Sanity about the "IRS scandal"

Fueled by partisan hunger for scandal to tarnish the Obama administration, as well as Hillary Clinton's chances for 2016, Republicans are blowing this "IRS scandal" all out of proportion.

Yes, profiling -- whether it's racial or partisan political -- is considered unfair and wrong.   And it should have been better defined what groups they were targeting.   They definitely should have been scrutinizing groups that were applying for tax-exempt status as "promoting social welfare" and yet were running ads that were obviously aimed at one political party or another.

The problem was that they used certain words -- "Tea Party" and "patriot" -- to define who they would scrutinize.   But, in the past, Democratic groups have also gone over the line in using tax exempt funds for political ads -- and, in a different political climate, have been investigated as well.

So it's a legitimate practice to go after, but it cannot be partisan in practice.

Having said all that, let's keep this in perspective about what was actually done.  No group was denied status based on their name, unless investigation actually showed they were in the wrong in practice.   All it did was require an extra level of investigation, more forms to fill out, etc.   If they were clean, they passed the test.

Inconvenient, yes.   Perhaps intimidating.   But what really was lost?

The problem was not that the IRS targeted non-profit groups for additional investigation;  the problem is that the IRS bungled the job and made itself look bad.

Here's the tragedy of this circus:   (1)  The IRS had its dubious reputation for fairness further tarnished;  and (2)  It will now be even more difficult to investigate those organizations who are flauting the law against political activity by these 502(c)(4) groups.  

Ralph