Carville: This is all over in 30 days

Democratic strategist James Carville had some good news for President Barack Obama amid three controversies: It will all be over in a month.

Carville, who helped guide former President Bill Clinton through crises, on Thursday described Benghazi and the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena The Associated Press phone records as non-stories to start with and he predicted the IRS scandal would fizzle out within a month.


“These guys are awfully frustrated right now,” Carville told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, referring to the GOP. “They’re taking the anger out, and I understand that. I think the White House has just go to live with this for 30 days, get the truth out and you know, just roll with the punches here. They’re down to swinging pretty wildly here.”

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He added, “That’s just going to be what we’re going to have to deal with here for the next month, and I think the president needs to get ahead of it and probably put a new person in there and find out what happened and report to the American people — and it will burn itself out, too. And it will move to the next thing.”

The Ragin’ Cajun said Republicans were focused on the IRS scandal because many of their political positions are being undercut by long-term trends.

“That’s what they’re down to,” Carville said. “Remember that the Earth is warming, and that the economy is growing, the deficit is shrinking, that health care costs are flattening out, that Benghazi was nothing and as I said, there may be something amiss in the Cincinnati office of the IRS. If there is, we should find out about it and fix it, and if somebody did something wrong, they should be fired or brought to justice.”

Republicans clearly plan on the IRS scandal — in which staffers unfairly scrutinized conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status — lasting more than a month. The first hearing on the unfair targeting is set for Friday, and the GOP appears eager to use the issue in the run-up to the 2014 midterms and link it to the IRS’ role in implementing Obama’s signature health care reform law.