Three Scandals Haunt the Obama Administration

Has the time of political and even moral scandal arrived for U.S. President Barack Obama?

Possibly the most important thing is the question of what can the man do to escape from the clutches and shackles of those mistakes? Does he intend to introduce his country to new wars or urgent military engagements as a means of fleeing to the front? Maybe we need to start questioning the nature of the scandal, and what its dimensions and demands are on his second term.

Americans are fully aware that scandals usually catch up with the American president in his second term. The first year of the second Obama administration had barely passed without features of these crises appearing. However, it was only the beginning of what happened in Benghazi and the crises [in Libya], which are related and inseparable. What about the dilemma of the fighting in Benghazi is number one for Obama?

The incident, of course, is the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi and the killing of the American ambassador. The Obama administration could almost claim that an American film that was offensive to Islam caused the incident. However, the subsequent investigation revealed that the Obama administration was aware that there were terrorist attacks under development, and al-Qaida and its organization in northern Africa were already planning an attack.

The incident came on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections. The Obama administration tried to ease the shock and change the aftermath of the incident, removing him from the accusation that describes him as flexible on the war on terror, as his opponents claim. The U.S. media played a large role in uncovering the reported intentional misrepresentation and the CIA's account of the incident, which specifically omitted any reference to the likelihood of an al-Qaida attack on the American consulate. It seems that the champions of this distortion in the U.S. Department of State were U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. It cost them their positions in the second Obama administration.

The Benghazi scandal showed that Obama is hardly all-powerful over all things in Washington. The political dimensions of the scandal show that there are conflicts in interests among those in the triangle of the White House, the Department of State and the CIA.

The second scandal of the Obama administration concerned an unprecedented move on the telephone records of The Associated Press, while citing a situation that endangered Americans.

The agency, for its part, accused the Obama administration of spying on it and infringing on freedom of speech by monitoring the telephone lines of a number of journalists to find out who leaked the news of the CIA’s failed terrorist operation in Yemen. What happened exactly?

In short, it is not a violation. The Obama administration eavesdropped on the calls of more than 100 journalists affiliated with the AP, one of the largest press agencies in the world. This was in order to monitor the sources of the leak of the failed CIA terrorist operation, concerning a plot to blow up a plane in May 2012. The eavesdropping process resulted in the review of the telephone numbers that were dialed throughout the month.

This eavesdropping scandal caused AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt to say, "We don't question their right to conduct these sort of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretly, so abusively and harassingly and over-broad that it constitutes, that it is, an unconstitutional act.”

Although the case started to take on fluctuating dimensions, on one hand, it seems and was, as if Americans paid anew the price of their security in the area of freedom, such as by problematically turning the state into a police state to avoid fear.

This is the path George W. Bush walked for eight years, especially after the incident of Sept. 11, 2001. Today, Americans themselves have decided on this trade-off between internal security and public freedom.

The invocation of similar problems in the past was the second effect of this eavesdropping incident. American public opinion remembers the Watergate scandal, when President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) decided to spy on the offices of the Democratic Party, the opposition, in the Watergate building in Washington.

Is This Obama’s Watergate?

Even if it is not, it has cast a dense shadow emanating from the bad relationship between the Obama administration and the media: The White House has become a fortress invulnerable to media penetration. Even the most historically influential newspaperman, Bob Woodward, has recently suffered what look like threats from the American president’s aides in an attempt to separate him from his sources, after which the journalist insisted on publishing an article about Obama, instead of the Republicans.

What about the Third Scandal that Began to Raise Rebellious Americans against Obama’s Domestic Politics?

This is the one relating to the IRS, recently found to be targeting right-wing groups opposed to Obama by using more scrutiny on the examination of their tax records. In the forefront was the tea party movement, known for its positions that lean to the political right.

This scandal, which the IRS recognized, prompted President Obama to call for the ouster of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller as part of the multipurpose effort to calm the controversy that threatened to dominate the entire activity of his second presidential term.

The Washington Post published a report about the practices the IRS undertook and the neglect of submitted applications for tax exemption for certain organizations for political reasons — their support for the Republican Party. A number of officials from these organizations say that they faced unjustified processes and complexities that exceeded their powers and requested information from them. They describe this practice as a nightmare. Thus [the practices of the IRS] could cause a scandal of the president exploiting his influence in the face of the opposition party. It is settled that the momentum of the U.S. presidential election was eclipsed by the other Obama “Watergate” scandal. However, the fall of the American dominoes will inevitably open the files anew. Talk has grown for months since last November, specifically in June, about the government secrets that were leaked to media outlets concerning the American electronic war against Iran, procedures for targeting militants in attacks by drones and the existence of a double agent who penetrated one of the groups in Yemen.

Is Obama’s Personal Life Part of the Scandal?

There are rumors repeated in Washington that were disclosed by American tabloid The Globe. If they are proven true, they are sufficient to eliminate the remainder of Obama’s credibility, as they affirmed the existence of President Obama’s mistress, with whom he was spending intimate time during his electoral campaign. The American tabloid confirmed the name of the mistress, whom it described as very beautiful and exciting. Described as a collector of donations, she is Vera Baker, 35, who worked in the Obama camp in 2004 and during his run for the Illinois Senate seat.

Where Can These Scandals Lead Obama and the Democrats from Behind?

From the outset, [the scandals] will cause a general state of skepticism toward Obama’s domestic political projects, especially those related to bills that the administration presented to Congress on health care and the possession and sale of personal weapons. Subsequently, Congress will refrain from passing a budget. Maybe it will do that now. With the coming of congressional elections in 2014, any political damage extends its effects for a long time. It can also hurt the efforts of Democrats to retain control of the Senate and restore their majority in the House of Representatives. Is it possible that the losses of Obama’s latest scandals will exceed what preceded [them in his administration]?

No one has the ability to predict what these events will devolve into, and if the emergence of new information can exacerbate the situation, specifically on the issue of the Benghazi attack and the spying or eavesdropping on the AP, which calls for forcing the president’s resignation or pushing Congress to work on his dismissal.