Allahpundit @ Hot Air:
Via Newsbusters, if you’ve got reporters now saying stuff like this on the air at Obama TV, you’ve got something. I’m pleasantly surprised that she named two different scandals as big deals, as there seems to be a developing strategy (on Twitter at least) among lefties to choose just one as the “real scandal” as a way of minimizing the rest. If that’s how this shakes out, the AP/DOJ showdown will quickly become the “real scandal,” partly because it’s legitimately troubling, partly because the media has a professional stake in it, and partly because it probably has the least amount of “legs” for Republicans as an electoral issue before the midterms. (Although don’t put it past some especially committed lefties to conclude that the real scandal here is, naturally, the GOP.) The flaw in that strategy, though, is that the IRS story simply won’t stop growing; pause here and take a gander at just the last 16 hours or so of our front page. This clusterfark may reach the point where it’s narrative-proof, even if the narrative involves beating O up over a different scandal in the name of limiting the damage.
Speaking of which, the IRS’s own narrative is likely to shift soon to “we agonized over what we were doing and came to realize it was wrong.” That’s a lie. According to HuffPo, which has seen the appendix to the forthcoming IG report, it was only when complaints from tea-party groups started trickling into the media last year — causing some “respectable” media outlets to laugh — that the agency started to clean up its act. To think, if only the DOJ had snooped on those reporters too to shut them up, there might be tea-party harassment ongoing to this day:
Looks like there may be an EPA scandel too!
@Randy:
EPA Targeted Conservatives Too
IRS kept shifting targets in tax-exempt groups scrutiny: report
More Flag terms: groups focused on making “America a better place to live.”, ‘Tea Party,’ “Patriot’ and ‘9/12’ “Government spending, Government debt, or taxes; Education of the public via advocacy/lobbying to ‘make America a better place to live;’ and Statements in the case file (that) criticize how the country is being run.” But then it changed again in January 2012 to cover “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement,” n May 2012, the criteria for scrutiny were revised again to cover a variety of tax-exempt groups “with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit),”
‘Special unit’ went after pro-Israel Jewish groups…
This is becoming an epidemic with agencies controlled by this administration.
White House Relies on Incompetence Defense as IRS, AP Scandals Grow
NBC Investigative Reporter: Admin Has History Of Intimidating Press
EXCLUSIVE: McConnell: IRS Revelations ‘Just The Beginning’
When it comes to using government agencies for political purposes, Nixon was a piker compared to Obama’s regime.