{"id":9877,"date":"2013-06-10T10:56:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T17:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9877"},"modified":"2013-06-10T10:56:04","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T17:56:04","slug":"bombshell-disclosure-that-tea-party-targeting-by-irs-conducted-mainly-by-gop-is-suppressed-by-fox-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9877","title":{"rendered":"Bombshell Disclosure That Tea Party Targeting By IRS Conducted Mainly By GOP Is Suppressed By Fox News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The truth about the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS continues to leak out, but not with much help from Fox News. For weeks now, Republicans in congress and the conservative media, led by Fox News, have been struggling to find links between the Cincinnati IRS office, where targeting was said to have occurred, and the White House. Their failure to turn up any such links has clearly frustrated them, resulting in their making embarrassing assertions about their “gut feelings”<\/em> and abandoning any pretense to engage in factual discourse.<\/p>\n

\"FalseThe latest revelation to cast doubt on the GOP’s scandal mongering is the disclosure by Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings who announced yesterday<\/a> that it is was a manager in the Cincinnati IRS office who instigated the Tea Party reviews. The manager also identified himself as a conservative Republican and insisted that the review policy was wholly contained in his office and did not involve the White House. He is the latest named source in the affair that has turned out to be a Republican. Previously, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Lois Lerner, the head of the agency’s Tax-Exempt Organizations division, were revealed to be Republicans hired by George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

With such disclosures it makes it difficult for informed citizens to conclude that there was any political chicanery orchestrated by the White House to disadvantage conservative groups. But it is also difficult to be informed when media such as Fox News deliberately suppresses key facts about the matter.<\/p>\n

After Rep. Cummings told CNN about the Cincinnati manager’s testimony, and GOP Committee Chairman Darrel Issa’s refusal to release the transcripts, Fox News reported only that Cummings thought the hearings should be wrapped up. In several segments spanning Fox & Friends and Happening Now, the Fox presentation of the story left out the key fact that the witness was another Republican and thus, not an Obama functionary. As I noted previously<\/a>, there has not been a single partisan Democrat identified at the IRS who had anything to do with the application reviews.<\/p>\n

The desperation of Fox News to prolong the season of pseudo-scandals is glaringly obvious. They can’t be bothered to report breaking news that disputes their predetermined biases. They also cannot allow guests to engage in fact-based discourse, so they rudely shout them down and then demand that their microphones be cut. That’s what happened when Democratic strategist Julian Epstein was interviewed by Fox bully and serial interrupter, Neil Cavuto:<\/p>\n