In Which Digby Is Right

Ken AshfordObama Opposition, Political ScandalsLeave a Comment

On the IRS scandal:

It's about taxes, the IRS and the Tea Party. We might as well put a white wig on Obama and call him King George. The excitement on the right over being "victimized" by Big Gummint this way is so palpable I'm afraid they're going to burst a vessel. 

Congress gave the IRS the nearly impossible task of deciding what constitutes "political activity", which was ridiculous to begin with, the IRS crudely messed with the crazy Tea Party and now we're all screwed. 

Heckuva job. 

I still don't think the IRS "scandal" is much of a scandal.  I think that whatever wrongdoing there was is easily defensible.  After all, these guys were supposed to be weeding out organizations that were engaged in political activity and the tea party group submissions were coming into the office by the truckload during that time period.  Every county, city, village, hamlet was forming a tea party organization — sometimes even competing tea party organizations in the same municipality.  So of course the IRS 501(c)(4) people are going to home in on that.

In any event, it doesn't look like the order came from on high, i.e., the White House.

Still, it's something that can be made mincemeat of, so mincemeat will be made, thus making it a "scandal" whether it deserves to be one or not.