Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. It’s an implied request that has worked well for the Obama administration for quite some time. But, as you can tell from this program and all others today, the avalanche of evidence that the government is turning its figurative guns on tax payers, whistle blowers and reporters has almost everyone —especially the press—now asking some tough questions.
Between WH spokesman Jay Carney’s struggle to answer pool questions last Friday about a flood of Benghazi emails revealing the State Department’s desire to scrub terrorism links from talking points, and news on Friday that the IRS has been unfairly targeting conservative non-profits for their tax-exempt applications, the latest revelation that the Department of Justice secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors in an apparent witch hunt to root out the cause of a rare unwanted leak couldn’t have come at a worse time for an administration that has insisted on a host of scandals, as “nothing to see here.”
I won’t be surprised if this latest revelation ends with Eric Holder’s resignation, and it will be deserved.
Just imagine the reaction to this, say, if Michael Mukasey, one of George W. Bush’s attorney generals, presided over this. Or, even, say, Janet Reno of the Clinton Administration had this on her watch.
The White House, liberal media and Democratic elected officials have swatted away these assertions as nothing more than right-wing conspiracy, political propaganda, black helicopter paranoia and, most routinely, unadulterated hatred for President Obama.
Now, all of that may in fact animate many of the inquiries. But that doesn’t vitiate their validity, nor does it make any of the accusations untrue or undeserving of media scrutiny.
The lengths to which the administration has gone to silence whistle blowers and reporters is nothing short of astonishing. Simply put, this is not the American way.
For those of us looking to draw attention to these issues, it’s been infuriating to see many in the press—often the victims of this very government overreach—ignore and dismiss them even as their colleagues were being prosecuted under the Espionage Act more times than all previous administrations combined.
Hopefully, though, now that these stories have become impossible to ignore, the press will finally wake up and smell the chilling effect that puts their very livelihoods in danger.
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” That the government has lied to us is hardly unique to this administration. But few brave souls have had the courage to ask tough questions, and many who have have found themselves on the receiving end of government intimidation. Now, press and citizen alike, we should all be asking what kind of country do we want to live in?
