GOP Shreds White House 'Cronyism,' 'Intimidation'

The GOP pulled no punches in lambasting the Obama administration over the series of scandals—ranging from the IRS to Benghazi and the AP—dogging it of late. On Benghazi, Mitch McConnell says he wants "the investigations to go forward," because clearly the White House "made up a tale here," and the IRS scandal "is just the most recent example" of a "culture of intimidation throughout the administration." Paul Ryan was yet more explicit, saying, “this is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree, and we're going to get to the bottom of this.” Worse, he continued, "as bad as this is, the person in charge of this bureaucratic snafu has now been put in charge of ObamaCare." For its part, the White House trotted out senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, who advised the GOP it "owe(d) Ambassador Rice an apology," because she was just repeating "what the intelligence community believed at the time." Elsewhere, on your Sunday showdown dial, as per Politico:

• AP CEO Gary Pruitt on DOJ subpoenas: "We don’t question their right to conduct these sort of investigations, we just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretively, so abusively ... that it is an unconstitutional act. It will hurt journalism. We are already seeing some impact."
• Bob Woodward on Benghazi: "This is not Watergate, but there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian. And that’s a very big problem. I think on the whole Benghazi thing. You look at those talking points and the initial draft by the CIA ... This is a business where you have to tell the truth and that did not happen here.”
• Donald Rumsfeld on military sex assaults: “It’s a terrible thing, there has to be zero tolerance. And it appears that something different’s going to have to be done, and I wish I knew what the answer was, I don’t." But higher-ups had “better really land all over people that are engaged in any kind of abuse of that nature,”

(More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)