In scandal-plagued Washington, lawmaker struggles to keep track of issues

Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

With the rumbling of so much scandal ripping through Washington this week—woeful stories about Benghazi, the DOJ subpoena of journalists' phone records and the IRS unfairly targeting conservative groups—it's hard to keep track of all the terrible.

Even lawmakers sometimes struggle

At Rep. Steny Hoyer's weekly meeting with reporters Tuesday, the Maryland Democrat was asked if he was concerned about the DOJ seizing phone records from Associated Press journalists working in the House press gallery in the capitol building.

Hoyer's answer was well-delivered: Articulate, clear, firm and precise.

One problem: He responded to the wrong scandal.

"The IRS activity was inappropriate, inconsistent with our policies and practices as a country, very concerning, needs to be reviewed carefully," Hoyer, one of the top-ranking House Democrats, said in response to a question from Fox News' Chad Pergram about the DOJ. "We need to ensure that this does not happen again and we need to find out how long it continued, when it was stopped. It is my understanding—there was a front-page story on this at the [Washington] Post—it's my understanding that [IRS official] Lois Lerner, who was apparently overseeing this, at some point in time found out about this and said..."

When Hoyer named Lerner, Pergram interrupted.

"We're talking about two things," Pergram, who apparently had not heard the first mention of the IRS, said from across the table, "You said Lois Lerner and the IRS."

Another reporter sitting closer to Hoyer, Public Radio International's Todd Zwillich, learned over and said softly, "He's talking about the AP story."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me," Hoyer said, pausing briefly. "Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. I don't know enough about whether there was a warrant sought."

Boom. He nailed it!

But Hoyer wasn't finished.

"I don't know fully the rationalization or justification that was being used, but the president's statement that it was outrageous, that there was no place for it and that they have to be held fully accountable is a statement in which I agree," Hoyer went on to say.

The only problem is that Obama didn't comment about the DOJ story. And he certainly didn't call it "outrageous." In fact, the White House has declined to say much of anything about the DOJ investigation. Was he talking about the IRS story again? Yup.

Hoyer continued: "He then points out in another statement which with I agree: 'I can tell you that if you've got the IRS operating in anything less...'" Hoyer said, his voice trailing off. "Oh I keep going IRS. I'm really fired up on the IRS."

Hoyer regrouped, and returned back to his answer about the DOJ.

"I don't have the president's statement on that, but I'm sure the president's statement on that was very much like that regarding the IRS," he said. (It wasn't.) "Neither of the activities is justifiable, outside the ambit in the case of the AP of having a legal mechanism where an interception of communications would have been warranted or justified by a court."

Now for the home-stretch. Almost there!

"The House needs to look at this," Hoyer continued. "We need to find out exactly what happened and we need to make sure—that's why I'm confusing the two—that those folks who were involved in this are held accountable if in fact there was wrongdoing. Clearly we should not have either House lines, but particular the lines of the Fourth Estate—the press—subject to being intercepted without knowledge and without court oversight."

And with that, he moved on to other questions.

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Obama Says Gun Control Defeat Marks 'Shameful Day For Washington'

Standing alongside tearful families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, a seething-mad President Obama lashed out against lawmakers who opposed a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun buyers, saying today marked a "shameful day for Washington."

"There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics," the president said in a Rose Garden statement shortly after the Senate defeated the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey amendment.

The president said lawmakers who opposed the measure "caved" to pressure from the gun lobby and its allies who "willfully lied about the bill."

"A minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn't worth it," he said. "They worried that that vocal minority of gun-owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment. And obviously a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking for an excuse, any excuse, to vote no."

In addition to the Newtown families, the president was joined by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an attempted assassination in 2011, and Vice President Biden, who has led the administration's effort to reform the nation's gun laws in the wake of the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The president vehemently pushed back against Sen. Rand Paul's claim that the White House used the Newtown families, who have spent weeks lobbying lawmakers, as "props" in the gun control debate.

"Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their - their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?" Obama asked.

The president vowed "this effort is not over" and urged Americans to voice their opposition to inaction.

"I see this as just round one," he said. "I believe we're going to be able to get this one. Sooner or later we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it, and so do the American people."

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Political consultants celebrate themselves at Washington gathering

By Samuel P. Jacobs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This is a golden era for political consultants - well, except for those Republicans still smarting from the November elections.

But Americans' political tastes tend to run in cycles, so there is always a mix of hope and wariness when consultants at both ends of the ideological spectrum gather, as they did in Washington last week, to toast the profession's top operatives.

Five months after Mitt Romney was thumped in the race for the White House - a loss that some placed at the feet of the small group of men and women who advised the Republican presidential challenger - the meeting of the American Association of Political Consultants threw together Democratic and Republican operatives who have dedicated their lives to undoing one another's work.

Even those whose clients lost in November feel they have plenty to celebrate in a business that boasts of increasing sophistication as well as profits.

In a video message played at the conference's Hall of Fame luncheon on Thursday, President Barack Obama paid wry respects to an industry that is populated by over-the-top personalities but seen by many Americans as fathering the bitter and costly ways of U.S. politics.

"There is nothing political consultants love more than celebrating their own genius," Obama said.

The 2012 election left many of the Republican campaign professionals feeling less like geniuses after their candidate was outmaneuvered by a sitting president they had believed to be vulnerable.

"Elections make you look smarter than what you are, and more stupid," said Ed Goeas, president of The Tarrance Group, a Republican strategy firm. "This was not an election for Republican consultants that made us look smarter."

After the loss in November, complaints among the Republican activists directed at the party's consultant class have been at full boil.

Appearing last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering for influential right-wing activists, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin blasted party leaders such as Karl Rove, the former George W. Bush adviser, who she said have led the Republican Party astray.

"Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home and throw out the political scripts, because if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us," Palin said, calling for more staunchly conservative candidates.

(Never mind that Palin's own political action committee doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to consultants in 2012.)

CPAC also featured a panel with the indelicate title: "Should we shoot all the consultants now?"

Dale Emmons, a Democratic strategist from Kentucky and president of the consultants' association, said Republicans should hold their fire.

"To those who want to shoot all the consultants, I don't advise they do that," Emmons said. "I know the abilities of the people I compete against are strong."

Emmons said that perhaps no collection of advisers could have steered Romney around an incumbent president with a superior organization on the ground - one that was well positioned to take advantage of the nation's growing minority vote, which went heavily for Obama.

Few consultants or top aides who worked with the Romney campaign appeared at last week's gathering, which featured two days of panels - several dissecting the campaign's failings.

Former Romney press secretary Andrea Saul, a routine presence for the campaign on cable television, and Alex Lundry, a top data researcher for Romney, did participate.

For Obama advisers, the meeting was something of a victory lap. The president's pollster, Joel Benenson, began the conference with comments about the strength of the Democratic campaign's polling program and the weakness of various public surveys.

His colleagues David Axelrod and David Plouffe, top strategists for Obama's two winning presidential runs, were inducted into the association's Hall of Fame on Thursday.

"At first, I wondered whether this was a real organization or something that Axe and Plouffe made up last week," Obama said during his videotaped remarks.

A HAND ON THE 'WHEEL OF HISTORY'

A quartet of Republican strategists known for steering Republicans to victories in past elections - Arthur Finkelstein, Lance Tarrance, the late Bob Teeter and the late Lee Atwater - was honored.

Atwater, who died of cancer in 1991, is best known for orchestrating often-controversial campaigns that helped turn the South increasingly toward the Republican Party in the 1980s.

His aggressive campaign style inspired a generation of Republican consultants and led critics to accuse him of race-baiting, particularly for his work as George H.W. Bush's campaign manager in the 1988 presidential campaign.

On Friday night, the consultants handed out dozens of awards, celebrating the year's best in advertising, fundraising and mailing.

The consultants are sensitive to the criticism that they profit from the dysfunction of U.S. politics and were eager to stress their influence on candidates who they believe can help change the country for the better.

Plouffe, who managed Obama's 2008 campaign, said their lives amounted to putting a hand on the "wheel of history."

On his way out the door Thursday, Plouffe stopped to chat with a fellow consultant. Plouffe warned about the potential cost of the presidential election in 2016. Last year, each side of the presidential contest spent more than $1 billion.

"By '16, it's going to be $2 billion," Plouffe said.

The consultant sure hoped so.

"From your mouth," he said, "to God's ears."

(Reporting by Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by David Lindsey and Eric Beech)

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