Darrell Issa blows smoke on IRS witch hunt

This is why we have an uninformed electorate. The Hill (no I'm not linking to their stenography) dutifully transcribes Issa's crackpot allegations about the his latest time wasting attempts to make a scandal out of the IRS asking GOP front groups to prove they're not really political PACs in disguise. They dutifully quote Issa's blathering:

"The indication is they were being directly ordered from Washington," Issa said, citing interviews with IRS workers in Cincinnati.

"This is a problem that was coordinated, in all likelihood, right out of Washington headquarters. We have subpoenaed documents that would support that," Issa said.

Get that. Once again, after having failed to find any testimony to prove the IRS erred in anything other using some lame shortcut algorithums to flag applications, this time for sure Issa claims he has the smoking gun. What The Hill fails to mention is in that very interview Candy Crowley proved the only smoke here is what Issa is blowing out of his ass. It's left to Think Progress to bring the context to Issa's false allegations.

“You don’t have that direct link,” Crowley continued. “You have the frontline agents going, yeah, we figured it was from Washington or I believe it was, but as of yet you don’t have that definitive, yeah, this guy called me and said, people, go look for tea party and patriot applications.” Issa claimed his investigation would eventually turn up direct evidence of his charges and described White House Press Secretary Jay Carney as a “paid liar” for claiming that Washington officials did not direct IRS agents.

Neither do our BigMedia insiders mention that the Inspector General’s report clearly stated, "...the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.”

Of course, the traffic baiting lede on all the BigMedia pieces is all about Issa calling the PressSec Jay Carney a paid liar. The only appropriate response to that comes from the twitter:

David Plouffe: Strong words from Mr Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance swindler.

A responsible media would be challenging Issa's loose grip on reality instead of promoting his blithering accusations as worthy of consideration. But scandal raises the ratings. Fact based reporting not so much. Besides stenography is easy. Checking facts is so much work.