Required Reading: Scandalmonger Edition

Welcome to your required reading for the day; the topic is presidential administration scandals.

Sort of.

But let us check in with Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine:

The whole Obama scandal episode is a classic creation of a “narrative” — the stitching together of unrelated data points into a story. What actually happened is this: House Republicans passed a twisted account of a hearing to ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who misleadingly claimed to have seen it, creating the impression that the administration was caught in a major lie. Then the IRS story broke, which we now see was Republicans demanding a one-sided audit and thus producing the impression of one-sided treatment. In that context, legitimate controversies over Obama’s civil-rights policies became the “three Obama scandals,” exposing a government panopticon, if not a Nixonian administration bent on revenge.

The collapse of the Benghazi story happened very quickly, when Jake Tapper’s reporting found that Karl had peddled a bogus story. (It’s notable that the only misconduct in both the Benghazi and the IRS stories was committed by House Republicans.) But the scandal cloud lingered through the still-extant IRS scandal, which in turn lent the scandal odor to the civil-liberties dispute. Now that the IRS scandal has turned into a Darrell Issa scandal, we’re left with … an important dispute over domestic surveillance, which has nothing to do with scandal at all. The entire scandal narrative was an illusion.

And we must remember that the parliamentary immunity vested in Article I.6 of the U.S. Consitution means that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will never have to answer legally for the lies he so carefully crafted in order to create a fake scandal in the form of a fact-free, tinfoil-wrapped conspiracy theory.

An Exercise In Contrasts

Juxtaposition:

While thanking supporter Miles Wobbleton for contributing the 100,000th “thumbs up” on his official Senate Facebook page, the Kentucky Republican indicated that he wants to see his online flock grow exponentially.

“We’re excited to be at 100,000, but really we’d like to see it at a million,” Paul proposed, tossing out that familiar Washington enticement—the proverbial “free lunch”—to those still on the fence about registering their virtual approval.

Paul has already crossed that self-imposed high bar on a mirror Facebook page.

And his personal account is so popular, prospective pals are now universally rebuffed.

“This person has reached the friend request limit and can’t accept any more,” Facebook warns.

—Warren Rojas

Priorities.

I realize there’s a “Stand With Rand” crowd that’s convinced the Kentucky Republican is a visionary when it comes to limited government, and I understand that much of the media establishment is eager for us to perceive him as a serious and credible person. But Rand Paul decided to chat with Glenn Beck, and during the interview the senator raised the prospect of marriage-equality proponents asking, “Does it have to be humans?”

If this is what constitutes an “interesting” politician and “rising star” in Republican politics, the GOP is in dire straits, indeed.

There is a contingent of the population that’s desperately looking for a prominent political figure in Washington who celebrates civil liberties, is openly uncomfortable with the national security state, and opposes the rush towards more wars, especially in the Middle East.

But we’re frequently reminded why Rand Paul probably isn’t the champion these folks have been waiting for. He believes bizarre and unsettling conspiracy theories; he’s convinced the Obama administration is responsible for problems with his toilet; his concerns about armed drones are strikingly ignorant and contradictory; he considers fringe outlet like World Net Daily to be credible news organizations, and on the morning of a civil-rights breakthrough for LGBT Americans, he hangs out with Glenn Beck and raises the specter of bestiality.

—Steve Benen

Values.

The Monster Mash

Warren Rojas, for Roll Call:

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich doesn’t use his enduring clout to support just any old vanity project. But he will, apparently, go to bat for the chance to plaster an image of his platinum-tressed third wife, Callista, on a craft brew bottle.

At the moment, Callista Gingrich appears to be leading the field of exactly two applicants vying for the honor of being the next Drop Dead Blonde poster girl.

Strangely, I can’t find an Adulteress Ale^*. Sounds like the market is begging.

I mean, really. There isn’t?

Okay, someone help me out. I must be overlooking something. I mean, if there was ever a beer that should have Callista Gingrich’s face on it ….

To the other, it is unfortunate that there is no beer for Newt. Blind Pig already has a label.
____________________

^* A note to Madera Verde: Really? There’s no Adulteress Ale? What am I missing? Tell me you’re on the case … keg … case … er … right.

Silly Beyond Belief

“You had adults fighting adults, juvies fighting juvies, and so forth. You just had a melee here.”

—Cmdr. Wayne Drummond

It’s the sort of lede that, really, we don’t expect. That is, angry parents on the sports field are an unfortunately common phenomenon, but come on, this is beyond stupid:

A brawl that started over spilled punch at a kindergarten graduation ceremony Friday resulted in the arrest of eight people, authorities said. Police were called when one participant pulled out a pipe and another a hammer.

Two teenage girls apparently started hitting each other at Michael R. White Elementary School, and their families joined in, Cleveland police Cmdr. Wayne Drummond said. The fight involved adults and minors, he said.

“You had adults fighting adults, juvies fighting juvies, and so forth,” he said as parents streamed into the building to pick up their children. “You just had a melee here.”

No one was hurt, Drummond said. It wasn’t clear whether the hammer and pipe were brought to the school or were grabbed during the fight from a janitor’s supplies or elsewhere, police spokeswoman Detective Jennifer Ciaccia said.

I mean, come on. Hockey fights? Sure. Heck, I remember once when a guy named Jim Denton, my elementary school principal, manhandled one of his students during a Little League baseball game; the kid’s father rushed the field, then, and we nearly had a brawl on the diamond. These sorts of things are stupid beyond belief.

But a kindergarten graduation ceremony? Seriously?

The Reuters “Advertising” Division

“If somebody wants to come into Kentucky and build a Harry Potter park and teach all the fun things about witchcraft, nobody would say a word about it—they’d just think it was so cool. But if we want to come in and build a Biblical theme park, everybody goes crazy.”

—Michael Zovath

Everyone, it seems, has their complaints about news media, but Mary Wisniewski’s promotional piece for a creationist theme park—lovingly edited for Reuters by Arlene Getz and Prudence Crowther—does not make any effort to hide its purpose.

In an office park in Hebron, Kentucky, the designers of the proposed “Ark Encounter” theme park are trying to answer questions like these in order to build faith in the Bible’s literal accuracy. The project has run into delays because of lack of financing, which could cost it millions in potential tax breaks. Despite the uncertainty, a recent Reuters preview of the project showed that plans for the ark are continuing.

“We’re basically presenting what the Bible has to say and showing how plausible it was,” said Patrick Marsh, design director for the park, which will feature a 500-foot-long wooden ark and other Old Testament attractions, including a Tower of Babel and a “Ten Plagues” ride. “This was a real piece of history – not just a story, not just a legend.”

The project is currently in the design phase. Not enough private donations have come in to start construction, and building permits will not be ready until November, according to Ark Encounter co-founder and Senior Vice President Michael Zovath.

The project has $12.3 million in hand and $12.7 million more in committed donations; it needs $23 million more to start building the ark alone. Zovath does not know when that will happen.

Like Noah before the Flood, the builders are in a bit of a time crunch, since Kentucky tourism tax incentives for the project are set to expire in May 2014.

The longer it takes to start building the $150 million park, originally planned to open in spring 2014, the less the project stands to gain from the rebates, which allow it to receive up to 25 percent of project costs over 10 years from sales taxes generated by the business.

Zovath said the project may refile for the incentives, which critics argue are a violation of the constitutional divide between church and state. If the rebates applied to the full project cost, they could amount to $37.5 million.

This seems to be the thrust of Wisniewski’s appeal, which is in turn bracketed by quaint inquiries and appeals intended to charm:

What is “gopher wood”? How did Noah fit all those animals on the boat? And how did he stand the smell? ….

…. Zovath argues that the tax breaks do not violate the Constitution, since the state is not giving the park money up-front, but is only returning some of the tourism money the park will bring to the state.

“If somebody wants to come into Kentucky and build a Harry Potter park and teach all the fun things about witchcraft, nobody would say a word about it – they’d just think it was so cool,” Zovath said. “But if we want to come in … and build a Biblical theme park, everybody goes crazy.”

Something About Beer

Ah, political correctness. Jason Dick of Roll Call can give you directions to the P&C Market, where they have been so insensitive and exclusionary as to limit their sidewalk sign to only twenty-five languages. Or, if you’re a pint-half-full kind of person, well, they really want you to know they have beer.