"The Scandals Are Falling Apart"

So says Ezra Klein.  Ah, but who predicted it before he did?  That's right!  You're welcome.

Ordinarily, I would not have been willing to go out on a limb, knowing that damaging information has a tendency to dribble out one leak at a time.  But, apart from the reasons detailed in Kline's piece, which is by far the best one I've read so far about the so-called "scandal trifecta" (OK, I'm the one who "so-called" it, but it's Preakness weekend here in Maryland, so forgive me), I had other reasons (to mix metaphors) to think that this particular media souffle would fall quickly.

First of these is the one quality of Republicbullies that always shines through everything else:  their rank and unapologetic hypocrisy.  They have no business complaining about politically-motivated conduct, especially the investigative kind:  they invented the art form, in the name of protecting the Republic.  History is filled with examples going back to Nixon and earlier, but be assured:  it didn't stop with Watergate.  There are examples here, here and here.  The latter is especially instructive: it shows that this trend went right through the Bush Administration, and that, to the extent that it existed in the Obama Administration at all, it involved liberal and conservative groups. 

Of course, the GOP never objects to liberal groups being targeted because, to them, freedom is the "freedom" to be a conservative, and nothing else.  But that doesn't even stopping them from calling out Eric Holder for conducting an investigation they authorized him to conduct!  And, in the process, they may have set back their own war on terror.

Second, to the extent that any of this is truly a scandal, the scandal is fully on them, for going beyond the manipulation of evidence to the manufacturing of it.  Want evidence of that?  Take a look.  For that matter, take another one.  As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, this is as much a press scandal as anything else, and the press should treat it that way.

But the real scandal?  Oh, you'll never here about that one from the Republicbullies.  It's the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that generated the explosion in so-called "social welfare" tax-exempt entities that are the worst kind of political fronts.  It's bad enough that some mainstream media criticism of it is starting to emerge.  Here are some examples from U.S. News & World Report and the Los Angeles Times, making the same case that liberal blogs are making.  This sort of criticism from their corporate flacks has already gotten the Republicbullies worried; they're speaking out in favor of their political tax shelters.  This is reason enough to worry that bullying might work once again, and intimidate the IRS from doing its job.

And that's precisely what will happen, as long as everyone follows the corporate media sideshow and fails to get involved, learn the facts, and fight like hell not just for truth, but for freedom itself.