May 19, 2013, 1:51 pm
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
A senior adviser to President Obama mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday, saying that the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.”
The remarks came from Dan Pfeiffer, a member of the president’s inner circle, as he appeared on all five major Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He pointedly rejected Republican criticisms of the president’s actions and leadership style as “offensive” and “absurd,” and he said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation’s business.
In his appearances, Mr. Pfeiffer faced often tough questioning over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeted reviews of conservative groups; the lethal attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last September; and the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ records.
He repeatedly pointed the finger at Republicans for exploiting the three issues for political purposes, even as he urged them to work with the administration on legislation to revamp the immigration system and trim the budget deficit.
His warning against “fishing expeditions” came when he was asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” about a remark by the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, who had told The New York Times that he had instructed staff not to spend more than 10 percent of their time on the three controversies.
The program’s host, Bob Schieffer, asked whether that meant that the White House did not take the issues seriously.
“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There are some very serious issues here, particularly the I.R.S., where there was inexcusable conduct that needs to be fixed. And that’s going to happen.” But he said that the president and his staff needed to keep “actually doing the people’s work and fighting for the middle class.”
Republicans appearing on the Sunday shows insisted that they would be aggressive in pushing for fuller investigations, particularly of the I.R.S. and Benghazi matters. The administration has promised to cooperate, but is also fighting to keep the problems from overshadowing its agenda.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said on “Fox News Sunday” that investigators examining the I.R.S. scandal needed to answer key questions: “Who knew? When did they know? Why did they do this? How high up in government did it go?”
Mr. Ryan, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which held an often testy hearing into the I.R.S. matter on Friday, said Americans had lost confidence in their government, adding, “This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree.”
Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican who is also on the committee, said that an inspector general’s review of the I.R.S. matter that was released last week – it largely blamed ineffective I.R.S. management for the undue scrutiny of Tea Party groups – was “just the beginning of this process.”
Mr. Pfeiffer tried to clarify a key point – Mr. Ryan’s “when did they know” – about exactly when Mr. Obama learned that an I.R.S. unit had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. The president’s response to a reporter’s question on Thursday had seemed open to interpretation.
But Mr. Pfeiffer said repeatedly on Sunday that the president had learned about the matter only weeks ago. That was appropriate, Mr. Pfeiffer said, given the importance of insulating the I.R.S. from White House pressures.
Mr. Pfeiffer made the administration’s Republican critics the prime target of his anger. “There is no question Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” he said of the I.R.S. scandal. And regarding Benghazi, he said on Fox, “There’s a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans have been spinning about this since the night it happened.”
When Chris Wallace, the Fox host, pressed Mr. Pfeiffer to explain exactly what Mr. Obama was doing last Sept. 11, as reports emerged of the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi – specifically whether the president had gone to the Situation Room to monitor events – Mr. Pfeiffer dismissed the question as irrelevant and rejected what he said was an implication of presidential inattention. Four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in the attack.
“The assertions from Republicans here that somehow the president allowed this to happen and didn’t take action is offensive,” Mr. Pfeiffer said, adding, “There’s no evidence to support it.”
But the minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, picking up on a recent Republican theme, cast the various scandals as symptoms of a deeper problem. “There is a culture of intimidation through the administration,” he said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “The I.R.S. is just the most recent example.”
The president has insisted that it would have been wrong to be involved earlier in the I.R.S. matter or to interfere with the Justice Department’s investigation into leaks that led to the seizure of the journalists’ records. That has provoked criticism that his management style leans too far in the other direction – so detached as to be ineffectual.
Mr. Pfeiffer brusquely dismissed those suggestions.
“I think that’s an absurd proposition,” he said on Fox, adding, “What would be a real problem is if he was involved in those cases.”
He said that a cardinal rule of the presidency is “you don’t get involved with independent investigations, and you don’t give the appearance of doing so.”
Some Republicans have sought to link the I.R.S. scandal to their concerns about the president’s health care law, calling for Sarah Hall Ingram, who had headed the I.R.S. section involved in the tax-exempt determinations, to be relieved of her current role in carrying out that law.
Mr. Pfeiffer said no such step should be taken before a monthlong investigation ordered by the new acting I.R.S. commissioner is completed. “No one has suggested that she did anything wrong yet,” he said.
But Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said that he did not think the I.R.S. review would suffice. “I think a special counsel is going to wind up being necessary,” he said on the ABC News program “This Week.”
A senior adviser to President Obama mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday, saying that the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.”
The remarks came from Dan Pfeiffer, a member of the president’s inner circle, as he appeared on all five major Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He pointedly rejected Republican criticisms of the president’s actions and leadership style as “offensive” and “absurd,” and he said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation’s business.
In his appearances, Mr. Pfeiffer faced often tough questioning over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeted reviews of conservative groups; the lethal attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last September; and the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ records.
He repeatedly pointed the finger at Republicans for exploiting the three issues for political purposes, even as he urged them to work with the administration on legislation to revamp the immigration system and trim the budget deficit.
His warning against “fishing expeditions” came when he was asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” about a remark by the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, who had told The New York Times that he had instructed staff not to spend more than 10 percent of their time on the three controversies.
The program’s host, Bob Schieffer, asked whether that meant that the White House did not take the issues seriously.
“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There are some very serious issues here, particularly the I.R.S., where there was inexcusable conduct that needs to be fixed. And that’s going to happen.” But he said that the president and his staff needed to keep “actually doing the people’s work and fighting for the middle class.”
Republicans appearing on the Sunday shows insisted that they would be aggressive in pushing for fuller investigations, particularly of the I.R.S. and Benghazi matters. The administration has promised to cooperate, but is also fighting to keep the problems from overshadowing its agenda.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said on “Fox News Sunday” that investigators examining the I.R.S. scandal needed to answer key questions: “Who knew? When did they know? Why did they do this? How high up in government did it go?”
Mr. Ryan, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which held an often testy hearing into the I.R.S. matter on Friday, said Americans had lost confidence in their government, adding, “This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree.”
Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican who is also on the committee, said that an inspector general’s review of the I.R.S. matter that was released last week – it largely blamed ineffective I.R.S. management for the undue scrutiny of Tea Party groups – was “just the beginning of this process.”
Mr. Pfeiffer tried to clarify a key point – Mr. Ryan’s “when did they know” – about exactly when Mr. Obama learned that an I.R.S. unit had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. The president’s response to a reporter’s question on Thursday had seemed open to interpretation.
But Mr. Pfeiffer said repeatedly on Sunday that the president had learned about the matter only weeks ago. That was appropriate, Mr. Pfeiffer said, given the importance of insulating the I.R.S. from White House pressures.
Mr. Pfeiffer made the administration’s Republican critics the prime target of his anger. “There is no question Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” he said of the I.R.S. scandal. And regarding Benghazi, he said on Fox, “There’s a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans have been spinning about this since the night it happened.”
When Chris Wallace, the Fox host, pressed Mr. Pfeiffer to explain exactly what Mr. Obama was doing last Sept. 11, as reports emerged of the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi – specifically whether the president had gone to the Situation Room to monitor events – Mr. Pfeiffer dismissed the question as irrelevant and rejected what he said was an implication of presidential inattention. Four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in the attack.
“The assertions from Republicans here that somehow the president allowed this to happen and didn’t take action is offensive,” Mr. Pfeiffer said, adding, “There’s no evidence to support it.”
But the minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, picking up on a recent Republican theme, cast the various scandals as symptoms of a deeper problem. “There is a culture of intimidation through the administration,” he said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “The I.R.S. is just the most recent example.”
The president has insisted that it would have been wrong to be involved earlier in the I.R.S. matter or to interfere with the Justice Department’s investigation into leaks that led to the seizure of the journalists’ records. That has provoked criticism that his management style leans too far in the other direction – so detached as to be ineffectual.
Mr. Pfeiffer brusquely dismissed those suggestions.
“I think that’s an absurd proposition,” he said on Fox, adding, “What would be a real problem is if he was involved in those cases.”
He said that a cardinal rule of the presidency is “you don’t get involved with independent investigations, and you don’t give the appearance of doing so.”
Some Republicans have sought to link the I.R.S. scandal to their concerns about the president’s health care law, calling for Sarah Hall Ingram, who had headed the I.R.S. section involved in the tax-exempt determinations, to be relieved of her current role in carrying out that law.
Mr. Pfeiffer said no such step should be taken before a monthlong investigation ordered by the new acting I.R.S. commissioner is completed. “No one has suggested that she did anything wrong yet,” he said.
But Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said that he did not think the I.R.S. review would suffice. “I think a special counsel is going to wind up being necessary,” he said on the ABC News program “This Week.”
..
XXXXXX
Who is Dan Pfeiffer?
7 hours ago
More images
Daniel Pfeiffer
Spokesman to Vice President Al Gore
Daniel Pfeiffer is Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications. He was previously a member of Obama's presidential transition team.Wikipedia
Born: December 24, 1975 (age 37), Wilmington
Education: Georgetown University
Spouse: Sarah Feinberg (m. 2006)
Office: Deputy White House Communications Director since 2009
.
---IHS---
.
Arsenio: Yes, an epidemic of Mass Hysteria!
Great Political Science programs at Georgetown University?
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment