On the IRS Tea Party Scandal One Word of Advice

     Evidently the conservative groups for once have a righteous beef. Or so we're hearing anyway. Even reliable libs like Sargent are saying so.

     "The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday."

     "Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said."

    “That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association. “The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/10/conservatives-have-themselves-a-real-scandal-on-their-hands/

     The key is that if this is true, where did the word come to engage in this?

     "Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice."

      All good liberals are getting behind investigating it and "following this investigation anywhere it goes."

     "Like Kevin Drum and Steve Benen, I agree that this is serious business and absolutely should be investigated."

      "As Steve puts it:

Last year, a variety of conservative groups complained that the IRS was treating them unfairly, asking an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status, and as of today, those complaints were well grounded…The IRS is supposed to be even-handed, and in several cases, it seems clear that the agency was not. This is the sort of thing that costs officials their jobs.

     "Mitch McConnell is calling for an investigation. In purely political terms, this is right in the conservative sweet spot — the IRS, bullying, intimidation, political thuggery, etc. We hear that stuff regularly from the conservative media, of course, and the thundering about this one will be epic. But this time, it seems entirely justified. There should be an investigation – a real one – and we should all want to follow it wherever it goes."

     I guess we have to all fall in then right? Well.... I just don't know. I'd be pretty careful. Saying follow it wherever it goes is giving a blank check to the party of McCarthy, the party that impeached Bill Clinton over a private affair in the 90s and wasted a lot of the American people's resources and time in the 90s with Ken Starr's endless investigations and where Darrell Issa says a perfect world is where he launches a different investigation every week. The party still in the throes of Benghazi fixation.
 
    So I don't think you give away the store too quickly. At least let's actually hear more about what this was. I don't know though that you follow it anywhere it goes cause I can tell you where Darrell Issa and friends plan to take it; they sure won't want to accept that this was just some low level staffers in one particular office. They are going to want to go all the way to the top-the President-or failing the ability to do that- as close as they can go.

   To me, the answer then is to be very cautious. I mean if they impeached Clinton over an affair what will they do with something that has any relation to facts in the real world? So let's by all means have the facts come out and kudos to the IRS for being upfront about this. However, let's not accept the GOP Leviathan fantasies too unreservedly.