Hypocritical Political Scandals - Republicans Have Short Memories (Among Other Problems)

Obviously, Republicans have no ideas about how to lead our nation. Otherwise, they'd be busy creating ideas to improve our human and economic conditions. Instead, they're busy muckraking scandals to make themselves look legitimate.  What's worse, the Washington DC scandals that Republicans are stoking, to spew up firestorms, expose their efforts as hypocritical.

Begin with hypocritical scenario number one: Benghazi a diplomatic mission in Libya, attacked on September 11, 2012.  Americans certainly don't know all there is to know about the tragic death of Ambassador Stevens and the security people who were sadly killed with him.  Nevertheless, the firestorm that killed the four Americans was one horribly incendiary incident. But, before creating a scandal about what we don't know, Republicans should look to the many thousands of deaths in Iraq and ask the very same questions they're raising about the Benghazi attack.  Thousands of Americans (and Iraqi citizens) have been killed in Iraq, in a baseless war, an invasion of a sovereign nation based on an assumption about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), that didn't exist.  I'm more interested to know how Americans wound up fighting the War in Iraq, when none of the questions raised about the invasion were sufficiently answered beforehand and an exit strategy wasn't prepared.  

Hypocritical political scandal two:  Associated Press reporters' telephone records subpoena by the Department of Justice.  In this scandal scenario, the Republicans refuse to look at how much they mistrust the "lame stream media" (Sarah Palin's memorable quote). Many acted self righteously when the subpoena of the reporters' information was announced by Attorney General Holder.  Nevertheless, any modern person, journalist or otherwise, must be delusional not to know how all electronic instant communications are subject to eavesdropping, especially so for those who are targeted for surveillance, like reporters can be, for any reason whatsoever.  Although I'm not defending the actions of Attorney General Holder in issuing the subpoena, I'm simply saying, the incident doesn't pass the straight face test among  Republicans, who want to enlarge the incident into a sinister scandal.  Certainly, the surveillance of news reporters is, honestly, nothing new.  

Finally, the Internal Revenue Service and the 501(c) 4 applications, for tax exempt status, received from right wing Tea-Party organizations. Apparently, a higher than usual number of these applications were targeted for special review for (presumably) political scrutiny. This third scenario is the most laughable of the three hyped and hypocritical scandals.  A 501(c) 4 tax exempt organization is a non-profit corporation created to be exempt from paying federal income taxes. Political organizations don't typically fall into the category of "non-profit", unless they demonstrate how the monies raised and expended are used to serve a public service "mission statement".  It's the job of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to sort through these applications, to determine whether or not they're legitimate.  If the IRS didn't do the job of thoroughly reviewing these tax exempt application, I suspect a special prosecutor would investigate whether or not the agency was being mismanaged, but for an entirely opposite reason than the one the Republicans are hyped about.  Of course, many right wing Republicans don't want anybody to pay taxes. Therefore, presumably, Republicans should advocate for all Americans to receive a 501(C) 4 status! Obviously, however, if no one paid taxes, the Republicans who screech about IRS over reach in the 501(c) 4 hyped scandal wouldn't receive any taxpayer subsidized salaries.  So, Republicans hypocritically gripe about the 501(c) 4 scrutiny of applications that, in my opinion, should never receive authorization.  Although it's just my opinion, very few, if any, political organizations should be non-profit, because somebody, somewhere, profits by a tax exempt designation.  In fact, the 501(c) 4 designation should be eliminated.  This "4" is a different designation than the 501(c) 3 that's required for an organization to be considered "charitable"; so, the "4" is simply not necessary.  An organization is either charitable or political, it can't be both.

Republicans in Congress get paid to support the US Constitution, which doesn't include creating or stoking scandals.  When it comes to scandals, Republicans have short memories, because their own political party certainly tried to hide a few in the recent past - Watergate being a paramount example.

Rather than continue their scandals attack, Republicans should apply their energy and money to communicating new ideas about how to lead and govern America.  Otherwise, the Republicans are a political party that needs to close for repairs. (Thank you Honorable Robert Dole).