Irate Republican Syndrome

Addicting Info made a good catch: Fox News, which has screamed that the IRS psedoscandal is, like, the single worst thing ever, was screaming a very different tune a couple of years ago, when they demanded that the IRS revoke the tax-exempt status of Media Matters.

Media Matters, I think one can fairly say, does not stump for particular candidates. It's a watchdog site devoted to ferreting out the lies and distortions of...well, much of time, of Fox News. Thus, to accuse Media Matters of having a political purpose is tantamount to admitting that Fox is a political organization, not a news organization.

AI also features a story on the liberal groups which received the same "harassing" inquiries from the IRS that hit the Tea Party groups.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

A statement by the IRS confirmed that, “It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” and that only a “minority” were selected by their names.

It is also important to point out that ever since 1913 it has been a requirement from Congress that the IRS review all organizations with tax-exempt status to see if a particular group may be abusing the status for private gain or political purposes. In 2012 there were 2,774 applications for these social welfare, tax-exempt groups as compared to 1,777 in 2011 and 1,741 in 2010. That surge in applications is rather substantial and seems to have been a red flag.