Will Obama's 'scandal-free' legacy survive Obamagate?

OK, the cat is out of the bag. Obama knew. According to information released recently by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe, Obama's CIA Director John Brennan's own handwritten notes indicate that he briefed Obama in July 2016 about the real provenance of the Steele dossier.

In Brennan's words, the briefing dealt with the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services."

Instead of investigating Clinton's dirty tricks, Obama and his henchmen, Brennan most notably, pretended that the claim of Russian interference was valid. Hillary's involvement was one secret they did not leak.

Indeed, it was not until October 2017 that Devin Nunes and the investigators of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) forced into the public realm the fact that Clinton and the DNC had authorized and paid for the Steele dossier.

The saying goes that a scandal is not a scandal until the New York Times calls it a "scandal" on the front page, and by that definition, perversely, the Obama administration still is "scandal-free."

The Times is not likely to blow the whistle on what is not just an extraordinary political scandal but easily the greatest media scandal post-Gutenberg.

For its role in covering up Obamagate, the Times won a "national reporting" Pulitzer in 2018, shared with the Washington Post.

Enough was known in 2018 to make the Pulitzer's praise for the "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation's understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect's transition team and his eventual administration" read like the punch line to a joke.

Not since the Times' own Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for covering up Stalin's terror famine that killed millions in the Ukraine has a Pulitzer been awarded so wrongheadedly.

But then again, they also say that the only real difference between the New York Times and the old Soviet Pravda is that Pravda readers knew they were being lied to.

Times readers prefer comforting lies. "I am proud of the fact that we will – knock on wood – leave this administration without significant scandal," said Barack Obama near the end of his second and last term in office.

The use of the word "significant" scarcely dimmed the wattage of this boast. Obama quickly added, "In terms of just abiding by the rules and norms and keeping trust with the American people, I will put this administration against any administration in history."

Two years later, Obama felt free to repeat the claim, telling a tech audience, "I didn't have scandals, which seems like it shouldn't be something you brag about."

Obama was not alone in thinking his administration was uniquely unblemished. Prominent media gatekeepers had been encouraging him to think along these lines for years.

In 2011, Jonathan Alter headlined a Bloomberg story, "The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal."

In 2014, New Yorker editor and Obama biographer David Remnick thought it a "huge" achievement that "there's been no scandal, major scandal, in this administration, which is a rare thing in an administration."

In 2016, New York Times columnist David Brooks insisted the Obama administration was not just scandal-free, but "remarkably scandal-free."

A CNN discussion on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration showed how likely it was that fake news would soon become fake history.

"He is almost unimpeachable," said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. "He has governed with such honesty and integrity, and he's not only leaving with that 60 percent [approval rating] we keep talking, but a growing reputation. And the legacy of having eight scandal-free years is going to look larger and larger in history."

Can an historian be impeached? By any sane definition, the Obama administration was awash in scandal. Just on its own, the mischief surrounding the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – aka "Obamacare" – puts Obama in the Harding-Grant strata of scandal-plagued presidencies.

Then, too, of course, there was Benghazi, Solyndra and the IRS oppression of the Tea Party, not to mention the deadly Fast and Furious, which Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert laughed off as "the biggest scandal in history I have ever forgotten to talk about."

Of course you did, Stephen. You still believe the New York Times. I am just not sure the families of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and a hundred or more Mexicans killed as a result of Fast and Furious got the joke.

Jack Cashill's new book, "Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency," is widely available. See also www.cashill.com.