Darrell Issa: Obama Administration Among Most Corrupt In Modern Times

Doug Mataconis · · 12 comments

The incoming Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee says that the Obama Administration is among the most corrupt Presidencies in modern times:

(CNN) – The incoming House Oversight and Government Reform chairman on Sunday tried to clarify his recent remarks to Rush Limbaugh where he called President Obama “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” Rep. Darrell Issa said he meant to say the Obama administration instead of the president. “When you hand out $1 trillion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus, that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect,” Issa said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Although TARP – the program passed in 2008 intended to strengthen the financial sector by purchasing assets from financial institutions – was passed by Congress under the Bush administration, Issa said the unregulated funds were used by Obama like “presidential earmarks.”

Is Issa really saying that the Obama Administration is on a par with the Nixon Administration, which included a Vice-President who was forced to resign over tax evasion, staffers who engaged in illegal activity associated with the 1972 Presidential campaign, and a President who participated in an effort to cover-up that activity and was then forced to resign himself ? If you listen to what he’s saying, it’s clear that Issa isn’t saying. As has become far too typical in modern politics, he’s using a word like “corrupt,” which to an ordinary person connotes criminal activity of some kind, to condemn policy differences he has with the Administration, and in the process he glosses over the fact that TARP was passed under a Republican President with significant support from Republican Congressman and Senators. It’s part of the general decline in political rhetoric that we’ve seen in this country, and it’s not at all a good sign for the next two years.

The President may be wrong, but don’t call him corrupt unless you have actual evidence that crimes may have been committed. Issa clearly doesn’t have that evidence.