'Drip, Drip, Drip. And then the Deluge'

Wes Pruden pronounces “Funeral rites for a perfidious presidency:”

Hiring new public-relations help for Eric Holder is not the answer to the president’s troubles, though a new flack is always the aspirin a president reaches for when he feels a presidential headache coming on. Mr. Obama’s headache is not merely the messenger, but the message that everyone, at last including the sleeping beauties of the media, now hears loud and clear.

The president’s headache is compounded by the harsh reality that the organs of mainstream media, for so long the altar boys of the president, have become allies of partisans on the right whether they like it or not. Facts are stubborn. When Republicans in the House of Representatives assail Eric Holder for targeting journalists to plug leaks, even The New York Times has to take grudging notice. The canard that critics of Mr. Obama are racists by definition has been rendered permanently “inoperative.”

The letter from the chairman and a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee asking Mr. Holder to explain the contradiction between his sworn testimony and reliable news accounts is the red meat journalists usually crave. A fortnight ago Mr. Holder told the committee that he had never taken part in any pursuit of a journalist for criminal prosecution, and it would not be “wise policy” to do that. No equivocating there. But Reuters news agency reports that Mr. Holder had approved the search warrant to retrieve email archives of Fox News, and approved a subpoena for the network’s telephone records.

Mr. Obama and his administration face a long, hot summer of charge, countercharge, whistles and whistleblowing. He’ll need more than aspirin. Obamacare as it is revealed looms as another storm.

Read the whole thing, and then check out Jim Treacher, who asks, “Hey, remember AttackWatch.com?” Or as we called it back in the day — i.e., 2011 — Atttaaaaaaaaaaack Waaaaaaaaaatch:

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This was made two years ago, back when we were called paranoid for pointing out what the Obama administration was doing, right out in the open. What Obama has done, consistently, since he first announced his candidacy for president. As John Hayward at RedState puts it:

This is an age of official paranoia, in which the President and his apologists routinely declare dissenters beyond the pale, claiming they have no legitimate motivations beyond greed and racism.

I just hope more people are starting to see that. I hope they see how far this administration is willing to go in order to repress dissent and discourage free speech. Assuming everybody can tear themselves away from The Voice or Hell’s Kitchen or whatever.

Speaking of gustatory analogies, “You remember near the end of the Monty Python flick, The Meaning of Life — that scene featuring Mr. Creasote?”, Greg Gutfeld asks at Big Government. “I remember the scene now, as I’ve watched this IRS scandal unfold. I keep thinking about that mint, and that this scandal is that mint.”

When I talked about grounding government, this is how it’s done. The IRS, through its actions, has grounded itself–disqualifying the joint from effectively coercing you to do anything without that being perceived as targeting. When President Obama said cynicism is a threat to democracy, he was looking through the kaleidoscope from the wrong end. It’s corruption that threatens big government. When, during that speech on drones, he defended his use of targeted lethal attacks on enemies, he could have just as easily been describing the IRS attacks on the right. This strategy is part of who they are. If you’re a big government lover, you are programmed to hate us and any person who threatens that cushy livelihood.

Which is why you should become that person. Doing so creates a force field against attack. When Elijah Cummings fretted that the IRS scandal could endanger future audits against citizens, it was a selfish, bizarre reaction to government overreach (siding with the attacker, not the victim)–but he was also right.

The IRS just dug big government’s grave. America now has the opportunity to look at the greedy monster that is expansive, progressive government and say, “We are done with you. Go away.”

Yes, America has that opportunity. But will enough people take it in 2014 and 2016?

The IRS will not meet the deadline (today) for responding to a series of questions from the Senate Finance Committee regarding the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups. In a joint statement, committee chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said it was “disappointing that the IRS failed to produce any of the documents requested by the Committee,” and noted the irony and hypocrisy of the nation’s tax-collecting agency refusing to meet a deadline for producing requested information.

Well gosh, it’s ever so nice that you’ve noted the irony. But what are you going to do about it?

Update: “Just In: Nearly 90 IRS Employees Involved in Scandal.”