On Obama Scandals, the Stubborn Facts Will Speak!

When it comes to the State Department’s Benghazi fiasco, the I.R.S.’ abuse of power, and the Justice Department’s unprecedented and massive intrusion into AP’s news gathering process, it’s often tempting to get ahead of the facts. Just because the Obama Administration disregards the facts — or selectively edits out the facts that it deems not pertinent — does not mean that conservatives have to respond in kind. I know from personal experience that this is hard to do sometimes. However, conservatives, and others who vehemently oppose most everything this Administration stands for, should let the facts of each of these scandals speak for themselves. At least that is the advice that Charles Krauthammer, one of conservatism’s most well-respected voices, gives in his most recent column,  “Redacted Truth, subjunctive outrage,” published Thursday in The Washington Post:

Note to GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran-contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don’t know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn’t meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics.

Let the facts speak for themselves. They are damning enough. Let Gregory Hicks, the honorable, apolitical second-in-command that night in Libya, movingly and grippingly demolish the president’s Benghazi mantra that “what I have always tried to do is just get all the facts” and “every piece of information that we got, as we got it, we laid it out for the American people.” . . .

Whether or not one believes that President Obama has indeed tried to “get all the facts” when it comes to the three major scandals affecting his own Administration, facts have a way of surfacing, no matter how hard some try to keep them submerged. Of course, those facts will be interpreted through our own personal lenses. President Obama’s most ardent supporters will never be convinced — no matter what the evidence — that he or his Administration has done anything wrong. Likewise, the President’s most vociferous opponents will never believe — regardless of what the facts say — that he is innocent of the most horrendous charges of malfeasance or misfeasance.

So, what do we do with the Benghazi scandal or the politicization of the I.R.S. in its targeting of conservative groups or the Obama Justice Department’s apparent assaults on a Free (if biased) Press? Let the facts speak. Those facts, which may very well need an Independent Counsel to ferret out, will eventually come be revealed. I firmly believe that the truth is more powerful than a lie. It may not seem that way at the moment, but conservatives would do well to be reminded and encouraged by President Ronald Reagan’s maxim, “Facts are stubborn things.”  That’s good news for the American people, but perhaps not so much for the Obama Administration.