"First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out — because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak out — because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, and — okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here? 

"Turns out it’s a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to 'delegitimize' a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video. 

"Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers."

"Chilling effect. That's the term lawyers and judges use to describe the result of government actions that deter people from exercising their right of free speech. 

"There have been plenty of examples in the past 10 days. ... 

"The IRS is assigned a lot of work by the Obamacare law. It will impose penalties on Americans who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it. ... 

"The IRS was given these tasks by the drafters of Obamacare because no other government agency had the capability to gain access to people's personal financial information. They may have thought that taxpayers would trust an agency that they had gotten used to dealing with. 
 
"That level of trust may not be as high as it was 10 days ago. Chilling effect, indeed."

"We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

"Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

"As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president's answers when he's pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not."

"The White House on Wednesday released 94 pages of emails between top administration and intelligence officials who helped shape the talking points about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that the CIA would provide to policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches. 

"The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD ... directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department."

"The IRS came after Billy Graham, too, his son charged Tuesday in a letter to President Barack Obama.
 
"Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the family’s international humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, said that the IRS notified the organizations in September that it was conducting a 'review'  of their activities for tax year 2010.

"With the IRS admitting it gave extra scrutiny to conservative political organizations, Graham says he now believes that the review was part of an Obama administration effort of 'targeting and attempting to intimidate us.'"

"Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’s behavior 'inappropriate.' No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense. 

"It remains to be discovered whether the chief executive is guilty of more than an amazingly convenient failure to superintend the excesses of some executive-branch employees beyond the Allegheny Mountains. Meanwhile, file this under 'What a tangled web we weave'...  

"If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated. Not even divided government is safe government, but it beats the alternative."

"The organizations that were improperly targeted were subject to inquisitorial questioning in violation of IRS policies and practices. The IRS improperly demanded that conservative groups disclose lists of donors — 501(c)(4) donors can remain anonymous under the law — as well as political literature, contacts with political figures and activists, even activities of friends and family members not related to the organizations in question. Jewish groups were quizzed about their theological beliefs and their opinions on Israel. 

"There are at least three separate categories of wrongdoing here. The first is the targeting of groups that were believed to be critical of the Obama administration or the federal government in general. The second is the demanding of information that was irrelevant to the tax-status questions at hand, which would have been wrong even if the practice had been applied evenhandedly across the political spectrum. The third is the misleading of Congress and the public about these practices."

"When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story. ... 

"White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack. 

"That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November."

"Benghazi is not going away. 

"On Wednesday, U.S. diplomat Gregory Hicks came to Congress with headline-worthy testimony. ... 

"Hicks raises big questions – serious ones about what the Obama administration (especially Hillary Clinton) knew and did in response. ... 

"Benghazi has already cost the president his first choice for secretary of State. What could stonewalling cost the White House this time?"

"It’s on. As the White House grapples with a growing backlash over its Libya lies and lapses, President Obama’s apologists are gearing up for battle. Put on your hip waders. Grab those tar buckets. Get ready for Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers. ... 

"If you thought Chicago-on-the-Potomac was dirty, you ain’t seen nothing yet. No stone will be left unturned in the effort to slime, sully, and squelch the Benghazi truth tellers. Mark my words: This is how Obama’s thugs roll."