Conservatives have been wondering how the media would be reacting to the recent scandals surrounding President Obama if there was a Republican in the White House. There’s no need to speculate, as I am writing this from an alternate universe where Mitt Romney has been president of the United States since January 2009. I could explain how I got here, but it involves the multiverse, which is a concept from DC Comics that is difficult for the layman to understand. Let’s just say almost everything else is the same here — four Americans were murdered in Benghazi at the hands of jihadis, an attack that was covered up in an election year; the Justice Department has invaded the privacy of journalists; and the IRS has targeted groups that oppose the president (which in this universe means liberal groups and not the conservative ones screwed back on Earth One). So let’s scroll through the TV channels and see what’s going on.
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Rachel Maddow: “Where … was … the president. I mean, the White House is not that big! He’s the most powerful and arguably the most famous man in the world! Yet for eight hours on the night of September 11, 2012, a mere two months before a close presidential election, and while four Americans including an ambassador were murdered in cold blood, the whereabouts of Willard Mitt Romney are a mystery. And considering the childish, unbelievable cover story that emerged from that night — that the attack on our embassy was the result of a video (a story not even Baghdad Bob would have been able to sell), we are left to ponder the very real and very disturbing and very scary idea that the election of 2012 may have been thrown by our own State Department and maybe even our own president. Not to worry, though. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man who made the video, is safely behind bars. So we can all sleep peacefully tonight. Welcome to Mitt Romney’s Brave New World.”
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Joe Scarborough: “Wait a second, wait a second, everybody … quiet, I want to say something. The Republican Party may have just handed the next election, and maybe even the full Congress and elections for the next two decades, to the Democratic Party. I’m serious. I mean, this IRS thing is right out of some banana republic somewhere. And I think it goes right up to the top. Let’s lay out exactly what we are dealing with here: During an election year the Internal Revenue Service, one of the most feared governmental organizations in the country, was playing politics with the 501(c)(4) applications of liberal groups — liberal groups, Gene Robinson, that conceivably could have had an effect in the election! I mean, this is beyond anything I’ve ever seen … Gene Robinson, help me out here …”
Eugene Robinson: “It is, Joe. It’s just — you struggle for the right words. It’s so far beyond anything we’ve seen since Watergate, and even worse than that. The fascist right, and that’s what they are, used the government to try and affect the outcome of an election — and they may have succeeded. Joe, the American people had a chance to change all of this. In 2008 they had the chance to elect Barack Obama. They had a chance to get away from drone strikes, to close Guantanamo, to curb the debt, and to move this country forward. But they chose to take a giant step backwards. I mean, using the IRS and the Justice Department to target your enemies. That is right out of Nixon, if not McCarthy. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we are in a constitutional crisis, or at least a governmental crisis.”
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Bill Maher: “I applied to start my own 501(c)(4) last year. I knew something was strange when they took a year to get back to me and then asked me the color of my underwear.”
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Norah O’Donnell: “Welcome back to the ‘CBS Morning Show,’ where we are continuing our week-long series on Benghazi. Today we are joined by Pat Smith, whose son Sean Smith was killed in the attacks on our embassy in Libya. So good to see you, Pat. I understand you recently had some harsh words for President Romney.”
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Chris Matthews: “Boy, this is Chambers-Hiss, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and ‘Goodfellas’ rolled into one. These guys pried into a REPORTER’S private emails and called him an enemy of the state. For trying to do his job.”
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“The Washington Nationals have swept the Yankees!”
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Jake Tapper: “We’re watching footage from in front of the White House, where protestors are out, chanting ‘Where was Mitt?’ in reference to the president’s whereabouts on the night of September 11, 2012. White House pool reporters have all agreed that this will be the first question at President Romney’s next press conference.”
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Wolf Blitzer: “While nobody would want the government going through their private emails, for reporter James Rosen there may be a financial upside. No less than three Hollywood studios have approached Rosen to turn his story into a motion picture.”
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Senator Barack Obama: “It’s hard to keep up with all the scandals coming out of Washington. I mean, first we had Benghazi, which the Romney administration has still not answered for. Where was President Romney? Then you have the Department of Justice making criminals out of journalists. Now we find out that the IRS has been targeting groups that criticize the government. Is this us? Is this America? We’ve got an economy that has never recovered, a president who oversees torture and drone strikes even as he can’t find the war room on a night when America is attacked, and a government that has turned on its people. I fear for America, I really do. This isn’t who we are, and someone should do something about this in 2016. Whoops! Can we have a medic down here? Somebody fainted in the front row. It’s OK, everybody. She’ll recover. She and America will recover!”
Mark Judge is the author of A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock ‘n’ Roll.