2013 might be a tough year for the president. His administration deftly ran out the election clock on Benghazi, Fast and Furious and security leaks could emerge as a third scandal. But Benghazi and Fast and Furious are alive and well and they will be returning to center stage in the near future.
The Fast and Furious investigation will resume with Eric Holder being held in contempt of Congress. A declaration of Executive Privilege is not necessarily a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. The parallels with Watergate are remarkable. In 1972, President Nixon successfully ran out the clock and was re-elected in a landslide. Immediately thereafter his problems snowballed.
It has often been said about Watergate that it was not the crime but the cover-up that destroyed the administration. True. Truer yet about Fast and Furious. This is a complicated case. I don't know what happens when the Attorney General is held in contempt. Executive Privilege can stall the process but there are constraints on this exercise. If the White House can be shown to obstruct justice (as with Watergate) the entire administration will unravel like a Chinese sweater in a bed of kittens. A criminal cover-up could certainly result in impeachment.
Then, there is Benghazi. Again, a cover-up has been attempted but this cover-up might not be criminal in nature. Susan Rice et al (an et al that includes the president and the secretary of state) were not under oath when they lied to the American people. So this administration might get yet another pass on yet another series of lies. But then there was a bloodless coup where Petraeus and others were asked to resign. Uh oh.
This is a ham-fisted operation if ever there was one. If high-level personnel were terminated to keep them quiet that could be construed as an obstruction of justice (even though a criminal probe had not yet been launched.) And this tactic also highlights the national security issue of personal relationships.
That might sound like excess verbiage but let me explain. If General Petraeus is asked to resign because he has a mistress and thus is vulnerable to blackmail, what does that say about someone who might have smoked crack and gotten it on with Larry Sinclair? The door will be knocked off its hinges and "All The President's Men" could take on a whole new meaning.
In the Benghazi scandal the cover-up might pale in comparison to the events of September 11, 2012. Fast and Furious resulted in dozens of deaths but a few mea culpas could have ended it. The public watches too much cheesy television where the government employees are always saintly. In real life government agencies have used criminal proxies to distribute weapons and narcotics and then bust the subordinates. They might rail against the drugs or guns as they distribute them but they have distributed contraband as adroitly as any criminal enterprise.
This might not be a routine exercise but it is not an uncommon practice either. Eric Holder could have said "mistakes were made" and we could have moved on. Instead, there was an elaborate cover-up. That is where Fast and Furious and Benghazi diverge.
Whatever happened on September 11, 2012 was scandalous. Ain't no rug big enough to sweep this one under. Presidential inaction might be the most favorable spin for this scandal. A personality that will pimp his own mother's memory and allow his half-brother and aunt to live in squalor might just hit the snooze button when his fellow Americans are under attack. Chilling to think that the president's indifference might have resulted in the torture and death of four of his countrymen. But reality might be even worse. Much worse.
So the president might get outed, his staff indicted and he might get impeached while enduring prolonged budget wars as the Middle East continues to flare up from time to time. These events might break a normal man but the narcissist will revel in the attention. The narcissist will celebrate his stardom as his country burns.
2013 should be an interesting year.
