Rubio plays the fool - Updated

Well, I suppose Rubio's ridiculous demand will play well with the rubes:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Monday called on the IRS commisioner to resign in the wake of the agency's admission that staffers in the Cincinatti branch targeted conservative non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

You see, the well deluded base probably won't hear this on Fox News.

Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President Bush in 2008 and held by President Obama, left the agency in Nov. 9, 2012. Any pre-election misconduct would have had to occur on his watch. The current acting commissioner is Steven T. Miller -- a permanent replacement has not been nominated.

When quizzed on this small fact, Rubio's office responded that of course Shulman couldn't be responsible, he was just the actual commissioner. Clearly, Miller is still responsible because he was the deputy the whole time.

Pretty sure Rubio won't be blaming this highly placed bureaucrat either. [Via Steve M]

Lois G. Lerner has been selected as the director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service.

Chosen in December of 2005. Another Bush era appointee, so not guilty. I've also been wondering how many applications this division has to review in a year. Still not sure, but probably more than the 75 that were reviewed during the two years in question.

In this position, she will be responsible for administering and enforcing the tax laws that apply to more than 1.8 million organizations recognized by the IRS as exempt from tax.

Of course, not all of those are political front groups, but it does give us another clue about why the worker drones in that division may have been tempted to take shortcuts.

Update: Ed Kilgore has a good overview of psuedo-scandal fever and reminds BigMedia what their job is supposed to be.

So it would be nice if we could have a serious discussion of the abuse of tax exemptions to make it easier to pour obscene amounts of anonymous money into vicious and stupid campaign ads aimed at boosting the profits of the anonymous sources paying for them.

Of course, that will never happen because the same guys that should be investigated pour millions into their advertising revenue.