Sunday Show roundup: Pfeiffer defends Obama as GOP criticism continues
Amid a trio of controversies that has put the White House on defense, Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to the President Obama, appeared on all five Sunday news shows, defending the administration against attacks from Republicans.
Pfeiffer said the GOP is trying to make "political hay" over the revelation that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups. Meanwhile, the Senate's top Republican charged "there is a culture of intimidation" in the administration.
Read about it all and more over on Post Politics:
McConnell: Obama administration 'made up a tale' on Benghazi
McConnell: It's important to investigate leaks that 'endanger Americans'
McConnell predicts Obamacare will be 'biggest issue' of 2014 election
Dan Pfeiffer: Legal questions in IRS scandal 'irrelevant' to 'inexcusable' actions
"Saturday Night Live" on the IRS scandal -- with a Dana Milbank appearance! (VIDEO)
If there's a frog in the bucket, someone is having waffles on Sunday. So, so true.
'Who's going to jail' over IRS scandal? Probably nobody.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to know "who's going to jail" over the IRS scandal.
But ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller says no laws were violated when the agency targeted conservative groups.
So who's right? Did the IRS's conduct take a step beyond mere "wrongdoing" and venture into criminal territory?
President Obama's bad week, in one chart
It doesn't take a political genius to grasp that President Obama has just weathered one of the worst weeks of his time in office.
But, sometimes a picture tells the story better than all the words we've written on it this week. Below is a chart produced by TargetPoint, a Republican consulting firm, using their National Dialogue Monitor to track national conversation on May 15 and 16. ("The National Dialogue Monitor tracks every time a politician, celebrity, organization, issue or corporation is mentioned across all media channels -- television, radio, newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, and social networks," according to an explanation on the firm's website.)
The worst week of Obama's presidency? Close, but no.
For the sixth time in his presidency, Barack Obama "won" our "Worst Week in Washington" award this week.
"For a president who wanted to spend the week, and the weeks to come, talking immigration and budget, the events of the past seven days virtually ensure he won't be doing that anytime soon," we wrote in describing Obama's scandal-plagued week.
The IRS scandal: 'horrible customer service' or political malfeasance?
Did the Internal Revenue Service "target" conservative groups for extra scrutiny? Or was it more a case of "horrible customer service"?
Depends on who you ask.
Friday's House Ways and Means Committee hearing into the scandal that erupted into public view one week ago was something of a semantics battle, with outgoing IRS head Steven T. Miller objecting to the term "targeting," a move Republican lawmakers weren't buying.
The impossibly complex world of campaign finance -- in 1 chart
One of the lessons the general public (or at least some of them) have learned from the Internal Revenue Service scandal is that the world of campaign finance -- who can raise and spend what, where they can get the money and who they need to tell about it -- is incredibly complex.
Money.
How certain groups qualify for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4) organization -- a distinction that allows them to keep both their donors and donations secret -- is the focus of the week (thanks to the buffoonery, at best, of some IRS officials) but it opens up (or should open up) a conversation about the vagaries of campaign finance law.
Below is a terrific chart from our friends at the Sunlight Foundation that details the incredible complicated world of money in politics. Just try to follow all the ways that money can make it into the system. We dare you. (Click the chart for a bigger version.)
Of Watergate and lesser scandals
I was 12 years old during Sam Ervin's Watergate hearings, and watched them over the course of a long, hot summer, a time when I seemed to register the startling fact that my parents weren't infallible and grownups did not necessarily know more about the world than I did. Watergate was empowering in a sense: It told you that the authority figures were flawed, perhaps deeply so, that you should not blindly trust the powerful. Bad men do bad things, and lie about them, and it is our challenge to scrape away that deceit and find the truth beneath.
GOP's biggest obstacle on Benghazi/IRS/AP: Americans' attention spans
To watch the news coverage this week, you'd think the Obama administration was on its last legs.
The good news for the Obama administration is that relatively few people are watching the news coverage.
According to a new Gallup poll, interest in the IRS scandal and the controversy over Benghazi remains below average when it comes to major news stories. While 60 percent of Americans are generally following a story at least "somewhat closely," just 53 percent are following the Benghazi news and 54 percent are following the IRS scandal.
Blog Contributors
Chris Cillizza
Chris Cillizza is founder and editor of The Fix, a leading blog on state and national politics. He is the author of The Gospel According to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics and an MSNBC contributor and political analyst. He also regularly appears on NBC and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. He joined The Post in 2005 and was named one of the top 50 journalists by Washingtonian in 2009.
Juliet Eilperin
Juliet Eilperin covers the White House for the Washington Post. She served as the Post's House of Representatives reporter from 1998-2004, covering the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and five national congressional campaigns. Since 2004 she has been one of the country’s leading reporters covering the environment, reporting on science, policy and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality. She is the author of two books, "Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives," and "Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks." Follow her on Twitter.
Ed O’Keefe
Ed O’Keefe covers Congress and politics for the Washington Post. He previously covered the 2008 and 2012 campaigns and reported on federal agencies and federal employees as author of The Federal Eye blog. Follow Ed on Twitter.
Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake covers national politics at the Washington Post, where he writes regularly for “The Fix,” the Post’s top political blog. A Minnesota native and summa cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota, Aaron has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Aaron and his wife, Danielle, live in Annandale, Va. Follow him on Twitter.
Sean Sullivan
Sean Sullivan covers national politics for “The Fix.” Prior to joining the Washington Post in the summer of 2012, Sean was the editor of Hotline On Call, National Journal Hotline’s politics blog. He has also worked for NHK Japan Public Broadcasting and ABC News. Sean is a graduate of Hamilton College, where he received a degree in Philosophy. He lives in Washington, D.C. Follow Sean on Twitter.
Scott Clement
Scott Clement is a survey research analyst for Capital Insight, the independent polling group of Washington Post Media. Scott specializes in public opinion about politics, election campaigns and public policy. He helps design and analyze all Washington Post polls, including the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Follow Scott on Twitter.
Rachel Weiner
Rachel Weiner covers national politics for Post Politics and The Fix. She came to the Washington Post in 2010 as a political web editor and anchored the Post's 2012 election blog. She was previously a web editor at The Huffington Post. Follow her on Twitter.
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