Obama scandals: Has government grown so huge that no leader can control it?

Each of the three scandals currently rocking Washington, D.C., are similar in one important way – they show bureaucracies where decision-making is so diffuse that no one, it seems, is actually responsible for the mistakes that were made. The situation raises the question, with so much government action residing in large bureaucracies led by unelected officials, the so-called “fourth branch of government,” who is actually in charge?

irsabuseWith the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the deaths of four Americans, Congress has learned that additional security requests were denied prior to the attack, military forces were ordered to stand down rather than travel to Benghazi after the attack started, and President Barack Obama and other administration officials blamed the attack on a spontaneous demonstration in response to a YouTube video, even though intelligence officials knew it was a terrorist attack.

At a Jan. 23 congressional hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she took “responsibility” for what happened in Benghazi, but she did not take the blame. Who is at fault? Apparently some unnamed mid-level bureaucrats denied the additional security requests, the stand down order came from an unknown source, and the talking points that were used as the basis for describing the attack to the public were made by intelligence officials.

President Barack Obama, the White House explained, was not involved in any of the decisions that led to the Benghazi scandals.

“Our carefully constructed system of checks and balances is being negated by the rise of a fourth branch, an administrative state of sprawling departments and agencies that govern with increasing autonomy and decreasing transparency,” Jonathan Turley, Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, wrote for The Washington Post.

Turley notes that government bureaucracies, or the “fourth branch,” have grown so large and numerous that they have a larger impact on American’s daily lives than the three branches of government – president, Congress and Supreme Court. Each of the three scandals currently rocking Washington, D.C., are similar in one important way:  they show bureaucracies where decision-making is so diffuse that no one, it seems, is actually responsible for the mistakes that were made. The situation raises the question, with so much government action residing in large bureaucracies led by unelected officials, the so-called “fourth branch of government,” who is actually in charge?

READ COMPLETE TEXT

You must be logged in to post a comment Login