On That IRS Scandal...

The IRS scandal should concern progressives and much as conservatives.

I'll be right back.

Politico has a story about the lost Lois Lerner emails. As with most media coverage on this scandal (and yes, it is a scandal--perhaps a scandal of the highest order!) it attempts to frame the story as a Republican obsession:

But this is only likely to further enrage Republicans, who are fuming over the matter and suspect Washington officials drove the selective scrutiny.

Much has been said on this scandal. In a 10% facetious/90% serious comment on Megan McArdle's blog, I wrote:

Given the history of this sordid affair--from the random and persistent auditing of conservative groups and individuals; the onerous filing process that seems only to have affected conservative groups; Lerner pleading the fifth; two years of Lerner's emails to outside groups disappearing; and the discovery of Lerner's ethnic gigolo's body in a dumpster two days after being outed as a Republican operative by David Corn dressed in drag--I think there is enough here for even Mr. Bayes himself to say, "There's inference, then there's the complete fraking obvious staring you in the face. What more do you need?!"

Which is to say that the indirect evidence is compounding strongly, if not definitively, to suggest that there is a real scandal here, and the IRS is involved in a massive cover up. The entire affair is scandalous, infuriation, disgusting, abhorrent, terrible--in essence, everything conservatives think of the federal government.*

Progressives, however, should be equally concerned, if not equally outraged. Consider this fact: The IRS lost an email. Not only an email, but two years' worth of emails! This presents two possibilities: Either the IRS and Lois Lerner intentionally destroyed incriminating evidence, or the IRS is the most incompetent assembly of individuals since the Three Stooges. Progressives can be proud of neither possibility.

If you're a progressive--if you believe in the fundamental sanctity of a strong federal government and robust regulatory state--neither possibility should be acceptable. A progressive should accept neither a criminal nor inept federal government; his ideology demands both an honest and competent governing apparatus. That a government agency could lose two years of emails--a feat once thought impossible--is astonishing--especially when it concerns the commissioner of that agency. It strains credibility.

Here are the facts: the IRS stands accused of singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny; Lois Lerner stands accused of coordinating with outside agencies and officials to share information on said groups and make the path to tax exempt-status as onerous as possible; all emails to outside agencies and individuals during the period in question are now missing (or, being less generous, presumed destroyed).

These are facts. No progressive who believes in a strong federal government can in good faith ignore both the accusations levied and the coincidental destruction of evidence as has been reported. There is more to this story than Republican outrage; Progressives, too, have a vested interest in this story and in figuring out what events transpired, and when, to bring us to our present state.

*To explain the comment further: I once saw a drag queen who looked the spitting image of David Corn. It was at a Ladies of the Eighties night in Portland, OR, and the Queen in Question sang a rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.