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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The GOP and X-gate

Ever since Watergate, Republicans have been keen to demonstrate that they are not the only ones guilty of official malfeasance. Although they were unmoved by the obviously illegal behavior of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as they traded arms for hostages with a country identified as a state sponsor of terrorism, and as they deliberately violated a law passes by Congress to prevent interactions with a corrupt and violent insurgent group, they have since scrounged up all kinds of scandal.

Thus, the bizarre behavior of Kenneth Starr, the investigator in search of a crime; birther fanatics insisting that Barack Obama is not American; the weirdly hysterical outcry about the Benghazi attacks; and now the "investigation" of the IRS for targeting conservative groups.

The problem with all of these protests is that the behavior they decry is hardly in line with the wildly unconstitutional acts of the Republican versions. Bill Clinton was a lech, but he did not abuse his office in a serious way. Obama has a birth certificate, and his only "crime" seems to be that he is black and Harvard-educated. If the State Department did want to portray the Benghazi attacks as protests, and succeeded in doing so for two days, so what? And the "targeting" of the Tea Party by the IRS has more to do with campaign organizations masquerading as tax-exempt non-profits (and therefore robbing the government) as it does with official malfeasance.

It's just another indication of the fact that the Republican Party has become unhinged, to the detriment of us all. We need at least two sane parties, the GOP is not holding up its end.

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