Straw-man argument...

In Defense of the IRS, By Norm Ornstein...

A strong meme is developing among conservatives about the IRS, expressed most directly in the headline of a piece in the Washington Examiner by Tim Carney, "The IRS is Deeply Political and Very Democratic." The idea is that the IRS would by its very character and nature target conservatives and Republicans. And the Inspector General's report makes it clear that the key words used by agency employees to consider and screen the flood of applications for 501(c)4 status after the Citizens United decision focused on conservative groups and conservative oriented terms. But there is another reality here that should not be lost. If the IRS, or Obama Administration political officials, were intent on using the tax process to damage Republicans before the 2012 election, why did they go after a bunch of little guys-- tiny organizations without much funding-- while leaving the giants to run rampant all over the political field?...

See how he keeps moving the little cups around? In one sentence it's conservatives he's talking about, in the next it's Republicans. They are not the same thing.

The trick here is that we are not claiming "the IRS would by its very character and nature target conservatives and Republicans." We are claiming the IRS targeted conservatives, especially tea party conservatives.

Government employees/leftists have no deep quarrel with the "Republican giants," such as Karl Rove's American Crossroads GPS. Why? Because the Republican establishment has no real interest in shrinking government, they just want to run it themselves. Karl Rove is probably quite sincere when he deplores the bad effects of government bloat and waste, but at most he wants to trim a little flab. As long as it doesn't cost the Republicans any votes.

Tea partiers pose an existential threat to the Left. The Left has become government, and government has become a cancer feeding on the body politic. To propose returning the Federal government to what the founders designed is to kill the cancer. At least at the federal level.

Posted by John Weidner at May 17, 2013 9:45 AM