While congressional Republicans gear up to investigate numerous White House scandals, party leaders are making the rounds on cable news and pushing their new narrative: President Obama won’t take responsibility for anything.
“We really haven’t seen the president spring into action and really call [for] actual accountability,” said Kirsten Kukowski, press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday morning.
Minutes later, RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer made similar comments on MSNBC.
“Harry Truman, when he was president, his mantra was the buck stops here. What we’re hearing over and over again in this administration is, ’We only found out where the buck was by watching it through news reports,’” he said. “There is no sense of responsibility. … Everybody is pointing fingers saying, ’It’s not my fault.’”
On Tuesday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to resign amid reports that his department secretly subpoenaed telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors in an apparent investigation of a security leak to the press.
But like the president, GOP officials have argued, Mr. Holder passed the buck during a press conference on Tuesday, telling reporters he had recused himself from the AP investigation and therefore knows very little about it.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has offered the same explanation for the Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Mr. Obama, the press secretary said, only learned of the incidents when the news began to break.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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