incompetence in the U.S. Secret Service.
Hillary and her private e-mail server.
The Department of Justice secretly reviewed the phone records of at least 20 phone lines of Associated Press reporters — their work, home, and cell-phone lines. The Department of Justice’s decision to call Fox News reporter James Rosen a criminal “co-conspirator” in leaking classified information. The Department of Justice punishing whistleblowers.
Benghazi — the failure to provide Chris Stephens with the security he requested, the inability to put together a rescue operation that night, and the false explanation to the public afterwards blaming a video.
I’m sure you can remember others. Just how deep in denial do you have to be to write a sentence like, “The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free”?