A political reporter whom I greatly respect, and who asks not to have the comment attributed to him, writes to comment on one possible side effect of the IRS scandal: “Not to be paranoid, but the IRS scandal may make it easier for the immigration-bill advocates to push their amazing bill through Congress while the public’s mind is elsewhere, if only because it gives the media another excuse not to actually look at the contents and economic impact of the bill.”
…
There are at least two ways in which the current, scandal-rich environment might affect immigration reform. It could, as Scott’s contact fears, enable the Schumer-Rubio legislation to fly more-or-less under the radar during a critical period of time, thus increasing the likelihood of passage. Alternatively, it could undermine President Obama’s standing and thereby help Republicans overcome the Hispanic panic attack that has provided the impetus for amnesty. This might make passage of Schumer-Rubio, or some variation thereof, less likely.
Creating tens of millions of new, most likely Democrat voters is the long game. If this passes, you’re setting up one party rule for generations. Besides, it’s a long time until the 2014 elections. Getting the scandals out of the way now is in their best interests.
Never let a crisis go to waste, eh?
Revenge of the Clintonistas. Nobody’s talking Hillary’s Bengazi lies now, are they?
That sounds plausible. Obama is a lame duck so Hillary really has no reason to protect him and every reason to protect herself. This might also be an indirect book promotion.
It’s known that there was an inspector general report coming out on Monday, and the “conventional wisdom” take is that Lerner was deliberately breaking the story on Friday to wrong-foot the official press conference. So yes, it’s uncontroversial that she wanted it released on Friday, if only to cover her own ass, as her version is a lot less personally damning than the Monday version. The more controversial question is whether the Monday rollout was itself planned by the administration to flood the zone with random scandal, as a distraction from other, more dangerous problems starting to come out. The Sebelius shakedown story seems the most likely “patient zero” candidate for this scandal outbreak.
This like the parable of the two children, the pessimist and the optimist.
At her birthday, the first child is shown a room full of the most expensive gifts, dresses, gowns, shoes, the prettiest dolls, toys of every kind.
“There has got to be a catch! There has got to be a catch!”
At her birthday, the second child is shown her room filled with horse manure.
Splashing joyfully through the piles of dung, “There has got to be a pony! There has got to be a pony!”
Am I being cynical to wonder, after watching multiple scandals grow, what they are trying to divert attention from? Must be something…
Some are suggesting immigration reform.
A political reporter whom I greatly respect, and who asks not to have the comment attributed to him, writes to comment on one possible side effect of the IRS scandal: “Not to be paranoid, but the IRS scandal may make it easier for the immigration-bill advocates to push their amazing bill through Congress while the public’s mind is elsewhere, if only because it gives the media another excuse not to actually look at the contents and economic impact of the bill.”
…
There are at least two ways in which the current, scandal-rich environment might affect immigration reform. It could, as Scott’s contact fears, enable the Schumer-Rubio legislation to fly more-or-less under the radar during a critical period of time, thus increasing the likelihood of passage. Alternatively, it could undermine President Obama’s standing and thereby help Republicans overcome the Hispanic panic attack that has provided the impetus for amnesty. This might make passage of Schumer-Rubio, or some variation thereof, less likely.
Creating tens of millions of new, most likely Democrat voters is the long game. If this passes, you’re setting up one party rule for generations. Besides, it’s a long time until the 2014 elections. Getting the scandals out of the way now is in their best interests.
Never let a crisis go to waste, eh?
Revenge of the Clintonistas. Nobody’s talking Hillary’s Bengazi lies now, are they?
That sounds plausible. Obama is a lame duck so Hillary really has no reason to protect him and every reason to protect herself. This might also be an indirect book promotion.
It’s known that there was an inspector general report coming out on Monday, and the “conventional wisdom” take is that Lerner was deliberately breaking the story on Friday to wrong-foot the official press conference. So yes, it’s uncontroversial that she wanted it released on Friday, if only to cover her own ass, as her version is a lot less personally damning than the Monday version. The more controversial question is whether the Monday rollout was itself planned by the administration to flood the zone with random scandal, as a distraction from other, more dangerous problems starting to come out. The Sebelius shakedown story seems the most likely “patient zero” candidate for this scandal outbreak.
This like the parable of the two children, the pessimist and the optimist.
At her birthday, the first child is shown a room full of the most expensive gifts, dresses, gowns, shoes, the prettiest dolls, toys of every kind.
“There has got to be a catch! There has got to be a catch!”
At her birthday, the second child is shown her room filled with horse manure.
Splashing joyfully through the piles of dung, “There has got to be a pony! There has got to be a pony!”