By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--July 9, 2013
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Democrats are now aiming their anger at J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, whose audit in May helped make the controversy public. That audit focused on the targeting of groups that had "Tea Party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names. Democrats say that they examined the 298 applications reviewed by the inspector general, and that some of them were from liberal groups. But Mr. George's audit did not mention them. Mr. George's staff said he reviewed all the applications that the I.R.S. identified as potentially involving political groups, not just those from Tea Party groups. But the inspector concluded that only conservative groups got the extra scrutiny. "When you serve in this capacity, you have to make determinations that, on occasions, upset people," Mr. George said in a statement. "This obviously is one of those occasions."George cut to the chase, and that has Democrats upset. While the watchlist may have included an expansive list of words, in actual practice it was conservative groups who received the extra scrutiny. Now, a question for the media who are jumping on the "fizzle" talking point in the hope of helping to make this scandal go away. Why do you think anyone would take you seriously in your oh-so-self-important role as "government watchdog" when the only people you actually "hold accountable" are people who bring grievances against the government? Let anyone launch a criticism against this administration, and you hold it under a magnifying glass to see if you can find some way to disqualify it as a "scandal," and then, if you think you've got something, you attack the credibility of ordinary citizens who really have no power, on behalf of a government agency with enormous power and, thanks to you, virtually no accountability for how it uses it. Nice job, media. At least we know you're getting the talking points memos that let you know the preferred propaganda word of the day. Or are you just so un-original that you just copy each other all the time? The only thing fizzling here is the credibility of the news media. The IRS scandal, whether it was directed by politicians or is the normal M.O. of the agency itself, is very real.
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