Does anyone think the President's mea culpa on the IRS thing was a little too hasty?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

That he should have just let the story play out a little before offering any assessment on it, positive or negative?

I just can't help but think of ACORN, where Congress did a knee-jerk defunding of it (promptly killing it) all based on a heavily edited video made by a bratty 20-something year old con artist. Or when Shirley Sherrod was hastily terminated after a selectively edited tape of a beautiful speech she made (falsely portraying her as a racist) was released by the not-quite-yet rotting corpse of Andrew Breitbart?

I don't know, I personally wish the President had held off on jumping the gun to apologize.

[Life Long Dem]

1. Everything was on a "if so" basis.

If it was this or that "then" it was outrageous.

[kentuck]

12. True.

That is the way I heard his comments also.

[EV_Ares]

2. Maybe but I think he felt with the huge storm of everything hitting the fan right now, he needed to

be on top of it & he basically did not commit to the fact the IRS employees had actually done what they were being accused of but he said if they did, there would be consequences.

I agree best to wait until facts but don't think he felt he could wait that long before saying something & the media is as bad as the republicans right now.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. True. Ultimately, the only one he really needs to be concerned about is the AP story.

That's the only one of the three stories where there may have been malfeasance somewhere.

Bengazi and IRS-gate are non-stories and non-scandals.

And not to brush the AP story aside, but strictly political, of the three it's probably the least likely to be exploited by Republicans due to their disdain of the media. Again, not brushing it aside.

[madokie]

16. Correction: The media is the republicons

[EV_Ares]

17. Yes & if it wasn't true it sure as hell is today, couldn't believe Chuck Todd in that Jay Carney

press conference, what an ass.

[madokie]

18. Chuck for some reason thinks he's cool

I got news for him and that is largely due to him I don't watch any msnbc at all. I can't stand that smirk he has on his ugly ass, the one that he thinks is his face.

[EV_Ares]

19. Same here but I have not watched Morning Joe or Todd for some time, he is one of those

who is out for himself only. David Gregory is much the same way.

[madokie]

20. Yup, two peas in a pod right there

[randome]

3. I thought so, too.

Although I didn't hear his statement, just the gist of it on DU and TPM.

Perhaps, as Life Long Dem says, his statements were mostly preceded with "If sos" and "thens", then it's not so bad.

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[MotherPetrie]

5. That's what he always does when given the chance to throw his own people to the wolves.

Unless they are his own political appointees.

[geek tragedy]

6. This wasn't a "mea culpa" since he had nothing to do with it nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. It sure sounded like it to NPR listeners.

I would have preferred; "The IRS should vigorously enforce laws which govern prevent social service organizations from becoming political operations, but I these rules should be enforced in a nonpartisan way. Tea Party groups should get the same scrutiny as FreedomWorks or the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation or Cato or American Crossroads, etc."

[ljm2002]

7. Yes, much too hasty IMO. n/t

[apples and oranges]

8. Yes, I do... but I'm not sure if it was strategy or a case of jumping the gun.

[CJCRANE]

9. As per previous posters, he said "if". That's a conditional statement

not an apology.

[John1956PA]

10. I think the President should have avoided the words "targeting" and "practices" in his remarks.

As I understand it, the President stated:

"This is pretty straightforward. If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it."

In my opinion, the Rethugs have framed the issue by using the loaded term "targeting." A fairer statement of the issue is that the Rethugs are accusing the IRS of subjecting certain 501(c)4 applications submitted by conservative groups to a level of scrutiny which was inordinately high. In my opinion, that accusation leads to the following two questions:

(1) Was the level of scrutiny, in fact, inordinately high? and

(2) Did the IRS select those applications for such scrutiny solely on the basis that they came from conservative groups?

In my opinion, the President's comments on such a relatively complicated issue should be carefully phrased and should not use the loaded term "targeting" which is imprecise, broad, and inflammatory.

[Enrique]

11. they are sounding different today

i heard a little of what Jay Carney said, he is being more measured today than Obama was yesterday

[MNBrewer]

13. N-dimensonal Jujitsu

or something. Look forward, not back. Hope. Change. He's got this. Right?

[librechik]

14. damn right! They need to be audited, just like AARP got audited.

Organizations with a political side ought to expect to get audited and should be told to shut ip if they complain. I learned this during the Bush administration, so it must be true.

[HiPointDem]

15. "Congress did a knee-jerk defunding of it" = not so. There was a pre-existing majority to defund,

they just needed some public justification.

The manufactured 'scandal' provided that.