The May 20 front-page article “How the IRS seeded the clouds for a political deluge” buried inside the paper the following sentence: “Many liberal-leaning and nonpolitical groups were also caught up in the effort.”
Oh? The entire thrust of the Internal Revenue Service “scandal” being pushed by Republican and tea party groups is that President Obama had the IRS target them for special mistreatment because of their political leaning. If that were true, one would have expected that tax-exemption applications from left-leaning “social welfare organizations” would have sailed through the IRS at warp speed.
For the past week, I have read many articles online of similar problems encountered by progressive groups seeking 501(c)(4) status. But there has been far less about this in what the GOP and tea party groups like to call the “liberal lamestream media.”
The fact that applications from groups of all political stripes met with similar problems from the IRS belies the Republican narrative. Therefore, it belonged on the front page, not buried inside.
Henry Cohn, Gaithersburg
A long time ago, they used to practice journalism at the Kaplan Daily. Now, it's just easier to follow the herd and copy Rethuglican talking points.
