Ostriches, Obfuscation, and Oscillation

By William L. Garvin

“Little wheels spin and spin, big wheels turn around and around; Little wheels spin and spin, big wheels turn around and around.”  Buffy Sainte-Marie

Finally! Some of the media ostriches have pulled their heads out of…the sand.  It’s a miracle to behold!  The White House press corps even asked the president’s press secretary some probing questions.  In response, Jay Carney’s water gulping made Marco Rubio look refined.  That’s what happens when you have no experience with challenges to your talking points or when a compliant media maven fawns over your every utterance.

 

You could obfuscate about a stimulus that didn’t stimulate and the media ostrich buried its head in the sand.  You could claim executive privilege when the chief executive said he was not involved in “Fast and Furious” and the media buried its head in the sand.  You could ignore the Department of Justice ignoring its duty to defend DOMA or enforce the laws against voter intimidation (a la the New Black Panther fiasco) and the media buried its head in the sand.  When a respected DOJ attorney resigned in protest over the overt discrimination in case selection, the media buried its head in the sand.  When lawsuits were filed over the targeting of applications for 501(c) 4 status and anything that mentioned tea party ”,“ patriot” or a conservative theme by the Internal Revenue Service, the press buried its head in the sand.  When question after legitimate question after legitimate question was raised about the murders in Benghazi, the press buried its head in the sand.  When Dr. Kenneth Gosnell was charged with murdering three babies out of the hundreds of late term abortions he performed, the press buried its head in the sand.  Maybe as Bob Dylan wrote, the times really are changing.  Some of his verses seem appropriate to the moment:

“Come senators, Congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't block at the doorway

Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside

And it's ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'”

 

So Gosnell has now been convicted of murder.  Where will the media heads be?  Now that the IRS has admitted they targeted the tea party, where will the media heads be?  Will they look at the applications that have been pending for up to four years?  Will they explore why the affected organizations were required to provide names of their donors and all of their emails for extended periods of time?  We’ve heard the President and the head of the IRS say they heard about the problem from the media just last Friday.  That’s simply more obfuscation.  The Inspector General’s report said that “a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted.”  A year later, the IRS Commissioner told a congressional committee that it wasn’t happening.  More lies and more obfuscation.  Why did congressional representatives of both parties let the matter drop and why did the press let it drop?

 

On top of that, it’s now known that the Secretary of State was personally told the night of the Benghazi atrocity that it was a terrorist attack.  It is now known that there were TWELVE revisions of the CIA talking points and all references to al Qaeda, terrorists, and Ansar al-Sharia were deliberately removed.  That is not a limited or “non-substantive involvement” as the White House claims.  It is also not a “distraction” as President Obama now claims.  It is also not malevolent or diabolical as Senator Feinstein obfuscated. 

 

You see, Hillary, it does make a difference.  Who denied the requests for additional security from the Benghazi compound?  It wasn’t budget cuts as proffered by Democrat apologists; the State Department is spending more money this year than last year!  Who made the decision to tell our troops to “stand down” and not go to the aid of the embattled Americans?  No one knew how long that attack was going to last.  No wonder the military force was “furious.”  Who invented and pushed the theory that some obscure video was to blame?  Maybe the press will oscillate to its original purpose and intent.  Maybe they will no longer accept the lies and obfuscation.  Maybe, just maybe, they will restore luster to their tarnished profession.