Republican politicians tend to be vocal fans of law enforcement. Except of course when the Obama administration is the one enforcing the laws, and a Republican business owner is the one allegedly breaking them.
The latest such story, via Alyssa Rosenberg, is this: Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson Guitar, has become a cause celebre on right-wing talk radio after Gibson was raided by federal agents looking for illegally imported exotic woods. Last month's raid followed one in 2009; no charges have yet been filed but the cases are ongoing.
Now, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has invited Juszkiewicz as her guest at Obama's jobs speech, to make the point that, by enforcing laws inconvenient to Gibson Guitar, Obama is creating a bad environment for jobs.
Juszkiewicz is aided in his quest to become a martyr to the heavyhanded feds by the fact that the issues in the case are a bit arcane:
Four search warrants spell out federal suspicions that Gibson, for a second time, has violated the Lacey Act, a century-old law that bars imports of endangered species and was amended in 2008 to include plants as well as animals. The law also makes it illegal to import wood that was unlawfully exported under another country’s laws.
On June 27, a shipment containing 1,250 pieces of Indian ebony wood that agents determined was bound for Gibson’s Nashville factories was intercepted in Dallas, according to a warrant in court records.
The search warrant said the shipment was improperly labeled as finished or veneered wood, which is legal to export from India. Inside the boxes, however, agents found unfinished ebony wood, they said.
In India, it is illegal to export unfinished ebony.
So: According to a law passed in 2008, prior to the Obama presidency, it is illegal to import wood that was illegally exported from its country of origin. Gibson Guitar was found doing exactly that, and was raided for further evidence. And this, to the right, is evidence that Obama is somehow overreaching. By enforcing laws passed under George W. Bush. We're supposed to ignore that the Republican jobs plan is giving businesses anything they want, including rock-bottom taxes and the right to break laws, rather than actually ... creating jobs.