A HAT TRICK OF SCANDALS

Though arguably the least significant of three burgeoning scandals that have made this the worst fortnight ever for the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, the Justice Department’s covert seizure of the telephone records of Associated Press reporters may cause him the most grief. 

Journalists unmoved by evidence his Justice Department ran guns to Mexican drug cartels and promoted vote fraud are very, very upset.

This was a "chilling" effort to intimidate whistleblowers, said Chuck Todd, chief White House correspondent and political director for NBC News.

It was "outrageous, totally inexcusable," said Carl Bernstein of Watergate  fame.

Some Democrats who faithfully parroted administration talking points on Benghazi jumped ship after the Internal Revenue Service admitted targeting Tea Party groups.  "Low level" staffers in the Cincinnati field office were to blame, said Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations division.  Senior leaders were unaware.

She was lying.  The brass knew from the get-go.  Jewish groups supporting Israel also were targeted.  The IRS leaked confidential data about conservatives to the liberal group Pro Publica.  The FBI has launched a criminal probe.

Fewer have been willing to parrot the party line on Benghazi since the number two guy in our embassy in Libya testified that during the attack on 9/11/2012, he told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton it was the work of terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda.

That telephone conversation took place at 8:00 p.m. Washington time.  Two hours later, Secretary Clinton talked to President Obama.  Before that phone conversation, the State Department in Washington received cables from the CIA station chief in Benghazi saying this was a terrorist attack, and another noting an al Qaida affiliate claimed credit for it.

Shortly after talking with the president, Ms. Clinton put out a press release blaming "inflammatory material posted on the Internet" for the attack. The next day, with the coffins of the four slain Americans as her backdrop and their loved ones as her audience, she said:  "We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American Embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with."

Lying so brazenly to the grieving has not enhanced Ms. Clinton’s appeal as a presidential candidate.  That’s more upsetting to Democrats than the lie, or what it was meant to conceal.

Democrats have been calling her "trying to undermine Greg Hicks’ testimony," Lisa Meyers of NBC reported May 10.  But Mr. Hicks is a registered Democrat who’s voted for both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama. Smearing him as a Republican tool is a hard sell.

Republicans are playing politics on Benghazi, because "the day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism," President Obama said at a news conference Monday (5/13).

You may remember how eagerly CNN’s Candy Crowley, "moderator" of the second presidential debate, embraced this lie last October.  On Monday, the Washington Post fact checker gave the president "four pinocchios."

When it seized the AP phone records, the Justice Department was trying to find out who leaked a report which contradicted the administration’s narrative al Qaida was a spent force.  The leak to the AP was "very serious," said Attorney General Eric Holder.

But if "the enemy already benefited from a serious leak, why can’t he tell us the details that they already know? " asked  Conor Friedersdorf  of the Atlantic. Victor Davis Hanson notes Mr. Holder’s concern about leaks has been highly selective.

The IRS audited him after he asked President Obama tough questions in an interview last year, claimed a television news anchor in St. Louis.

The IRS scandal reminds them of Watergate, several Democrats told the Boston Herald.  Siccing the IRS on his political enemies was an article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.

He knew nothing of what the Justice Department and the IRS were doing, President Obama said.  He also is unaware that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is shaking down businesses to fund Obamacare, or that the EPA waives for liberal groups fees it imposes on conservatives, I imagine he’d say if asked.

"We’re only starting to scratch the surface" of the IRS scandal, said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.  More Benghazi whistleblowers will come forward soon, predicted Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  A source in the CIA told him one more shoe — apparently unrelated to Benghazi — is about to drop, said Drudge Report Editor Joseph Curl.

The president must be praying the old saw that "trouble comes in (just) threes" is correct.

The IRS scandal will separate "the meritorious liberals from the meretricious," said columnist George Will. 

There are fewer of the former.  But the ranks of the meritorious may be augmented by liberals who have as little integrity as the president’s hard core defenders, but more brains.  It’s one thing to ride the Obama rocket when it’s soaring, another when it may corkscrew into the ground.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.