Oh, that Paranoid Center of Power.
In addition to the man whom Rich Lowry dubbed “The Benghazi Patsy” having been arrested over a YouTube clip in 2012, add the following items currently linked together on the front page of the Drudge Report:
● ANTI-OBAMA MOVIEMAKER [DINESH D’SOUZA] INDICTED…
● Cuomo subpoenas conservative activist James O’Keefe…
● IRS targets conservative group in Hollywood…
● Jill Abramson: ‘Most secretive White House I have ever dealt with’…
As Glenn Reynolds wrote at the start of the week in USA Today:
Spend a little while on Twitter or in Internet comment sections and you’ll see a significant number of people who think that the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives, or that Chief Justice John Roberts’ sudden about-face in the Obamacare case might have been driven by some sort of NSA-facilitated blackmail.
A year ago, these kinds of comments would have been dismissable as paranoid conspiracy theory. But now, while I still don’t think they’re true, they’re no longer obviously crazy. And that’s Obama’s legacy: a government that makes paranoid conspiracy theories seem possibly sane.
The problem with government is that to be trusted, you have to be trustworthy. And the problem with the Obama administration is that, to a greater extent than any since Nixon’s, it is not. Do not be surprised if the result is that people mistrust those in authority, and order their lives accordingly. Such an outcome is bad for America, but bad governance has its consequences.
Directly underneath the above-quoted items, Matt Drudge also links to Peggy Noonan’s column, which he paraphrases as “No one’s listening to Obama now.” That’s another byproduct of not being trusted — and forgetting that it’s you as a civil servant who serves the people, not the other way around.
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