Why would he want to STOP the Tea Party and Republicans from eating themselves alive?I know how "it looks" Oldstyle and if I were on your side of the aisle and/or this were someone like President Bush, I would be thinking some of the same things you are speculating on, rest assured, even if they ended up, not being true....I may not have believed they were not true late in his Presidency, because I honestly was just so fet up...so, I am not trying to beat you up over the head on this...
I just see it from a different perspective than you, and am giving the administration, the benefit of the doubt. And this isn't to just give Obama a pass, this is because there was no real benefit for Obama to have Learner go out and squash the tea Party groups in 2012...
go out and give excess scrutiny towards maine stream conservative republican groups, maybe, but tea party groups? Groups who would have helped the Democrats by the division within the Republican party during primaries and seat elections?
I just don't see there being a benefit to Democrats and no one, no one at all in the White House was running against a''Presidential Tea Party Candidate''...so I don't see how it was in the President's best interest or of value, to his reelection... I think he's smarter than that...I don't think he would waste his time or the illegality, over something like extra scrutiny for tea party groups that mean nothing to his reelection...think about it, open your mind, "open your mind and explore the unknown" in my best Quato Voice (Total Recall)
It's possible someone else or many others are behind this extra scrutiny for tea partiers than Learner, or Learner did this all on her own for her own partisan reasons, which I agree seems like a real reach....
But there still is the possibility that she felt pressure to make certain these groups, who went from only being worth 5 billion dollars in an election cycle being spent by them,( the 501c4's), in the election of 2008, to now, with so many groups... a total of $300 BILLION dollars of political worth from these groups was spent by them in the 2012 election cycle...THAT'S a huge increase, a HUGE HUGE HUGE increase for the IRS to handle, and they or Learner, FOOLISHLY made up those guidelines to stream line their increased duties with no increase in staff levels....by mistake, out of negligence but not necessarily premeditated harm?
This does not mean that they did no wrong, because they did do wrong by singling these groups out for excessive scrutiny through their modified guidelines, but was it intentional and with malice from all of those Irs workers, or were they just overzealous in trying to accomplish a fraction of what needed to be done, and saw this as a "short cut"?
And would Learner, who reported to a staunch Republican, appointed by President Bush, REALLY risk her Boss finding out about this, or was he too behind it? None of this makes sense...
Guess we will find out....some day....
Obama wanted to STOP the Republican party from eating itself alive, sure.
Maybe the Democrats in office as well as the majority of Republicans in office, had reasons to squash the Tea Party..... But I do not believe they were a major factor in the Presidential Race of Romney vs. Obama, which is what President Obama had his focus on, his OWN re-election?
Hey, I could be wrong?
I would love to see Learner be given immunity and spill the beans....
or I would love to see the IRS crashed and lost emails be found on a server somewhere....
What I don't like is all the speculation, without some kind of evidence to support it,
or some kind of evidence SHOWING MALFEASANCE of illegal records erasing, and by whom, and when, and where and how, and then the why?
and then the prosecution of any premeditated criminal actions by those involved...
I'm not much in to this pontificating, and showmanship, and dog and pony shows of the supposed investigators, who are running this investigation through the right wing media....
It looks bad, it smells, and it is NOT in any way, the right way to run an investigation interested in finding the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth....it LOOKS like a political faux scandal the way these congressmen are acting and conducting their interrogations before the beloved cameras....it's IMMATURE....but the riht wing just eats it all up and licks their lips....
but that is not JUSTICE, and these republican congressmen show no interest in the TRUTH or Justice.....they are suppose to represent the Nation, including the people being interviewed....I've seen nothing remotely respectable in their dog and pony show, and childish actions.
That's a problem these republican congress critters could have avoided altogether, if they had taken an honest, and decent, and non partisan approach to finding out what happened....
