Counting the Broken Ties

Misunderstood
The Internal Revenue Service, according to an inspector general’s report, was not reacting to political pressure or ideology when it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny in evaluating requests for tax exemptions. It acted inappropriately because employees couldn't understand inadequate guidelines. (New York Times editorial, 5/16/2013)

Such guidelines which said to scrutinize conservative groups? No ideological issue there, huh?

The utter lack of curiosity by the Legitimate Media about the Obama Scandals (we are trademarking that one, too) is truly astounding. The same media, for example, which spilled endless ink over two fruitcakes like Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame is suddenly maxed out on Benghazi and the IRS. Everyday they confirm what conservatives say about a biased media.

Of course the real goal of Republicans - the Times tells - us is stopping Obama's agenda. Exactly.


Remote Control 
It is not even remotely possible that all this was an accident, a mistake. Again, only conservative groups were targeted, not liberal. It is not even remotely possible that only one IRS office was involved. Lois Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, was the person who finally acknowledged, under pressure of a looming investigative report, some of what the IRS was doing. She told reporters the actions were the work of "frontline people" in Cincinnati. But other offices were involved, including Washington. It is not even remotely possible the actions were the work of just a few agents. This was more systemic. It was an operation. The word was out: Get the Democratic Party's foes. It is not remotely possible nobody in the IRS knew what was going on until very recently. The Washington Post reported efforts to target the conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency by May 2012—far earlier than the agency had acknowledged. Reuters reported high-level IRS officials, including its chief counsel, knew in August 2011 about the targeting. (Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 4/16/2013)

Liberal astonishment that Republicans have jumped on the Obama Scandals(tm)  does not pass "the shoe on the other foot test." Would Bush's IRS targeting Media Matters raise the ire of Dems? Of course it would.


Back-to-Back
One tactic was to misrepresent the Benghazi attack, lest it undermine his narrative about taming terrorism. Does anyone think the administration’s purpose in manufacturing 12 iterations of the talking points was to make them more accurate? (George Will, Washington Post, 5/16/2013)

Four days after the IRS announced that it discriminated against conservative organizations, Carney said repeatedly in his daily briefing that, if true, the president would be outraged. If? By then, the IRS had not only admitted the grievous misconduct but apologized for it — and the president was speaking in the conditional. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 5/16/2013)

Conservatives have the brilliance of Will and Krauthammer. Liberals have Dionne and vanden Heuvel. We like our team's chances.