OPINION - Exploitation of IRS 'Scandal' by GOP

"FL GOP chair:  Exploit IRS story for political gain" by Zachary Roth, Maddow Blog 6/7/2013

We're now almost a month since the original admission by the IRS that it targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny.  Since then, despite the strenuous efforts of Republican investigators, no evidence whatsoever has emerged to tie the White House to the targeting.

That means that if you're a Republican looking to profit from the story, you've got to keep it vague.  Suggest that the targeting reflects on Obama in some way, without quite saying how.  That's the approach taken by Lenny Curry, the chair of the Florida GOP, in this candid memo to his state's members of Congress, urging them to seize the "opportunity" offered by the story.  Curry writes:

You can employ the IRS scandal to conduct oversight of the legislative branch, scrutinizing the investigation and ensuring no stone is left unturned.  The Obama administration needs to be held accountable for its involvement.  As the National Journal’s Ron Fournier put it, “… [Obama] and his advisors face a credibility crisis” in midst of this “perfect storm of controversy.”  I encourage you to thoughtfully and methodically shine a light on this corrupted corner of government.

He adds:  “We need to play big, bold hardball now.  This is an opportunity where good politics and good policy intersect well.”

(Curry, remember, is the guy who compared purging voter rolls to stopping drunk drivers, and who acknowledged that his state's purge was kicking legitimate voters off the rolls, but said it should continue anyway.)

You see a similar approach from Republican members of Congress, who have warned darkly about an Obama administration "culture of intimidation," while carefully avoiding specifics about just how the President is implicated.

Also complicating Republican efforts to make political hay out of the story, Several of the tea party groups that received what they saw as burdensome requests for information from the IRS in fact had close ties to GOP politics.

Exhibit A on that: Karen Kenney, a southern California tea party activist who testified before Congress Tuesday about receiving letters from the IRS "that read like the chilling words from the 1950s: 'Are you now or have you ever been...'"  As we reported last month, Kenney ran in 2010 for an internal GOP position, and has spoken at least twice since 2011 at the San Fernando Valley Republican club, in her capacity as a local Tea Party leader.  So maybe not so surprising that the IRS would ask some questions when her group applies for non-political status.