{"id":36988,"date":"2013-06-28T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=36988"},"modified":"2013-06-27T16:43:33","modified_gmt":"2013-06-27T21:43:33","slug":"deny-delay-destroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=36988","title":{"rendered":"Deny.  Delay.  Destroy."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was the Clinton playbook; the response to any PR threat to the President was a three-part cantrip:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?attachment_id=21243\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-21243\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-21243\" title=\"chanting_points_200px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/chanting_points_200px.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"152\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Deny <\/strong>that there ever was a problem.\u00a0 That was good enough for a lot of low-information voters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Delay <\/strong>any reckoning.\u00a0 If the Administration and its proxies in the media could create the sense that a story was &#8220;old news&#8221; and that we should &#8220;Mooooooove On&#8221;, it was a victory.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Destroy<\/strong> the messenger.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Obama Administration has polished the Clinton playbook to a fine sheen; in terms of teamwork in executing the three-part play, they&#8217;re like a NASCAR pit crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yeah &#8211; they&#8217;re in the &#8220;Deny&#8221; and &#8220;Delay&#8221; phase with the IRS scandal.\u00a0 And it&#8217;s working &#8211; at least among low-info Democrats, who are bleating &#8220;there&#8217;s no scandal&#8221; on cue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lately, the party denial-and-delay line is &#8220;Hey!\u00a0 The IRS targeted liberal groups, too!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The line depends on the consumer being too dense to know the difference between &#8220;examine some&#8230;&#8221; partisan groups, and &#8220;targeting an entire movement&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yeah; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2013\/jun\/27\/irs-auditor-reaffirms-conservatives-not-liberals-w\/\">it&#8217;s false<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Treasury Department\u2019s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) sent a letter Wednesday to congressional Democrats telling them that while several liberal groups may have gotten extra scrutiny, the IRS didn\u2019t necessarily target those \u2014 but it did do so for conservative groups.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTIGTA concluded that inappropriate criteria were used to identify potential political cases for extra scrutiny \u2014 specifically, the criteria listed in our audit report. From our audit work, we did not find evidence that the criteria you identified, labeled \u201cProgressives,\u201d were used by the IRS to select potential political cases during the 2010 to 2012 timeframe we audited,\u201d Inspector General J. Russell George said.<\/p>\n<p>He said that while 30 percent of groups that had the word \u201cprogressive\u201d in their name were given extra scrutiny, 100 percent of groups with \u201ctea party,\u201d \u201cpatriot\u201d or \u201c9\/12\u201d in their names were pulled out for strict scrutiny, which involved what the IRS since has said were invasive and inappropriate questions.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats have argued that the IRS\u2018 scrutiny of applications for tax-exempt status hit both ideological sides equally, which would cut at the GOP\u2019s argument that it was politically motivated. Instead, Democrats have said the scrutiny is the natural result of a jump in applications after campaign finance rules changed following the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in the Citizens United case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the whole thing.<\/p>\n<p>And <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/treasury-irs-targeted-292-tea-party-groups-just-6-progressive-groups\/article\/2532456\">no; it&#8217;s not even close<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was the Clinton playbook; the response to any PR threat to the President was a three-part cantrip: Deny that there ever was a problem.\u00a0 That was good enough for a lot of low-information voters. Delay any reckoning.\u00a0 If the Administration and its proxies in the media could create the sense that a story was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36988"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36992,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36988\/revisions\/36992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}