One of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals. Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency, but the current administration has not yet suffered a major scandal, which I define as a widespread elite perception of wrongdoing. What happened, and what are the odds that the administration’s streak will continue?
— Brendan Nyhan, whose research on presidential scandals finds the longest that a president has gone without having a scandal featured in a front-page Washington Post article is 34 months.
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That’s funny because lately I’ve been thinking how great it’s been, all these months, to not even once have anybody – no matter how much mud they try to throw at Obama – show where he’s up to something behind the scenes. No Haliburton, no brothers in the standard testing business who benefit from dumbass policies like No Child Left Behind, no wars for oil… It’s just been straight-up debate about policy (and birth certificates). May we never, ever go back.
Interesting that so many people don’t see the President Obama healthcare waivers as a scandal. 1,372 waviers as of May 11th, will exempt 3.1 million Americans from the plan. As I recall the healthcare plan was sold as necessary to cover 3.2 million Americans who needed the healthcare plan.
What plan are you talking about? The Affordable Care Act doesn’t cover anyone until 2014, and there are 50 million men, women and children without coverage, not 3.1 million.