Nobody Knows Nothin’!

By William L. Garvin

 

From 1965-1971, HOGAN’S HEROES was a popular television series starring Bob Crane and a terrific assortment of supporting actors.  The plot centered on a group of prisoners in a German POW camp during World War Two.  The allied prisoners were headed up by Colonel Hogan who did his best to outsmart Colonel Klink, the camp commandant.  One of the most memorable characters was the rotund Sergeant Hans Georg Schultz, played by John Banner.   Schultz was an affable but inept prison guard who, whenever becoming aware of Hogan’s plans and schemes, adamantly proclaimed “I know nothing!  I see nothing!  I hear nothing!”   Sergeant Schultz was the prototype for the Obama administration leadership team.

 

When the mainstream media finally became aware of the “Fast and Furious” fiasco that put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, the Obama administration knew, saw and heard nothing.  When a Department of Justice attorney resigned in protest of DOJ policy to not prosecute cases against minorities, (a la the New Black Panther Party), the Obama administration knew, saw and heard nothing.  The national debt is now over $16.8 trillion and this administration knows, sees, and does nothing.  The Keystone pipeline is still stalled by Environmental Protection Agency obstructions while crony capitalism “green” projects sail through but the Obama administration knows, sees and does nothing.

 

The Internal Revenue Service targets Tea Party and other conservative organizations for special scrutiny but fails to subject liberal organizations to similar onerous treatment; the Obama administration knows, sees and hears nothing.  The Department of Justice singles out Fox News reporters and AP reporters for criminal investigations but the Obama administration knows, sees and hears nothing.  Eric Holder’s signature on that subpoena is such an inconvenient truth!  Four Americans die in Benghazi after multiple requests for security are denied, military aid is not rendered, and someone smokes up a hot air concoction that an obscure video is the causative factor and the Obama administration knows, sees and hears nothing.  That’s how tyranny operates.

Take the case of “True the Vote”, a Houston-based nonprofit formed by Catherine Engelbrecht and her King Street Patriots Tea Party group.  In an interview, Ms. Engelbrecht describes the IRS abuse of power: “We applied for nonprofit C-3 status early in 2010. Since that time the IRS has run us through a gauntlet of analysts and hundreds of questions over and over again. They’ve requested to see each and every tweet I’ve ever tweeted or Facebook post I’ve ever posted. They also asked to know every place I’ve ever spoken since our inception and to whom, and everywhere I intend to speak in the future.”

Engelbrecht’s application allegedly triggered aggressive audits of one of her family’s personal businesses as well. The FBI began a series of inquiries about her and her group; the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms began demanding to see her family's firearms in surprise audits of her and her husband’s small gun dealership--which had done less than $200 in sales; Occupational Safety Hazards Administration audited their small family manufacturing business; and the EPA-affiliated TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environment Quality) did a surprise visit and audit due to “a complaint being called in.”  The Democratic Party of Texas filed a lawsuit against her; so did an ACORN affiliated group.  Ultimately, the IRS determined that it actually owed a refund to Engelbrecht; the BATF found nothing wrong in any of its repeated visits and audits; OSHA’s fine-toothed comb found reason to demand $25,000 from Engelbrecht’s family business; and TCEQ demanded the Engelbrechts spend $42,000 on additional storage sheds.  “This is what the beginning of tyranny looks like," Engelbrecht said.

 

The excuse offered up by David Axelrod, the President’s Chicago mouthpiece, is that government is just “too big” for one man to govern.  Actually, that is what the Tea Party has been saying all along.  If President Obama showed as much interest and enthusiasm for governing as he does for fundraising, he might not have to discover these scandals in the Friday newspapers.  However, it is impossible to believe that there was no knowledge of any of these situations in the White House.

 

If in fact, he is surprised by all these problematic issues (not to mention Democrats and unions protesting the ObamaCare “train wreck”!), it shows a fundamental lack of organizational discipline, a lack of communication within his executive team, and a lack of personal and professional accountability throughout governmental agencies.  Given the previous lack of presidential experience in management or leadership, the sad state of current governmental affairs was entirely predictable.  The lying, cover-ups and governmental oppressions were not.