“Liberal” Greta Van Susteren interviewed Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last night and simply would not let him go without tarring President Obama in the so-called IRS scandal. Van Susteren didn’t have any evidence to connect President Obama but she repeatedly “asked” if we should believe him when he said he didn’t know about the issue until he read about it in media reports. When Cantor made it clear he didn’t have any evidence to show otherwise, she pushed him and pushed him until he finally agreed there are “unanswered questions.” But the only unanswered questions were the ones she made up. She didn’t point out that reports have indicated Obama did not know nor did she bring forth any information to suggest otherwise. Meanwhile, it just so happens that this morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell launched a new ad tying Obama to the scandal and likening him to Richard Nixon.
Although it’s pretty clear Cantor went on Van Susteren’s show, On The Record, last night to talk about education issues, she spent more than the first half of the discussion on President Obama. She began by asking if a special prosecutor should be appointed.
To be fair, Cantor was the one to first drag President Obama into the IRS talk. Calling the situation at the IRS “very, very troubling, “ he added, “I don’t care what party you’re affiliated with in America, you don’t expect that an incumbent president and his administration would use a neutral instrument like the tax enforcement agency, the IRS, to go about discriminating against political opponents. So it’s a serious matter.”
As I said before, there is absolutely no evidence tying President Obama to what happened at the IRS or that he was using the IRS for political purposes. But rather than point that out, Van Susteren helped push along the meme that just so happens to be a hot new right-wing narrative. She responded by asking for more accusations: “Just from the first thing you said, I’m curious: are you actually connecting the president to this scandal?”
Cantor didn’t want to go all the way there but he certainly pushed that door open and deliberately cast a shadow of suspicion on President Obama:
Well, I don’t know what he knew and when he knew it. So he’s got to come forward and lead on this. You know, he has given the impression that somehow he’s disconnected with what’s gone on at the IRS just like he’s now saying he’s disconnected with what’s going on in Benghazi, he’s disconnected with what’s going on in the DOJ as far as its investigation of the national security leak. It seems that he is disconnected with the leadership and lost focus in terms of what he should be doing as far as leading the country. So we’ve got to get to the bottom of this and I do think the president’s going to have to come forward and give the American people the answers that they deserve.
Van Susteren did note that Obama has said he didn’t know about the IRS matter “until about May 10th when he read about it in the news.” But, she quickly asked a “fair and balanced” question that made President Obama either a liar, an incompetent or both: “Number one, do you believe him on that? And number two, are you saying that that’s simply not doing the job?”
Cantor didn’t answer the loaded question. He said, “We can let the facts speak for themselves” and praised the work of the Congressional committees.
So Van Susteren pushed to nail him down on attacking the president. “But I’m trying to understand. Do you believe the president when he says he didn’t learn about it until about May 10th, any of the IRS behavior?” If you think Van Susteren seriously thought there was any chance Cantor might say he believed the president then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Instead, Cantor ducked the question. He called it an “appropriate” question but indicated he’d wait until Congress completes its inquiry.
Van Susteren pushed it again. “I take it though, I mean, whether you believe him or don’t believe him, that’s still on the table, is that what I understand? When he says he didn’t hear about it?”
Cantor replied, “I think there’s a lot of unanswered questions, still. If the president said that’s when he found out about it, I guess that’s the working assumption. But again, if there are people all around him that knew – and we don’t know the answers to that – that will raise additional questions. And I think this is what these committee hearings and investigations are about and the purpose that they’ll serve."
Van Susteren finally dropped the Obama line of attack then. But she continued with a suggestion that Eric Holder was culpable. “Do you have any reason to believe that the Attorney General of the United States was misleading Congress?” she "asked."
Seriously, If you are a Political entity trying to gain “tax-exempt” status, which is un-lawfull, you’re more likely to come under scrutiny.
My mother has been audited twice in her life. Both times were when she worked at a BANK. I’m only guessing that when you go from a job making x-amount of money to a job making more money, while simultaneously handling large amounts of cash, you will come under more scrutiny.
I don’t remember Congress attacking the IRS over the obvious targeting of Bank employees back when my mother was working at the Bank. Do you?
The IRS doing very simple profiling of potential tax cheats is a lot different than profiling ethnicities or religions.
In my book, that’s a prerogative reserved exclusively to God, perhaps extendable to the other two parts of the Trinity.