The former head of the IRS being interviewed by Congress. I just hope they know who really is behind all this.

[Via Powerline]

Until today I thought he might get through it, even with the media more and more offside. But now I think the flow is in the other direction, and it is this article that has convinced me. Titled, “The IRS Scandal Started at the Top” and from The Wall Street Journal, it describes the Obama modus operandi in getting the IRS to attack opposition groups. Here is the killer passage:

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. “He put a target on our backs, and he’s now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?” asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a “wealthy individual” with a “less-than-reputable record.” Other donors were described as having been “on the wrong side of the law.”

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. Vandersloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.

The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn’t account for what the president’s vilification has done to his business and reputation.

This will have been magnified thousands of times over for any group that might in any way have been a threat to the President. Start a Tea Party group, here comes the IRS. Donate to Romney, here comes the IRS. Oppose the President, here comes the IRS. This is the worst scandal in American history, one that goes to the heart of democratic governance. If the Americans do not root this corruption out, American democracy is a sham, and everyone will know it.

Obama must go.

If even Chris Matthews is done with Obama, there’s no one left. You can even watch the video here but this is the text:

‘What part of the presidency does Obama like? He doesn’t like dealing with other politicians — that means his own cabinet, that means members of the congress, either party. He doesn’t particularly like the press…. He likes to write the speeches, likes to rewrite what Favreau and the others wrote for the first draft,’ Matthews said.

‘So what part does he like? He likes going on the road, campaigning, visiting businesses like he does every couple days somewhere in Ohio or somewhere,’ Matthews continued. ‘But what part does he like? He doesn’t like lobbying for the bills he cares about. He doesn’t like selling to the press. He doesn’t like giving orders or giving somebody the power to give orders. He doesn’t seem to like being an executive.’

On Tuesday’s program, Matthews similarly called Obama ‘a ship with the engine off.’

“A ship with the engine off.” He’s actually much worse than that and far more destructive but it will do for now.

There are five scandals besieging the Obama administration at the present time:

1. Health and Human Services soliciting funds from the health care industry for the implementation of ObamaCare.

2. Benghazi.

3. The Department of Justice secretly obtained the phone records of 20 lines at or connected to the Associated Press.

4. The IRS targeted conservative Tea Party groups, and Jewish groups favorable toward Israel.

5. The Environmental Protection Agency stands accused today of showing favoritism toward liberal groups over conservative groups.

You know what? So what? At this stage it is hard to see anything positive that could come out of any of this. And he will be president till January 2017 no matter what.

From Jim Treacher:

Dear MSM,

You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t fall all over myself congratulating you for finally doing your jobs. Assuming you don’t find a way to help Obama weasel his way out of trouble again — Go, Media Matters! Go, JournoList 2.0! — it’s a little too late. The damage of this administration has been done. And he got away with it because you helped him. You covered for him.

Most pathetically, some of you are only turning on him now because he’s been exposed going after the Associated Press. Going after the good guys: you. Gasp! Hell hath no fury like a groupie scorned. Well, what did you expect? You let the guy walk all over you for four years, and then you flushed what’s left of your credibility down the toilet to get him reelected, despite all his failures. You think he ever respected you?

We told you this guy was a disaster waiting to happen. You didn’t listen. He said the things you wanted to hear, he promised everybody free candy for life, and you slobbered all over him like a bunch of idiots. Now we’re going to laugh at you while you get all indignant at him. While you pretend that only now has he gone too far.

You ruined your entire industry for this guy, MSM. Serves you right.

A story about class:

Shortly after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, a fellow reporter who’d covered President George W. Bush all eight years told me she’d had enough of the travel and stress and strain of the White House beat, that she was moving on…

I asked her if she’d miss covering President Obama.

“Not at all. He’s an inch deep. Bush is a bottomless chasm, a deep, mysterious, emotional, profound man. Obama is all surface — shallow, obvious, robotic, and, frankly, not nearly as smart as he thinks. Bush was the one.”

…By the way, she’s a hardcore Democrat.

But she was right. And that contrast was apparent to all who watched Thursday’s ceremonial event to open W’s new presidential library in Dallas….

Jimmy Carter … was first to speak. But he was, as always, befuddled.

…he opened with, “In 2000, as some of you may remember, there was a disputed election for several weeks.” Nice way to start. He then took credit for giving W the idea to intercede in Sudan… He never mentioned 9-11 and the war on terror, or the commander in chief’s leadership during America’s most trying hour. Which is why his comments lasted just 3¼ minutes.

Bill Clinton followed. He, of course, spoke twice as long, filling his speech with jokes and faux humility. He was his usual affable self… But… Mr. Clinton, for all his prodigious gifts, will always be the class clown…

George H.W. Bush, turning 90 in June, was a welcome respite. Somewhat frail now, he spoke only briefly from his wheelchair, but garnered two standing ovations — and the biggest laugh of the day from his oldest son. After his remarks, just 24 seconds, he shook his boy’s hand and said, deadpan, “Too long?”

President Obama took the podium next. Every bit as cunning as Slick Willy, his speech too was filled with fake self-effacing insights, including one on “the world’s most exclusive club,” which he said “is more like a support group.”… Then, on a day that was intended to be without politics, he hawked his push for amnesty…

Mr. Obama skipped the praise he had laid on W the night before. “Whatever our political differences, President Bush loves this country and loves its people and shares that same concern and was concerned about all people in America, not just those who voted Republican. I think that’s true about him, and I think that’s true about most of us.”

Except it’s not. Especially not this president. He has made his presidency about dividing America — along lines of class, sex, race, sexuality, you name it…

Then, finally, W took the podium…. He gave a profound lesson to his successor and his predecessor: “In democracy, the purpose of public office is not to fulfill personal ambition. Elected officials must serve a cause greater than themselves…

“As president, I tried to act on these principles every day. It wasn’t always easy and it certainly wasn’t always popular … And when our freedom came under attack, we made the tough decisions required to keep the American people safe,” he said to loud applause.

But it was the end that gave us the truest glimpse of the man… With tears in his eyes, his voice breaking, he said: “It’s the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave and as noble as the United States….” By the end he was in tears, barely able to creak out: “God bless.”..

But there was one last classy move not many saw. The program nearly over, Sgt. 1st Class Alvy R. Powell Jr. came to the side of the stage to perform the “Star Spangled Banner.” A big, powerful black man, Mr. Powell belted out the anthem. With the crowd applauding, the sergeant moved along the line of people, shaking hands with all. After greeting W, he turned to go. But the 43rd president put his hand on the sergeant’s arm and said, “Stay,” just as a chaplain stepped forward to give a benediction.

[From Andrew Bolt.]

The greatest woman of the twentieth century, an accidental Prime Minister, she is best known by her enemies who are as pitiful as she was courageous. Paul Johnson has said it best:

Margaret Thatcher had more impact on the world than any woman ruler since Catherine the Great of Russia. Not only did she turn around—decisively—the British economy in the 1980s, she also saw her methods copied in more than 50 countries. ‘Thatcherism’ was the most popular and successful way of running a country in the last quarter of the 20th century and into the 21st.

There are, alas, for people such as myself no permanent victories. There are also supposedly no permanent defeats, but while this is occasionally stated, this never strikes me as true. But she held back the tide of corruption and decay at least for a while.

Everyone who already understands this knows this already.