Darrell Issa and the overblown scandals

[ErikJ]

Darrell Issa and the overblown scandals

By Dana Milbank, Friday, June 28, 9:50 AM

This is how a scandal implodes:

First, the head of the investigation overpromises. “This was a targeting of the president’s political enemies, effectively, and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn’t discovered until afterwards,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, said in May of the IRS targeting scandal. He later declared President Obama’s press secretary a “paid liar” for stating otherwise.

Next, facts emerge to undermine the investigator’s presuppositions. Documents released by Ways and Means committee Democrats this week show that the IRS, in addition to targeting tea party groups, also had “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) lists for groups using descriptors such as “progressive,” “health care legislation,” “medical marijuana,” “paying national debt” and “green energy.”

Finally, evidence surfaces that the investigator stacked the deck. Tuesday night, the Hill newspaper quoted a spokesman for Treasury’s inspector general, Russell George, saying the group was asked by Issa “to narrowly focus on tea party organizations.” The inspectors knew there were other terms, but “that was outside the scope of our audit.”

Certainly, something went badly wrong at the IRS that caused groups to be targeted because of ideology. But it’s nothing like the conspiracy Issa cooked up in which the president and his men supposedly used the tax authority to attack their political foes.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-darrell-issa-and-the-overblown-scandals/2013/06/28/a0b15884-e007-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html

[Thor_MN]

1. The political targeting was conducted by Issa.

Which is why he was so certain that it had happened. Conservatives have a fatal flaw, they believe that most people are just like themselves, they think they speak for the majority. Issa is very convinced that political targeting took place because that it what he did.

[Volaris]

2. Yep...

lol it occurs to me that if Teddy Roosevelt were still in the Republican Party, he would likely have put this clown in the political equivalant of a hospital already.

I know a lot of these guys really do believe what they preach, but Issa is a scam-artist, pure and simple.