Et tu, Roberto? It was bad enough for President Obama to have Andrea Mitchell jump ship this morning. But now someone who is—arguably—even closer to home has taken a resounding shot at the President's mishandling of the IRS scandal.
Appearing on Mitchell's MSNBC show this afternoon, former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs condemned the president's "exceedingly passive" language in discussing the scandal. Obama had said there'd be consequences "if" wrongdoing were found, and spoken of "losing patience." Gibbs was scathing: that's what "I do with my nine-year old." Ouch! View the video after the jump.
What's next? First Lady Michelle to mock Barack?
ANDREA MITCHELL: Robert, you've been behind that podium in difficult situations. I'm not sure any more difficult than this, though. Because on the face of it, the IRS has acknowledged targeting conservative groups rather than all of those applying, admittedly after the Citizens United case, a lot of applications. But that they were singling out the Tea Party and conservative groups? There is a real problem here.
ROBERT GIBBS: The problem is this: the tenor of this briefing would be different if the President had spoken about this on Saturday or Sunday and not on Monday. And if the President had spoken on Monday, less about losing patience for this, which is what I do with my nine-year-old and used far more vivid language. And I think quite frankly come out and announced that there would be a commission made up of a former, two former commissioners, IRS commissioners, one appointed by a Democrat, one appointed by a Republican that said look we're going to deal with this, the IRS is going to deal with how to deal with 501-C-4s, that have different political bents, based on what the administration is or isn't . . . That process can begin before we get this IG's report. And I think they would have a much better way of talking about this story rather than simply kind of landing on the, "well, if this happened, then we'll look at it"—sounds exceedingly passive to me.
