Oh heck, let’s talk about the IRS mess too while we’re at it
by digby
I wrote about Benghazi this morning and about the AP subpoenas this afternoon, so I might as well round this day of scandal out with a post about the IRS. But let’s recap a little first, shall we?
First, I think Benghazi is a huge pile of nothingness designed to create an atmosphere of scandal which they hope will carry over to Hillary Clinton’s as yet nonexistent run in 2016. It will likely end up the same way most of these bogus Clinton scandals do. Second, the AP scandal is, on the other hand, very real and an extension of the executive overreach we saw during the Bush administration. I certainly don’t claim that Bush was better on these issues, but I did hope that the Obama administration would be more circumspect. This is a bipartisan executive, constitutional and national security problem.
So now we have this IRS scandal which, from watching Fox anyway, is the really sexy one for the wingnuts. Why? Well, I think Josh Marshall nailed it:
Let’s assume for the moment that this plays out with some mix of poor judgment and perhaps bias at lower levels of the IRS but no direction from on high that would implicate the administration or top appointees themselves. The nature of this scandal – the government, particularly the IRS singling out and persecuting conservatives – appeals to the heart of the right-wing conspiracy-generating mindset.
If you wanted create a scandal to have maximal appeal to GOP base freakout, this is it. And it has the additional advantage of not creating the same sort of off-putting crazy as hitting other bugaboos beloved by base Republicans. It’s not about Obama’s ties to the Muslim brotherhood or his foreign birth. It’s about taxes, something everyone has an experience with and understands. And it’s at least rooted in something that’s true. Something really did happen. And it’s not good. It shouldn’t happen. It even has unexpected knock-on effects like the IRS’s supposed connection to the dreaded ‘Obamacare’.
That’s why you’re seeing Mitch McConnell go so full bore on this. He’s not particularly well-liked in his state and he’s not particularly well liked by Tea Parties or base Republicans. But now he can bang the drum on something that appeals deeply to these folks. He can now be with them cheek and jowl. And that is a very, very big deal. As can basically every other national Republican elected official. And again, all of this applies even if, as I assume, we learn that none of this stemmed from political hanky-panky from administration leaders.
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.
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