White House Says Obama’s Whereabouts During Benghazi Terrorist Attack ‘Irrelevant’

Badgered: Obama Acts, But Republicans Unsatisfied (AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid controversies hammering the White House, named a temporary chief for the scandal-marred Internal Revenue Service Thursday and pressed Congress to approve new security money to prevent another Benghazi-style terrorist attack.

The efforts did little to satisfy Republicans, who see the controversies as an opportunity to derail Obama's second-term agenda. House Speaker John Boehner suggested the White House had violated the public's trust, and he promised to "stop at nothing" to hold the administration accountable.

"Nothing dissolves the bonds between the people and their government like the arrogance of power here in Washington," Boehner said. "And that's what the American people are seeing today from the Obama administration - remarkable arrogance."

The targeting of conservative political groups by the IRS and new questions about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year - along with the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records - have consumed the White House for nearly a week. Of the three controversies, the president's advisers see the IRS matter as the most likely to linger. At least three congressional committees are planning investigations into the agency that touches the lives of nearly every American.