by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Before Jay Carney or the president go out again they really need to sit down and get their stories straight: When the IRS apologizes, it is not a matter of \u201cif.\u201d When the president keeps talking about a film maker as a culprit, it is not proof that he knew the attack was a preplanned al-Qaeda hit. Changing phrases, dropping sentences, and expunging nouns are not mere \u201cstylistic\u201d editing.<\/p>\n More improbably, we are to believe that the administration, in dire worry about monumental leaks (to paraphrase Eric Holder, some of the most serious in his career), without warning taps into the public and private correspondence of AP reporters. Yet\u2014aside from the fact that this is an administration that supposedly has gone after leakers at twice the rate off all prior administrations combined\u2014 Obama et al. certainly do not worry about\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0leaks.<\/p>\n After all, we remember not long ago that critical information leaked about the so-called Stuxnet virus that harmed the Iranian centrifuges; we remember leaks describing how the president, in philosophical angst about the drone killings, turned to Aquinas for solace; and we remember that leaks told us that the always-on-the-job Obama administration had a so-called double agent that exposed a plot in Yemen. In addition, we learned of the heroic but classified details of the Obama-ordered bin Laden raid.<\/p>\n In other words, when the Obama administration wants the public to appreciate its unheralded and successful accomplishments, it leaks classified information that imperils national security (did the Taliban really need to know the precise units and their methodology of operation that took out bin Laden?) \u2014 and leaks so much that former defense secretary Bob Gates is said to have been reduced to threatening John Brennan with \u201cshut the f*** up!\u201d Yet one wonders whether the administration tapped the phones of David Ignatius or David Sanger on rumors that by some strange happenstance they got the classified information about the most intimate moments of Obama as commander-in-chief and protector of the realm and wrote quid pro quo paeans despite the national-security implications?<\/p>\n Ditto the televised dramatics of the Obama team huddled around consoles as they saw the raid against bin Laden unfold in real time \u2014 a photo opportunity not repeated when live feeds from Benghazi began coming in about the al-Qaeda attacks. Certainly, that evening when Americans were on the defensive rather than the offensive, nobody deemed it necessary to bring in the photographers to capture the Obama team\u00a0in mediis rebus<\/em>. Translated into Animal Farm terms: All leaks bad \u2014 except some. All hands-on-operations are televised \u2014 unless they go badly. Give classified information to reporters \u2014 if they are cooperative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Before Jay Carney or the president go out again they really need to sit down and get their stories straight: When the IRS apologizes, it is not a matter of \u201cif.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146,145],"tags":[12,357,710,61,1044],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1xV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5950,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-second-term-embarrassments-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Second-Term Embarrassments","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hope and change\" is looking like the 1973 Nixon White House. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In Barack Obama\u2019s 2008 presidential campaign, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton as a moral reformer. Obama promised to transcend the old politics and bring a new era of hope-and-change\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6042,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/pick-you-scandal\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":1},"title":"Pick Your Scandal","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Violating Americans' privacy while failing to identify the terrorists among us. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online All can agree that the Obama administration is mired in myriads of scandals, but as yet no one can quite figure out what they all mean and where they will lead. Benghazi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5942,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/there-is-no-there-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":2},"title":"There Is No There There?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Senator Harry Reid may be right that we should wait for the full sordid details before demanding resignations from an increasingly politicized and now apparently confessional IRS (yet the proof of the pudding is that groups such as\u00a0Media Matters, Think Progress,\u00a0Moveon.org, and Organizing for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6030,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-ethical-gymnastics\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Ethical Gymnastics","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"His morality is to be judged by his professed aims, not his means of achieving them. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Presidential ethics are now situational. Obama is calling for a shield law to protect reporters from the sort of harassment that his attorney general, Eric Holder, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5992,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/big-governments-abuses-of-power\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":4},"title":"Big Government’s Abuses of Power","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Monitoring AP but not detaining Tamerlan Tsarnaev--there is a common theme. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Government is now so huge, powerful, and callous that citizens risk becoming virtual serfs, lacking the freedoms guaranteed by the Founders. Is that perennial fear an exaggeration? Survey the current news. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Human Rights"","block_context":{"text":"Human Rights","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/human-rights\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6088,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lies-subvert-demovracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5947,"position":5},"title":"Lies Subvert Demovracy","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama and his team have subverted the government they pledged to serve. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble. If the Internal Revenue Service acts unlawfully, our system of citizens\u2019 computing their own taxes implodes. Yet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Democracy"","block_context":{"text":"Democracy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/democracy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5949,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947\/revisions\/5949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}