Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is providing political science students with a classic example of how someone’s partisan inclinations and unwise rhetoric can undermine his political goals. On Sunday he called White House spokesman Jay Carney a “paid liar” in an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley about the IRS singling out conservative groups for scrutiny.
It was — even in our hyper partisan era — crossing the line. Issa is (supposedly) conducting an investigation and if it was over and the facts were all established..he wouldn’t be conducing an investigation. Three things have now happened:
1. By using language unbefitting a serious investigator who is out to get the facts and talking like a fill in host for conservative talker Mark Levin, he gave former White House senior adviser David Plouffe a perfect chance to go on the attack and remind everyone about Issa’s own problems in the past. The Politico:
Former White House senior adviser David Plouffe took to Twitter to question Rep. Darrell Issa’s ethics after the California Republican trashed press secretary Jay Carney.
“Strong words from Mr Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance swindler. And loose ethically today,” Plouffe tweeted on Sunday, linking to a video of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman on CNN’s “State of the Union” calling Carney a “paid liar” who was “making things up” about the IRS scandal
Issa has been one of the leading voices in Congress criticizing the White House over the scandal, in which an IRS inspector general found that employees targeted nonprofits applying for tax-exempt status for more scrutiny if they included words like “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax documents.
(PHOTOS: 10 slams on the IRS)Issa is a successful businessman whose is the nation’s largest manufacturer of anti-theft devices in vehicles. Though he and his brother were charged with stealing a car in the 1970s, prosecutors later dropped charges, and Issa said he was a victim in the incident, according to a New Yorker profile of Issa from 2011. After a suspicious fire at his business’s factory, the company’s former owner said he suspected Issa set the fire for insurance, but a cause of the fire was never determined and no charges were filed, according to the profile.
2. He gave former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs a perfect excuse on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” — a program that is popular with independents and centrists and that often gets quoted in news stories and generates many video embeds that make their way across the Internet — to demand Issa apologize. And his comment showed that the Dems can move the focus more and more onto Issa’s partisan passions rather than onto the IRS issue.
“I mean, it’s a stunning thing,” Gibbs said of Issa’s charges. “It’s why five people in this town take Darrell Issa seriously and it’s the surest bet the Republicans are very much on the verge of overplaying their hand publicly and the American people will lose interest in their side of this. They want to see the IRS cleaned up, but they will understand quickly that Darrell Issa is doing nothing more than politicizing this event.”
Issa’s problem is that he has often predicted his investigations will bust that ‘ol town wide open and instead they have been — a bust. He has become to accuracy in predicting the outcome of his investigations to what Dick Morris has become to accurate election predictions.
3. He is greatly undermining his own credibility. Rush, Sean, Mark, Fox & Friends and conservative bloggers will declare him a hero, but by hurling the word “paid liar” at a press secretary he will lose those who are indeed interested in a serious, non-witch hunt inquiry into what the heck the IRS was doing and why. Joe Scarborough is always a good weathervane – and he notes that Issa’s language is making him look bad:
How bad has Daryl Issa hurt himself with his MANY pronouncements that his investigations would bring a big reveal…only to fizzle out? Just read part of this Andy Borowitz satire from The New Yorker:
ISSA DEMANDS HEARINGS INTO WHY NO ONE LISTENS TO HIM
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) today called for hearings to investigate why no one has paid any attention to him in the weeks of hearings he has called for thus far.“There is mounting evidence that no one listens to me, not even one little bit,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “The goal of these hearings is to find out why.”
He said that he first became aware that people might not be listening to him when he read a recent poll indicating that Americans’ primary concerns are jobs and the economy.
“Anyone in his right mind would know that this nation’s No. 1 problem right now is Benghazi talking points,” he said.
The California congressman said that he also intended “to investigate the chain of events that have led to people changing the channel the moment they see my face.”
“There is a consensus out there that I am an odious, self-serving tool who uses congressional hearings to advance my own petty political agenda,” he said. “I think it’s important to know who created that impression.”
Go the link to read the rest.
Why is Issa so over-the-top here in his comments about Carney as a “paid liar?”
Here’s what I wrote in comments under a post here on TMV:
Press secretaries are not new to Congress or White Houses.
They take the info their boss gives them and deliver it to the press. Here in San Diego I worked under someone I really respected — Gerald Warren, who was Excutive Editor of the San Diego Union when I was hired in late 1982. He was a very forward looking guy who wanted the paper to do more on Mexico and the world. I liked him VERY much and he was often on PBS which used him when they wanted talking head once in a while.
And, oh: he worked as a press spokesman for Richard Nixon under Ron Zigler.
I also knew the late Otto Bos, a wonderful journalist and brilliant person who died at a young age of heart problems while playing sports. He was Senator Pete Wilson’s press secretary, leaving behind a career as a journalist. They all take the info they’re given and use that to communicate to the press.
If Issa says this about Carney then I assume he feels that way about others who have had the same job with the same job expectation and same job description. They don’t re-report, talk to others in an administration to find out if the info is correct. And, unless I’m wrong, so far Issa has not proven his case. So his characterization is more of an emotional outburst than a statement of proven fact — at this point.
Does Issa have a press secretary?
Does that press secretary do original reporting and dig beyond what Issa tells him if a reporter asks a question about Issa? Does Issa’s press secretary act as a kind of journalistic Lone Ranger — doing his own thing and not communicating the facts as his boss gives them?
If not, does Issa’s press secretary also fall into the category of a “paid liar”?
Press secretaries and p.r. people do admirable, often tough jobs. And, in fact, throughout history there have been examples of press secretaries resigning if they feel their boss is wrong or they have been mislead.
The pity here: there is a BIG ISSUE now about the IRS that people of both and no parties want to see laid out.
With Issa there is an ineffable aroma of rank partisanship. He is, in effect, his own worst enemy because his motivation comes across for all to see, hear — and smell.
The committee would do far better with someone else at the helm of this investigation.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.