Last year, on May 28, 2010 – the Friday before Memorial Day – Obama’s administration was forced to address the issue of its offering a job to Rep. Joe Sestak in return for the congressman dropping out of his senatorial primary race with Arlen Specter. It was a sloppy attempt, with Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel taking the fall. The scandal was nearly certain to remain in the headlines despite the administration’s holiday weekend document dump in the form of a memorandum from White House Counsel Robert Bauer.
Then something happened.
As Memorial Day was dawning in America, reports that a flotilla from Turkey attempted to break through an Israeli blockade of Gaza changed the news cycle. It was subsequently learned that Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn helped organize the flotilla. Conveniently, the Sestak scandal never really resurfaced.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform is about to lower the boom with hearings – in phases – on the Project Gunrunner scandal, possibly as early as June 13th. This scandal blows the one involving Sestak out of the water and is looking more and more like Watergate with murder. Sipsey Street is quoting a source allegedly close to the investigation as saying he will be “surprised” if Attorney General Eric Holder doesn’t end up in “federal prison.”
Issa was interviewed by Fox News’ Shannon Bream recently and gave some indication as to what the public might be able to expect:
[youtube KkMAKtQIHWc]
Coincidentally, another Gaza flotilla is scheduled for June 20th. One of the boats is named “Audacity of Hope,” after Barack Obama’s book. The group behind the Audacity is named US Boat to Gaza and is being endorsed by another Obama friend – Rashid Khalidi. Shockingly, there are seven members of Congress who are also endorsing the Audacity and its mission in their roles with the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).
The premise here is rather simple. This president loves distractions; his administration is so corrupt, he desperately needs them in order to avoid accountability. The more something can damage his administration, the more those distractions are welcomed and the larger they must be. In November of 2009, the climategate scandal broke when scores of emails were released that torpedoed the man-made global warming movement. A few short days later, a scandal nowhere near as important dominated the news cycle; it involved the White House “gate crashers” known as the Salahis.
More recently, on the eve of a House Judiciary Committee hearing during which Issa thoroughly eviscerated Holder, the killing of Osama bin Laden dominated the news. In a piece at the American Thinker, J.R. Dunn makes a strong case that the timing of bin Laden’s murder was quite possibly political. While Issa was boldly telling Holder that his committee was looking at the DOJ and the Attorney General specifically – relative to Project Gunrunner – the American media preferred instead to obsess about the administration’s incompetent messaging, as well as its refusal to release the bin Laden photos.
Here we are on the eve of a scandal that could very likely bring this administration crashing down if the truth comes out. Whistleblowers and informants are flooding the offices of both Issa and Republican Senator Charles Grassley with mountains of extremely devastating information about a plan to put guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. One of those guns was found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.
It remains to be seen what will grab the headlines during Issa’s hearings into the Gunrunner scandal but one thing is for certain. The Obama administration absolutely wants this scandal nowhere near the front pages.
Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at benbarrack.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.