Immediately following President Barack Obama’s remarks on Wednesday about the current scandal embroiling the Internal Revenue Service, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted by downplaying the gesture.
“That was a holding operation,” Krauthammer said. “That was the absolute minimum he could have done. He relieves one person. He obviously had to. He had to relieve at least one person. And he chose, of course, the acting commissioner. But, I would have expected more. The other actions he announced are up to now meaningless. Obama and this administration have said a hundred times they’re going to hold x, y, z accountable for all kinds of behavior — in Benghazi, regarding a lot of other scandals. He even speaks about you know, Syrian generals will be held accountable. It means nothing.”
Krauthammer went on to dismiss the measures Obama vowed to employ with regard to the scandal and said those efforts would have a minimal effect in holding off his critics.
“And then he says there will be an investigation from the Treasury,” he continued. “Well, that just means the left hand of the government investigating the right hand. He did say he’ll cooperate with Congress, but then he has the chutzpah to essentially warn Republicans not to make this into a political event when what we’re talking about is the IRS applying political criteria inexcusably, unconstitutionally, probably criminally in deciding who it’s going to investigate. So I found this the bare minimum. It’ll hold him for 12 hours but no more.”