TPM Editor’s Blog: Democrats’ Best Friends In The IRS Scandal

[DonViejo]

BRIAN BEUTLER MAY 16, 2013, 11:59 AM

After a pretty crappy few days, Democrats awoke to the nice surprise that Mitch McConnell would join Michele Bachmann at a press conference today, along with some tea partiers who were targeted (we are to believe inappropriately) by the IRS.

Why? Because Bachmann was likely to say something fringe and wacky like, say, that everyone keeps asking her why President Obama hasn’t been impeached. Which is exactly what she did.

You could hear the crunch of McConnell’s intestines turning to ice all across the capital.

In a way the IRS controversy presents the GOP with the same challenge they’ve faced at every political fulcrum for four years now: Can they harness the tea party’s energy without becoming subsumed by it?

What makes this one different is that the whole thing is playing out on terrain that’s favorable to GOP. It provides Republicans a rare crossover appeal opportunity. Nobody wants the IRS to be political. And if Republicans are able to walk the line between highlighting their own victimhood and standing against the malfeasance more generally, maybe they can benefit from the sympathy of their natural antagonists.

full article
http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/democrats_best_friends_in_the_irs_scandal.php?ref=fpblg