Liberal operatives have launched an anti-Issa crusade

By Ed Lasky

Here we go again -- the politics of personal destruction. Liberal operatives have launched an assault on Congressman Darrell Issa (Republican Congressman) to try to silence him and put an end to the investigations he has started to reveal what the Obama administration has been up to the last two years.

Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan of Politico report:

Democrats are understandably obsessed with Darrell Issa -- he's built himself up as a one-man investigative machine aimed straight at the Obama presidency.

But a handful of liberal political operatives in California -- including a former Hillary Clinton hand - are taking their anti-Issa passion to a whole new level, launching a nonprofit group, a website and even paid media advertisements aimed at undermining and investigating the rabble-rousing chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

They say they're leaving no stone unturned in digging into Issa's personal and business history. This week, the group will reveal more than 100 pages about an investigation into a fire that burned down a building that housed his business in the early 1980s.

The launch of this group -- which calls itself The Third Lantern, and is naming the website the Issa Files -- is remarkable because it's wholly focused on the activities of one lawmaker who has no immediate plans to run for higher office. The purpose of this new group is to make public documents more public, make life difficult for Issa and sow seeds of doubt on his investigations.

They plan to run TV advertisements and other paid media in the future, saying they already have a "significant commitment" of cash. A spokesman for Issa, Kurt Bardella, dismissed the effort as a "misguided and distasteful smear campaign against Chairman Issa."

Bardella calls out the sheer hypocrisy behind the smear campaign by recalling that Barack Obama has made an appeal for more civility in politics. This is one more step in a campaign to quash Issa and his efforts to bring transparency to the operation of the executive branch. Before the formation of this group, the New Yorker had run a long article regarding Issa and his past. Now there will be two websites solely devoted to attacking Chairman Issa.

Why the fear ? Why the anger? Could it be that the Democrats know that the Obama administration has many skeletons buried over the last two years that are just waiting for someone with subpoena power to bring to the surface?

I have written about the promise that Darrell Issa's efforts on behalf of the taxpayers and citizens hold.

Now the Democrats are engaging in their own form of "wet work" -- trying to destroy the reputation of those who would seek the truth about Barack Obama and what he has done to this nation (see also Obama's own efforts against Inspectors General. They want to destroy those who question Barack Obama and chill those who may be tempted to do so in the future.

Is this the change Barack Obama promised us?