Casting Aspersions on my Asparagus*

**Louie Gohmert

++Hey, whose scandals are these? No Drama Obama better take ownership of them soon or people will forget they are his. 

1. Benghazi and Jon Karlgate. The big flap at the beginning of the week kicked off by Jon Karl's scoop ended with the interesting news that Republican staffers had doctored the e-mails on the Benghazi talking points, which had been fully disclosed to the congressional committees this past fall. President Obama rained on the parade by releasing them. Former Fox reporter Major Garrett stunned television viewers by providing full details on how they had changed and basically claiming Republicans were lying.

2. Compounding the GOP disaster was the open letter from Ambassador Pickering demanding to appear before Issa's committee to testify in public because his integrity had been challenged. Instead, today Issa issued a subpoena for Pickering and Admiral Mullen to appear behind closed doors.

3. Conservative representatives had an orgy over the IRS scandal today attacking the former acting director, who is retiring in early June. The problem is that the main culprit for the IRS snafu was an appointee of George W. Bush,who had been held over in the Obama administration because the Senate would not allow President Obama to nominate his own director.

4.The most serious scandal of the broad seizure of AP phone numbers has been met with a yawn by Republicans, except for a throaty defense of the First Amendment by John Boehner. The problem of the AP story is that it is the natural result of the surveillance state created after 9-11 and everything the Justice Department did was legal as far as we know. The strange note of Eric Holder recusing himself from the case because he was one of the objects of the investigation hides another odd fact that the administration pursued the leaker because of the demands of Republican Senators.

So, President Obama, take these scandals away from the Republicans! They had enough under the last administration. 

President Obama as Richard Nixon was the theme of the week. Also odd when you realize Roger Ailes of Fox News was key in creating the image of the New Nixon. Peggy "Martooni" Noonan wept that this was worse than Watergate. She even alluded to a Romney backer who had been audited--without telling the reader the donor was widely seen as corrupt. However in tonight's Washington Post, an op-ed by a historian recites all the presidential scandals going back to Nixon and says,"well,I don't think so" about the Obama-Nixon comparison. He points out that all second term presidents experience a wide-range of scandals in the second-term.

Rinse Penis of the RNC warned the GOP not to start talking about impeachment until the facts are in and if the Republican Party plays it right the American people will be for them. Heritage Foundation demanded that John Boehner stop any legislation and only concentrate on the scandals. As of today, 19 to the House 22 committees are now committed to investigating--well at least Benghazi and IRS but not so much the AP. 

I thought it was 40 Times Obamacare has been repealed. More conservative numbers have it 37. And last night I heard 39 times. At the cost of $52 million, what a bargain for such a futile effort.

Despite the air of scandal, it seems two clunky versions of immigration reform we amble their way into both the Senate and the House. A farm bill shuffles through the house and Obama's nominees are actually being approved.

Gallup is sensing the American people are not fixated on the scandals. I sense that the GOP has to keep this going until the Fall, when if lightening strikes they can make a bigger hue and cry out of this. So far it has only fueled the conspiracy freaks. 

The best Benghazi line I have heard is that President Obama had arranged with the Muslim Brotherhood to kidnap Ambassador Stevens but the plot went wrong. The idea would be to rescue Stevens to make Obama seem like a hero and then he would as part of the bargain release the blind Sheik.

The real story of Benghazi is actually interesting. Benghazi was a CIA station, which was holding Islamic militants captive, and that Ambassador Stevens and the CIA were involved in tracking down Qaddafi's surface to air missiles for use by the Syrian rebels. The details of the attack and CIA reactions to them are worth making public. 

So far President Obama has taken measures to clean up two of these messes and defends the third one--the AP subpoenas. Where it will go--who knows? But betting on Republicans acting intelligently is a loser's bet.

I am off to Africa and will be out of pocket for two weeks. Stay tuned for my return.