Obama Administration Scandal Bracketology
President Barack Obama’s administration has been one rife with scandals. Some pertain directly to the President himself and his own actions–like the recent immigration executive order that some say unconstitutionally side-stepped Congress–and some to members of his administration, like the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS and the Secret Service’s series of embarrassments.
So in the spirit of March Madness and NCAA bracketology, I crafted an Obama Administration Scandal Bracket, originally published at The Cornell Review.
Allow me to explain a few points:
- Bracketology requires that the number of “contestants” must be a number which is the number 2 raised to an integer exponent (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.) So, I had to narrow the list down to 16 since I could not reach 32. I was able to do this narrowing down by restricting my definition of scandal as explained in the following two points.
- There is a distinction, at least to me, between actual scandals and just regular policy. For example, Obamacare in itself is not a scandal. It’s just bad policy. Snubbing Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu are not scandals either, just poor policy, as is snuggling up with Iran. That’s why I threw out “contestants” like: calling for Israel’s return to ’67 borders, the “chickensh*t” allegations, Obama’s decision not to meet Netanyahu when he addressed Congress, etc.
- It’s a stretch to say government incompetence is necessarily a scandal. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not. So, for example, I decided the roll-out of the Obamacare exchange websites was not a scandal. I was on the fence about “If you like your doctor…” because, while certainly deceitful, there were no direct cover-ups, lives directly endangered, direct personal gain or cronyism/nepotism, laws broken, or enormous ethical lapses.
Readers who disagree with my bracketology methodology are free to argue otherwise.
Here’s mine:
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