Dan Burton | Existential Ennui

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Benghazi, Dan Burton, Darrell Issa, House committees, Jonathan Kar

I’ve long wondered at the seeming inability of the GOP to remember that we actually keep records of “that stuff”. They continue to forget that. I give a pass to the typical TeaPotter who is so ill-informed that they are left with nothing but misspelled phrases that they either paint on cardboard signs or attempt to regurgitate from memory. They can’t be expected to actually, you know, KNOW history.

As you know doubt know, the GOP has been looking for a way for five long years now to bury this president. All of their schemes have come to naught for quite obvious reasons, but even when we thought things might, just might, return to some semblance of normalcy after their debacle of 2012, well, sadly they learned nothing.

Some of their own kind (Pat Toomey) even admit, that their membership so hates this man that they will vote NO on legislation as publicly supported as universal background checks. So of course we expected that rottweiler of a thug, Darrell Issa to continue his determination to find SOMETHING that can bring down this administration.

Benghazi was their choice, aided and abetted by one John S. McCain, who had a personal vendetta and was more than willing to rattle the sabre of “coverup” at least as it pertained to Susan Rice, a woman we can now categorically say was unfairly maligned and mistreated by Johnny and his misogynist guy pal, Ms. Lindsey.

Let me just say this simply. The Benghazi “scandal” is nothing more than a witch hunt. And history explains it all to us.

Darrell “my brother did it” Issa is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. That is, innocent as it sounds, a very powerful committee, and one Issa has used since 2010 when he assumed chairmanship, to conduct endless hearings into the Obama administration, hoping to find ANYTHING that can be used to harass and drive from office the Negro in the White House.

It is also the only committee that is allowed to issue subpoenas under the chairman’s signature only. However, this has seldom been the practice. Normally, given that grave power, the Chairman has sought the agreement of a full committee vote before so proceeding. This has been the case except for only two occasions in modern times. Hint: this is where the history gets important.

The most notable occasion when the Chairman took sole control over subpoenas was under the chairmanship of Dan Burton, (R-IN). Mr. Burton had a serious case of the ass against one William J. Clinton. Like Darrell, Dan fairly lit up the committee with his constant and outlandish claims of wrongdoing.

This resulted in a scandal of course–Mr. Burton spend years, over 1,000 subpoenas, and 7 million bucks of taxpayer money, trying to prove that there was scandal to be found in the fund-raising practices of the Democratic Campaign organization. Copies of audio tapes from a “witness” were released. Later it was determined that the tapes had been severely “edited” to appear quite different from their original content. Burton fired committee staff man David Bossie, the supposed “editor”.

However, the scandal went further, and finally, there were calls for Burton to step down himself. He never did of course.

Well, here we go again.

Mr. Issa decided that Burton’s sole possessor of the subpoena was a good thing, and re-instituted the practice again. This brought a rather lengthy and well-reasoned letter from Elijah Cummings, ranking minority leader on the committee, and a man with a memory. He pointed out that unilateral usage of the power of subpoena had gotten the GOP into serious trouble once before, and it was better to return to the normal and regular practice of bipartisan issuance of these orders.

Of course, Mr. Issa declined rational behavior and has as we all know run a one-man-show of Obama attack. And the expected result has occurred.

For weeks the GOP has harped that the Obama White House was engaged in a cover-up regarding Benghazi. That cover-up has never been spelled out well, but it seems to have revolved around the White House changing the talking points (which implicated Rice somehow), to protect the State Department (and Hillary Clinton) from being accused of malfeasance.

This claim was bolstered by information from e-mails circulated between the parties involved. We were told this by the GOP. Jonathan Karl broke the story for ABC, claiming as the GOP had alleged, that State Department officials had participated in changing the talking points, along with the White House. Karl implied that he had seen the emails himself and “quoted” from them.

When the true emails were brought forth, they told a different story–one that indicated that neither the White House nor the State Department had played a part in the versions discussed and finally issued by the CIA for distribution (i.e. to Susan Rice). Now of course Karl claims he never actually saw any e-mails but his “source” shared “notes” with him of what he/she read.

The fair meaning of what Karl claimed and the actual truth leave little doubt that there was a deliberate attempt to portray the White House and State Department in a bad light and to provide proof that they had acted politically with the intent to deceive. Since the e-mails were the subject of subpoenas, the likely “source” is undoubtedly someone on Issa’s committee.

It is ironic in the end that all this Benghazi “scandal” has been in part to dirty the White House, but also to begin the long process of discrediting Mrs. Clinton. While nobody is all that surprised by the GOP’s doing that, it must be remembered that when all efforts were directed toward destroying the President, the GOP actually held Mrs. Clinton up as the “ray of sunshine” in the otherwise dismal Obama landscape.

Now that the President seems invincible to their machinations, Clinton, the new threat, became the new target.

It’s all so predictable.

And that is what needs be investigated it seems–why are my tax monies being used to manufacture scandals for Republican political gain?

Riddle me that Batman.