Obama seeks to regain footing amid controversies
US President Barack Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid controversies hammering the White House, named a temporary chief for the scandal-marred federal tax agency and pressed Congress to approve new security money to prevent another Benghazi-style terrorist attack on US diplomatic missions abroad.
Obama's efforts on Thursday did little to satisfy Republicans, who see the controversies as an opportunity to derail his second-term agenda. The leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, suggested the White House had violated the public's trust, and he promised to "stop at nothing" to hold the administration accountable.
"Nothing dissolves the bonds between the people and their government like the arrogance of power here in Washington," Boehner said. "And that's what the US people are seeing today from the Obama administration - remarkable arrogance."
A trio of headaches has consumed the White House for nearly a week: The targeting of conservative political groups by the Internal Revenue Service; new questions about the deadly attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year; and the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records.
Of the three controversies, the president's advisers see the IRS matter as the most likely to linger. At least three congressional committees are planning investigations into the tax agency that touches the lives of nearly every American.
Obama, who was criticized by both opponents and allies for his measured initial response to the IRS targeting, vowed to ensure the agency acts "scrupulously and without even a hint of bias".
"I think we're going to be able to fix it," he declared during a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Soon afterward, Obama appointed senior budget official Danny Werfel to temporarily run the IRS, one day after Acting Commissioner Steven Miller's forced resignation. The White House is expected to nominate a permanent commissioner later this year.
The news conference marked Obama's first comments on the government's widely criticized seizure of telephone records of reporters and editors of The Associated Press in an investigation of news leaks. The president spoke of the importance of striking a balance between "secrecy and the right to know" but said he will make no apologies for trying to protect classified information that could put Americans at risk.
"I've still got 60,000-plus troops in Afghanistan, and I've still got a whole bunch of intelligence officers around the world who are in risky situations," he said. "Part of my job is to make sure that we're protecting what they do, while still accommodating for the need for information."
The president said he continues to have confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder, who has been the target of intense criticism from lawmakers after the phone record subpoenas were made public.
The IRS and phone records controversies have coincided with a revival in the Republican-led investigations into the September attacks in Benghazi, which claimed the lives of the US ambassador to Libya and three other US citizens.
US Congressional Republicans held new hearings on the Benghazi attacks last week, and a congressional official also released details of e-mails that Republican lawmakers said suggested a government effort to downplay the role of terrorism in the attack, which occurred two months before the presidential election.
The White House, which has long disputed allegations of a cover-up, released 100 pages of documents on Wednesday in an effort to put an end to the protracted controversy.
"We need to come together and truly honor the sacrifice of those four courageous Americans and better secure our diplomatic posts around the world," Obama said.
(China Daily 05/18/2013 page8)
