For the past few days the majority of cartoons have been about Benghazi, the IRS and the Tea Party, or the DOJ spying on the Associated Press. Or some combination of all three.
Few have been exceptional either way; most are lukewarm and unimpressive, not really worth my time. Obama as Nixon, the 'Don't Tread on Me' image with a footprint labeled 'IRS,' a literal tea party with the IRS showing up to audit them.
But because none of these issues are going to go away in the next few days (Republicans certainly aren't going to shut up about them anytime soon) I feel I could at least comment on a couple trends.
First and foremost, there's been at least half a dozen cartoons expressing the idea that Benghazi has ruined Hilary Clinton's 2016 chances. Bullshit. By the time the primary races start in late 2015 (or earlier, if we're unlucky) Benghazi will be old news. There's just no way a story can remain relevant for over three years. It is outright impossible in today's world. As the next few months pass other stories will occur, other events will take precedence, and the only people that still care about Benghazi will be an ever-shrinking, ever-fringier group akin to 9/11 Truthers. Hell, they've already set up the groundwork themselves by spending so much time on claims of a cover-up and the idea that Obama is trying to hide something; the more they focus on that, the more they marginalize themselves.
If Hilary Clinton wants to run in 2016 Benghazi will not be a roadblock. The Democratic base won't dredge up the embassy attacks during the primary, and if she gets the nomination the Republicans will look for more timely and important things to attack her on. Sure, there would probably be some right-wing pundit or Congressman from the middle of nowhere who tries to make Benghazi an issue again, but it wouldn't stick.
Second, there's the idea that this confluence of scandals is going to bring down President Obama, with impeachment being the logical end-game. With the precedent of Bill Clinton's impeachment I can't say Obama being impeached is an impossibility. But Clinton's impeachment blew up in the Republicans' faces. Oh yes, people still make jokes about Clinton being a horndog, but he stayed president while Newt Gingrinch resigned as Speaker and then from the House itself.
Will Republicans be hesitant to pursue impeachment with a different Democratic president because of that? Some, maybe. The ones who care about the Republican party's future electoral chances. But there's plenty of House members who have little concern beyond being able to primp and preen for their constituents, who only care about appearing tough against the Left.
Impeachment is not completely out of the question, but if it happens I don't think think it will turn out the way Republicans want. But I think the most likely turnout is Republicans won't want to take things that far and risk it blowing up in their faces, they just want to keep these scandals as red meat for their base and not as tools to make anything happen.
And finally, I just want to express my frustration over the blatant partisanship in how these scandals are being covered. I'm not surprised by it, let me make that clear, but there are times when the "Look at what the other side has done, ignore the identical occurrences by my side" posturing gets so thick it's unbelievable. The selective outrage over, say, the IRS/Tea Party story when a similar thing happened under the Bush administration, or 'progressives' racing to defend the Obama administration spying on journalists when they would shit a brick if a Republican was currently president, gets too much to dismiss as business as usual.
Yes, everyone is biased, but there's bias and there's intentional ignorance.
