Though the 2-to-1 margin is higher than I expected, there was little doubt President Obama's decision to invoke executive privilege to prevent the release of documents that might shed some light in the Fast and Furious scandal was a bad political move.
This is what makes the President's decision so troubling.
What's in those documents that makes paying the political price worth it?
Because our media has protected Obama
by refusing to cover Fast and Furious, voters aren't anywhere near as
educated on the story as they were, say, the nothingburger that was
Valerie Plame. But for decades, executive privilege has been synonymous
with Watergate and cover ups.
From the looks of this poll released today, it still is:
The Hill Poll found that likely
voters disapproved by an almost 2-to-1 margin of Obama’s assertion of
presidential power in the case. Overall, 56 percent of voters
disapproved of his action, while only 29 percent approved. …
Sixty-one percent of independents
said they disapproved of the president’s actions, and just 25 percent
approved. Among Republicans, opposition to the president’s use of
executive privilege was more entrenched at 78 percent.
Even 28 percent of Democrats, and 30 percent of self-identified liberals disapproved of Obama’s position.
After the President invoked executive
privilege, the media was forced to cover a story it had strenuously
covered up for a year. In response, the media attempted to paint the
President's move as a fight against a renegade Republican Congress
playing political games during an election year. Not only does this poll
prove that tactic failed, my guess is that these numbers will get worse
as people start to ask, "What the heck is Fast and Furious?"
Our government flooding thousands of
guns into Mexico, a few hundred dead innocent Mexicans and two dead
American law enforcement officers later -- the President is only going
to find himself in more trouble.
Contrary to White House Press Secretary
Jay Carney's absurd statement that the President's first ever use of
executive privilege was a "principled" move meant to protect the need
for an administration to know its policy conversations will remain
private (a perfectly valid use of executive privilege), no one believes
that's the case here. Or if they do, they wonder what in the world needs
to be protected about a failed policy. Even so, executive privilege is
only considered a truly valid move when it comes to national security
issues.
What's especially troubling, though, is
that the use of executive privilege in the case of Fast and Furious
opens up a new line of questioning about how much Obama knew about a
scandal that the White House claims it was unaware of until hearing
about it on the news.
Over the weekend, I suggested that a super PAC needs to be started if
we're ever going to get all the facts out to the public. Like the
Swiftboat Veterans for Truth 2004 ad campaign, we need to go around the
media in order to report truths the media will never tell. Most
importantly, we need to let voters know that the most likely and logical
motive behind this indefensible gunrunning operation was the Obama
Administration's desire to cause chaos in order to push gun control.
This poll shows the people are ready to listen.
