# WTF is Obamagate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 12, 2020, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616 "2020-05-12T01:41:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/62 "2020-05-13T19:05:45Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > … The forty four million folks who voted for him last time are all going to fall out, line up, and vote for him again… What about the other eighteen million? Are they going to mark their ballots correctly this time? ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/63 "2020-05-13T19:40:53Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > …Your source has William Bennett and Peggy Noonan on the masthead, and seems to be yet another conservative rag, so if you can’t find a better source, I’d say this is making a mountain out of a molehill, if not something out of nothing. You realize your _ad hominem_ is not a refutation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/64 "2020-05-13T20:00:47Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Saw this, went _huhwhat??_ because I’d never heard of this one. And from an era where a Presidential tan suit was elevated into a mini-scandal, I had a hard time the right-wing media wouldn’t have made a bigger deal out of a _genuine_ scandal. > > Your source has William Bennett and Peggy Noonan on the masthead, and seems to be yet another conservative rag, so if you can’t find a better source, I’d say this is making a mountain out of a molehill, if not something out of nothing. Yeah that article has enough dog whistles embedded in it to attract an army of Schnauzers. Also even if we take it at face value (ignoring that it is a cherry picked jurisdiction with anecdotal evidence assuming correlation implies causality) its not an Obama scandal. All Obama did was to aspirationally declare that we should address racial inequality in school discipline. Neither he nor his administration drafted the policy changes that the article is complaining about. Those were all done at a local level. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/65 "2020-05-13T20:13:27Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > You realize your _ad hominem_ is not a refutation, right? Particularly considering the damning evidence that this source provides: > [@](#): > > In her very last hour in office, national-security adviser Susan Rice wrote a self-preserving email to herself, noting that she’d attended a meeting with the president, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden in which Obama stressed that everything in the investigation should proceed “by the book.” > > Did high-ranking Obama-administration officials not always conduct such investigations “by the book”? It is curious that they would need to be specifically instructed to do so. It is also curious that the outgoing national-security adviser, 15 minutes after Trump had been sworn in as president, would need to mention this meeting. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/66 "2020-05-13T20:19:39Z")
AFAICT no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama was put forward in that article. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/67 "2020-05-13T22:06:36Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Particularly considering the damning evidence that this source provides: > > :dubious: OMG!!! I can’t believe it!!! This is the smoking gun of smoking guns! This proves something or rather. But not really. But almost sort of! If not nefarious deeds, then what? It’s obvious, if you read between the lines. It all makes perfect sense. Oh crap, help. I’ve turned myself into a pretzel. There were no scandals. There aren’t going to be retroactive scandals, either. Nothing can distract from the thousands of dying and dead Americans caused by the incompetence of this so-called president. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/68 "2020-05-13T23:24:03Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Particularly considering the damning evidence that this source provides: Just as a correction, I now realize that **sps49sd** was referring to a different article. The one that I quoted from was [this one](https://news.yahoo.com/obamagate-not-conspiracy-theory-214627867.html) originally posted by **Ashtura** (with disclaimer). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/69 "2020-05-13T23:54:56Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Just as a correction, I now realize that **sps49sd** was referring to a different article. The one that I quoted from was [this one](https://news.yahoo.com/obamagate-not-conspiracy-theory-214627867.html) originally posted by **Ashtura** (with disclaimer). AFAICT that link also offers zero evidence of wrongdoing by Obama. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/70 "2020-05-14T01:21:41Z")
Obama’s felony was that he was not an asshole. The President is supposed to be Anal#1, but, like most Democratic presidents, Obama failed to say to the Republicans, “_fuck off you fucking psychopaths_”, which is seen as a sign of weakness, so he is to be gone after. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/71 "2020-05-14T02:03:27Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > You realize your _ad hominem_ is not a refutation, right? Not really, I’m pretty sure it’s a _genetic fallacy_ … at best. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/72 "2020-05-14T11:59:57Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > You realize your _ad hominem_ is not a refutation, right? No, I’m saying that if this shit is real, it probably got covered by a more reputable source. If _that_ source is not to be found, I’m saying I don’t trust _this_ source, which is one I’d never heard of before yesterday. So there’s no reason I should give them the benefit of the doubt. And the presence of two people on their masthead whose willingness to bend the truth I’m quite familiar with gives me even less reason. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/73 "2020-05-14T12:19:02Z")
Is QAnon still a thing? Because if so, maybe the loonies are taking Obama’s comments as somehow proving the whole shebang? They’ve waited a long time for anything to hang their hat on, and now here’s Obama _secretly_ criticizing Trump. _In secret!_ (I mean, what did Trump ever do to him, apart from insult him every day, spend years questioning his very identity, and petulantly and vindictively try to undo everything he did?) Anyway it would explain why Trump thinks it’s the biggest thing evs but also can’t even name a thing that Obama supposedly did. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/74 "2020-05-14T12:30:18Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Obama’s felony was that he was not an asshole. The President is supposed to be Anal#1, but, like most Democratic presidents, Obama failed to say to the Republicans, “_fuck off you fucking psychopaths_”, which is seen as a sign of weakness, so he is to be gone after. Obama’s felony was that he was black. His other crimes (intelligence, grace, wit, compassion, education, etc.) were minor compared to his big one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/75 "2020-05-14T13:02:47Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Well, if you want an answer from actual conservatives, give this a read > > [Obamagate Is Not a Conspiracy Theory](https://news.yahoo.com/obamagate-not-conspiracy-theory-214627867.html) > > Note: I am not endorsing or claiming anything in here is legitimate. But it is a bit more substantive than “he wore a tan suit”, or “because he’s black”, etc. Ah, so the scandal was him pushing the USAPATRIOT Act through Congress, back in 2001. Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/76 "2020-05-14T13:49:22Z")
If you’re still wondering: **[Obamagate was the worst crime ever committed and here is what it was]([https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/13/obamagate-was-worst-crime-ever-committed-here-is-](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/13/obamagate-was-worst-crime-ever-committed-here-is-) what-it-was/)** > [@](#): > > \*“What is the crime exactly that you’re accusing him of?” > > “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.” > > — President Trump responding to Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker\* > > Obamagate began long ago, long before Trump even got elected, before he even knew he was running. It began before America, before time, in those early days when President Barack Obama lit the furnace of the sun, just before he fixed the paths of the planets in such a way that millennia in the future, Donald Trump would stare directly into a solar eclipse. And, of course, everyone knew about it. > > Obamagate was the biggest political crime in American history by far, a fact that Barack Obama did not hesitate to tell Richard M. Nixon, causing him to shed bitter tears in an as-yet-unreleased tape. It was bigger than Teapot Dome. It was bigger than anything anyone blamed Ulysses Grant for allowing the people who surrounded him to do. Nothing could be worse than Obamagate. It went all the way to the top, where Obama floated inside a sinister Masonic eye at the apex of a pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, holding all the strings. > > What was it? Well, I am coming to that. Obamagate, like the Myriad Crimes of Hillary Clinton (to which it was both prequel and sequel, like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) was almost Escher-esque in its design. It had no beginning and no end, and, of course, everyone knew all about it. > … Italics in original I hope this isn’t paywalled, because it is hilarious doublespeak. 😃 Punchline: …Obama is still president to this day, which is why everything that goes wrong is his fault. But that will change soon. Donald Trump is here and can point this out. The rule of law is suffering from the people in charge of the government right now. Their pandemic response has not been all that could be hoped. It is a total disaster and an absolute fiasco, what is going on in the White House right now, or, as I guess we must refer to it, Obamagate. And everyone knew exactly what it was. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/77 "2020-05-14T14:39:09Z")
The link in **ThelmaLou** ’s last post didn’t work for me. [Fixed link](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/13/obamagate-was-worst-crime-ever-committed-here-is-what-it-was/) (hopefully). P.S. I must read the _Washington Post_ a lot, because I correctly guessed the author of the piece just from the title. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/78 "2020-05-14T15:20:01Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > No, I’m saying that if this shit is real, it probably got covered by a more reputable source. If _that_ source is not to be found, I’m saying I don’t trust _this_ source, which is one I’d never heard of before yesterday. > > So there’s no reason I should give them the benefit of the doubt. And the presence of two people on their masthead whose willingness to bend the truth I’m quite familiar with gives me even less reason. Yes, much of the Fake News is reported, at least in some form, by mainstream media anyway. If a Trumpist or patsy for Kremlin-Hannity-Infowars lies can’t find a better source than _[NeverHeardofIt.com](http://NeverHeardofIt.com)_ the whole story should be ignored. > [@](#): > > You realize your ad hominem is not a refutation, right? :smack: The idea that every lie from _[NeverHeardofIt.com](http://NeverHeardofIt.com)_ needs to be explicitly refuted is laughable. It plays into the hands of Kremlin and GOP if rational observers are expected to devote every waking hour to playing Whack-a-Mole with a never-ending series of falsehoods. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/79 "2020-05-14T16:31:58Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > No, I’m saying that if this shit is real, it probably got covered by a more reputable source. If _that_ source is not to be found, I’m saying I don’t trust _this_ source, which is one I’d never heard of before yesterday. > > So there’s no reason I should give them the benefit of the doubt. And the presence of two people on their masthead whose willingness to bend the truth I’m quite familiar with gives me even less reason. The problems in schools have been covered in the local news organizations; the link to Obama may be why the one in question was used. Your statement sounds equivalent to believing that, since the NYT and most media organizations did not mention Tara Reid’s allegations for three weeks after they were first reported by a right of center source, that is reason enough to doubt the story. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/80 "2020-05-14T16:34:11Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > The problems in schools have been covered in the local news organizations; the link to Obama may be why the one in question was used. > > Your statement sounds equivalent to believing that, since the NYT and most media organizations did not mention Tara Reid’s allegations for three weeks after they were first reported by a right of center source, that is reason enough to doubt the story. The link you presented didn’t actually offer any evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, only innuendo and rumor, AFAICT. In short, what specifically is alleged that Obama did wrong, and what specifically is the evidence of wrongdoing? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616/81 "2020-05-14T17:22:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The link you presented didn’t actually offer any evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, only innuendo and rumor, AFAICT. In short, what specifically is alleged that Obama did wrong, and what specifically is the evidence of wrongdoing? The new listing of people who requested unmasking of a US Person who was recorded talking to a foreign national is the “evidence” And the wrongness is apparently Government Officials using a legal, established process to request unmasking of a US person. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-obamagate/853616.md?page=5)