The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Putin Buys Mickey Rourke T-Shirt–Now That Would Be News
“American Actor Mickey Rourke Buys Putin T-shirt as Sales Start in Moscow”–headline, ITAR-TASS, Aug. 11
Answer and Question
“Hamas Manipulated and Intimidated the Media in Gaza. Why Was That Kept From Us?”–headline, Daily Telegraph website (London), Aug. 13
‘Too Onerous to Search’
Remember those [IRS Director] Lois Lerner emails that conveniently went missing in a “hard-drive crash”? Judicial Watch, which is suing the Internal Revenue Service under the Freedom of Information Act, says they still exist:
Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating this back-up system.
We obviously disagree that disclosing the emails as required would be onerous, and plan to raise this new development with Judge [Emmet] Sullivan.
This is a jaw-dropping revelation. The Obama administration had been lying to the American people about Lois Lerner’s missing emails. There are no “missing” Lois Lerner emails–nor missing emails of any of the other top IRS or other government officials whose emails seem to be disappearing at increasingly alarming rate. All the focus on missing hard drives has been a diversion. The Obama administration has known all along where the email records could be–but dishonestly withheld this information. You can bet we are going to ask the court for immediate assistance in cutting through this massive obstruction of justice.
It seems to us that the hijacking of the IRS to suppress grass-roots opposition to the administration in power would qualify as a “government-wide catastrophe,” but we suppose the government would disagree. That notwithstanding, if the backups are “too onerous to search” now, what good would they be in an undisputed catastrophe? One can never rule out incompetence as an explanation, but this does have the feel of a deliberate effort to keep the truth concealed.
Homme Mord Chien
This columnist has been inclined to agree with the Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page that it’s silly to give President Obama “such a hard time for taking a vacation”:
I think the complaint is based on an American notion I wish we would discard, the notion that vacations are somehow a waste of time. Every year, more medical studies provide evidence that people who take at least a week and preferably two weeks of vacation a year live longer and better than those who don’t.
Take a break, folks.
The presidency is stressful enough. Overwork, exhaustion and general unhappiness aren’t good for any of us, especially presidents.
But we may have to surrender after reading this in London’s Daily Mail:
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has a message about Iraq for Barack Obama: Get back to the White House and do something.
“I know it is the holiday period in our Western countries,” Fabius told a radio interviewer Tuesday in France, “but when people are dying, you must come back from vacation.”
We never thought we’d see the day when the French would criticize the Americans for taking too much vacation.
(From August 2014 BOTW Archives.) For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
