It may be tempting to think that the current IRS scandal is nothing more than politics as usual. After all, hasn’t every administration had an enemies

list and used the IRS to intimidate people they didn’t like?

First, it isn’t true that every administration used the IRS against their political opponents. Richard Nixon did. That was Article Two of the

impeachment drawn up against him. Bill Clinton did. Just ask Joseph Farah of World Net Daily. But even Nixon and Clinton were more selective than what we

have seen so far in this scandal.

That, in fact, is the real issue to this scandal. Every day we are learning more and more about the IRS targeting of conservative groups. The IRS

subjected many to intrusive questions guaranteed to delay or deny them tax-exempt status. Others who already had 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(4) status were

audited. We are also learning that it wasn’t just one IRS office doing the targeting. It also now appears that some have been trying to cover it up the scandal.

It is also worth noting the political affiliation of those involved. The president is a Democrat. The Senators who wrote to the IRS urging scrutiny were

all Democrats. Even those at the IRS involved in the targeting were favorable to Democratic candidates. Tim Carney in an investigative piece in the Washington

Examiner looked at the campaign contributions from the IRS Cincinnati office. “In the 2012 election, every donation traceable to this office went to President

Obama or liberal Senator Sherrod Brown.”

Peggy Noonan is rightly concerned about a scandal she calls “systemic, ideological, and focused on political ends.” She asks: “What does it mean

when half the country—literally half the country—understands that the revenue-gathering arm of its federal government is politically corrupt, sees them as

targets, and will shoot at them if they try to raise their heads?”

I believe this scandal will have long-term effects. The IRS already had a poor public image. This scandal has made it so much worse.