So now The One knows what it feels like to be the subject of ethics scandals that suck energy away from governing.

Will he do the right thing and step down? I'm not holding my breath.

The Bush/Cheney years conditioned all of us into EXPECTING conspiracies. Every decision seemed to be some sort of cover-up and often proved to actually be one. Always expecting the worst of government is a legacy of those eight years.

No, no, they won't ever tire of it. They make arguments like a bunch of three-year olds, but never seem to wear themselves out like the actual toddlers.

sometimes i wonder if there's a "myke k" who takes his meds like a good boy, and sometimes one who forgets... i know i have the same problem... but...

"wolf" is the only game the repugs has got these days...
these sorrowful, tear-stained days of utter defeat, shame, and ignominy -- hee hee hee, and i'm lovin' it!

so: mud, wall, throw, stick (yes, no) repeat...

You don't understand how this works. Of course, these "scandals" are BS. But in a year or two, they become part of the backstory for the "scandal-plagued Obama administration" meme, and everybody forgets at that point that they were BS.

dp is exactly right. A year from now, no one will remember the details that made these "scandals" fake. But they will be able to rattle off a list of scandals to show that this is a scandal-plagued administration. The debunking will have to happen all over again.

IMHO, they're not after accuracy, they're after a "drumbeat" of criticism to affect the opinions of their target audience. That target audience (not the people reading WM, I suspect) won't remember that all these criticisms were baseless - ridiculous, even - they'll just have a general sense that "Obama's been screwing up since day one" or that "Obama has had all these scandals."

Must agree with DP. And its not like the MSM will ever tire of credulously swallowing whole the latest, conservative-ginned-up "scandal" and running with it, regardless of the baselessness of the 1000 that came before it.

I agree that right-wing muckraking journalism would be healthy, but that's not what we're seeing. Wingers are trying to create a sort of right-wing mythology about Obama-- he's the scary alien muslim love-child of Bill Ayres and Oprah-- or something. Problem is, it's not working. So it just keeps getting weirder and more desperate.

Ok, I was typing while dp was posting. He's right, and he said it first!

I remember attending a College Republican event back when I was in college, and they were discussing ways to help out during an election. One of the scenarios that came up was "you hear a rumor that the democratic candidate shows up drunk to a speech and cusses out the crowd" what do you do?

Ironically, the answer was "check the facts". Make sure the juicy rumor is true before you do anything. Of course- that was a long time ago, I guess the party has changed in the interim. (For the record, I stopped going when one of the group's leaders attacked me at a party for being pro-choice, calling me a 'baby-killer'. Since then I have drifted further and further left until now the senator I most identify with is Bernie Sanders, and I wish he would change from I to S!

ex animo-

They won't be more selective for two reasons:

First- It worked during the Clinton years. By the time 2000 rolled around people were tired of the "Clinton Scandals" even though most of them were made up by the same people making stuff up now.
Second- They know how incompetent and corrupt the Bush administration was, and are "sure" that the Obama administration must be worse, so they'll keep looking until they find something that sticks.

Indeed, as Villager Cokie Roberts famously said (paraphrased): "It doesn't matter if it's true or not--once it's out there, it's out there."

Thus, competent governing is reduced to constant defense against what's 'out there.'

Another +1 for dp here, exactly the point I would've made had I not been so damned lazy and got here sooner. The right doesn't even care that they're wrong so often. If they had any ethics, they wouldn't be so quick to mouth off of every ginned-up controversy. But they don't.

In the best of all possible worlds, we the people would see through this perpetual sham, but they know we don't.

SO they keep imagining each Obama action is a conspiracy, a controversy, THE INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF that Obama is not a good leader, or even a legitimate one. If they ever happen to hit a topic that sticks with the populace, GREAT! If they don't, they can whisper conspiratorially that this is ANOTHER scandal the Obama Administration was able to bury (never mind there was never any "there" there). And as 2012 comes round the corner, they'll point to this list of "scandals" and "controversies" all of them bullsh!t of their own making, and argue that none of this was an accident, there is obviously a larger pattern at work here. And the pattern is NOT that they're making up crap, but rather Obama can't be trusted, otherwise, how could all these controversies have existed in the first place?

To put it in a high school analogy (because the right never really graduates beyond a high school mentality [if they're lucky]), Suzie's jealous of Mandy because Mandy has a nicer rack and the boys pay more attention to Mandy. So Suzie starts spreading a rumor that Mandy has STDs. Then she spreads the rumor that Mandy had an abortion. THEN she spreads the rumors that Mandy sleeps with teachers to pass classes. She keeps spreading rumor after rumor. Mandy finds out Suzie's spreading the rumors, but can't confirm it. Mandy tries to ignore the rumors, Suzie claims her silence means she knows she's guilty. Mandy tries to get people to stop listening to Suzie because she's a liar, Suzie accuses Mandy of trying to "silence" her. Mandy finally tries to fight the rumors, Suzie claims "where there's smoke, there's fire, if the rumors aren't true, WHY is Mandy protesting?" Forget about Mandy trying to start spreading rumors about Suzie, not only is that NOT Mandy's style, but Mandy knows it'll look like she's trying to deflect attention from her. Mandy can't physically attack Suzie, because then she's a tramp who can't defend her reputation any other way but to pummel people into submission. Ultimately, how successful Suzie is or is not in ruining Mandy's life depends a lot on how gullible her fellow students are, and how well Mandy is able to combat the rumors without playing into any of the above narratives.

But mostly, it's about the fellow students. How much are they willing to believe without proof? And how much are they enjoying the spectacle? Enough to want it to keep it going despite how it's based on a pack of lies?

It's abundantly clear that wingnuts raise these issues for their 'media play' value, not because of any concern for good governance. I grudgingly give them credit for that, for they seem to understand the way the corporate media machine works better than us moonbats do.

If you remember that all Republicans hate America and Americans, you'll understand their behavior. Every one of them should be deported.

Maybe the right's Ahabs can start being a little more selective?

You're asking them to exhibit reasoned judgment, exactly the thing they're most opposed to.

This practice dates back to the Clinton years. I remember the comment of one GOP pol after the infamous "selling Arlington cemetery plots" scandal was shown to be completely bogus: "The reason the allegations were credible was that they fit a pattern." Yes, and that "pattern" was established by constantly crying wolf, knowing that even after the scandals melted away, there would be the lingering false memory of wrongdoing.

Smear is the one thing Republicans are really, really good at. Kind of ironic coming from the party that pays notional allegiance to the Ten Commandments and not bearing false witness.

Slappy,

Poor Mandy, she came and she gave without taking.

slappy magoo describes the process perfectly. It's heads, Susie wins; tails Mandy loses. And Susie controls the media - television, radio, and most of the print outlets; she's got a nontrivial Internet presence, too, and now she tweets like a canary.

Hard to fight. Fortunately, Barack Obama has a strong ability to cut through the crap and take the adult position, sidestepping the usual "he said she said."

Let's hope.

"these folks keep crying "wolf" without thinking it through."

The complete disinterest in—if not outright opposition to— "thinking it through" is one of the fundamental, defining characteristics of today's "conservative" movement, i.e., the "base." From climate change to energy policy to foreign relations to economic policy, conservatives and the GOP are incapable of offering anything other than simple-minded platitudes that are entirely driven by ignorance, paranoia, superstition, fear, and plain old economic self-interest. Logic, fact, and an understanding of how the world actually works in reality is of no interest to these people. Remember, these folks are also the same people who were utterly convinced in the '90s that the UN, with the active help and connivance of Bill Clinton, was going to take over the United States. My late MIL listened all day every day to rightwingnut radio in the Detroit area back then, and one day during a visit I heard a radio host and his callers discuss the alleged sighting in Virginia of trains carrying UN black tanks on flatbed cars that were on their way to D.C. to take over the government. If these people had been interested in or capable of thinking things through, they would have understood that the notion of an international organization incapable on its own of keeping the peace in impoverished third world countries is somehow going to be able to militarily take over the world's most powerful country was ridiculous in the extreme. The people that believe this kind of crap are very poorly and/or narrowly educated, especially in matters of government and history, and so are poorly equipped to recognize when an assertion or theory is supported by the facts and when it's based on complete horseshit.

There has been a batshit crazy element in the conservative movement for many decades, such as the John Birch Society that was prominent in the '50s and 60's, but up until the 1990s the dominant power in the movement and in the GOP was a more "mainstream" brand of conservatism. Since the ascent of Junior in 2000 and his active and enthusiastic (albeit cynical) embrace of the Christianists who comprise the vast majority of ignorant base, the nutters have assumed the power in the GOP. Which means the looney allegations and theories about Dem perfidy ain't going away anytime soon, especially with FoxNews cheering them on.

Clinton, hell, this Republican meme goes back to the Carter years. Jimmy, of course, was as saintly then as he is now. But you can still catch pundits referring to the "scandal-plagued Carter administration."

It was a necessary figment of their collective imagination then, and still is. The outsiders must be corrupt, or else, how do you rationalize your feelings of superiority and resentment when the voters let them into your playground?

So, does this mean that the Sacramento mayor didn't have to repay all that money ? It was all a mistake?

You guys are too much, especially your phony doppelganger.

Oh, and we missed you guys at the tea parties yesterday.

You're about to be overtaken by the largest citizen freedom movement ever on these shores. Too bad you're so busy scoffing you won't see what hit you until it's too late.

Like a moth to the flame, Mike returns to his near continual musings on sex acts he could do with his wife, but would rather think about doing with another man. Will someone put a huge cock in this guy's ass already? How much longer must he obliquely beg for it?

So, does this mean that the Sacramento mayor didn't have to repay all that money ?

No, he didn't. He had to pay some money back under a settlement that Walpin opposed.

So, citing the settlement to prove Walpin was right, when Walpin thinks the settlement was wrong, is stupid.

I've stayed very close to this Walpin matter. I consider it less a "scandal" than I do a window into the modus operandi of this administration, from which I expected MORE and LESS. More transparency, more sunlight on the legislative review and voting processs, more vetting, less crony politics, less manipulation of the press, and MORE making good on themes and "promises" from the campaign.

Walpin's firing was poorly handled, the reasoning for it is not clear (and YES, I did read the 33 documents, most of them anyway --- and I read Walpin's report to Congress, and just about everything else offered up in the media). Moreover, Walpin retains the support of a very impressive list of key figures (150+ as I recall) who attest to his ability and values.

In the end, Walpin took too literally what Obama had said about wanting spending to be scrutinized "line by line" so that waste and misappropriation and fraud would be dealt with. He ticked off some of the wrong people, he was a pain in the butt, and in the end he was zapped out of the picture.

He was not a "team player" in the sense of going along with keeping bad news as close to the vest as he could and they wanted. Too bad, That wasn't how he saw his job, and with his long and distinguished background he didn't need to play the game. He could afford not to, and I wish there were more like him.

It's the right-wing system. You constantly monitor the flow for information you can seize upon, twist and fire into the media stream. If you get a Drudge to start it and a few others to pick it up, before long, the MSM grabs it and regardless of whether it is valid, gives it legs and if you are lucky, you got a controversy you can use to try and weaken your opponent. And if you are really lucky, it sticks in the news cycle for a few days.

If you get two, maybe it's a "pattern."

Only trouble is, Obama's team is really really good at response now....something the Democrats used to be p..s poor at doing and they generally cut the legs off these things at birth.

Q & A (above):
Q: So, does this mean that the Sacramento mayor didn't have to repay all that money ?

A: No, he didn't. He had to pay some money back under a settlement that Walpin opposed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I will run some of my understanding by anyone interested, for correction as appropriate. There seems no real question that Johnson and his charter school (St. HOPE) were in violation re: how funds were used. Walpin's investigation flowed from an unrelated complaint to the State of California by a female student, and a request from the state to investigate the organization; I will surmise there were other allegations, behind the scenes, but I do not know that. The IG staff then came across the evidence of financial misdeeds. Johnson stonewalled, refused to meet, etc., and there is now an FBI inquiry into obstruction of justice centering on the withholding of records and deletion of emails.

The deal done between the Judge and Johnson and AmeriCorps calls for St. Hope to pay back about 1/2 of $800,000 (round numbers) it got via AmeriCorps. Johnson loaned the school 70-some thousand to make the first repayment, but the school itself is pretty much insolvent. Walpin contends that the only way the money will be repaid is by using future government grants.

In return, Johnson (as Mayor) is allowed to take funds from the Federal Govt that otherwise would have been denied, him being a criminal and all. Walpin contends the settlement is bogus; that KJ should have been held more accountable. He IS a substantial real estate development entrepreneur, after all.

There are a number of regrettable things about this, from the administration's standpoint. The summary firing for one thing-- an hour to decide to quit or be fired? Then the multiple and conflicted statements about why Walpin had to go. Then the claim that an internal investigation had been done leading up to the decision to fire Walpin; but, several key people were never questioned, nor was Walpin -- so the "investigation" has the appearance of a sham. Now we hear that Walpin is somehow and suddenly incompetent. If it's due to a medical condition, there's been no inquiring of him about it. If it's due to his just being some kind of hack or slug, then how does one square THAT with the impressive credentials the CNCS crowed about not that long ago? (And they ARE impressive, over a period of a half century).

Walpin did not contribute in '08 to the likes of Huckabee, Paul, or Hunter. He gave to Specter, Elizabeth Dole, Giuliani (no doubt a NYC connection), and McCain. Not really "far right" or wingnutty.

I want nothing more or less than the Obama administration walking the talk in cases like this. If there is nothing to be ashamed of, then drop the executive privilege thing and shine some light on what really did go down. Put in a special investigator, or whatever. Be the person you claimed to be, and not so Bush/Rove/Cheney-like.

It seems to me that at least five times a week I see people either in person, on TV or online giving each other the dreaded "Terrorist Fist Jab." Remember that one? That was supposed to be the last clue needed to prove that Michelle Obama was a dedicated Al Qaeda operative. Or something.

Fox News would now, of course, declare this as the last clue that Michelle Obama has successfully infected millions of previously patriotic Americans with her treason. Or something.

Who did this Walpin replace originally and what were those circumstances?