Valerie Jarrett pronounces Obama scandal-free

Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Obama, triggered a collective national “WTF” moment on Sunday when she said on CNN that the Obama Administration had been scandal free. Jarrett, who might have been playing Rip Van Winkle for the past eight years, said, “The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself.”

Pardon us while we scoff.

The Obama Administration started off with a scandal as a plethora of Obama appointees, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, were revealed to be tax cheats. The problem didn’t go away after the original round of confirmations in 2009. In 2012, Investor’s Business Daily found that 36 Obama aides owed almost a million dollars in back taxes.

The president’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was tainted by backroom deals to get Democrats on board. The phrase “Louisiana Purchase” took on new meaning as the revelations of $200 million for Louisiana’s Medicare in exchange for Senator Mary Landrieu’s vote angered Americans. In the end, even with the secret deals, Obamacare required quasi-constitutional maneuvering to get through the Senate with no Republican votes.

Does Valerie Jarrett not consider it embarrassing that the president was awarded the dubious distinction of having told the Lie of the Year by Politifact for his statement that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” As it turned out, many Americans could not keep their plans because insurers canceled them since they didn’t comply with the new law. Even plans that weren’t canceled weren’t the same after Obamacare. Premiums skyrocketed as new federal mandates went into effect.

How about the Solyndra scandal? Obama’s administration put hundreds of millions of dollars into green companies, many of which promptly went bankrupt. Does that count as a scandal?

How about Fast and Furious? Obama’s ATF released illegal guns into Mexico where they were used to arm drug cartels. One of those guns eventually killed a US Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry.

Is the politicization of the IRS worthy of being called a scandal? The targeting of political opponents by the Internal Revenue Service is positively Nixonian. The main difference is that Nixon’s IRS commissioner refused to comply with similar unethical orders from the Nixon White House.

Originally published on The Resurgent