So does anyone besides the Tea Party and political junkies actually care about the IRS "scandal"?

[Savannahmann]

10. Wishful thinking.

I'd love just to see this whole non-story die a forgotten death.

With this scandal, the IRS has lost it's main defense. The defense was simple, yes they're assholes who ruin people's lives who fail to pay taxes, but they're assholes who target people just based upon facts and do a job that has to be done. This scandal destroys that image and that defense. People care. That's why even some Democrats are saying that a Special Prosecutor is needed.

This scandal is bad, but it's going to get worse. When I've talked to people, most recently at a restaurant frequented by the dock workers, who are all Union, I've found something that folks are finding hard to believe. The idea that nobody knew what was going on, and those who did know, didn't report it to their superiors. People get fired for not reporting things to their bosses. People get fired all the time for not reporting things to their bosses. Lois Lerner got promoted for not reporting to her bosses, and nobody believes that.

So this scandal isn't going away, Benghazi is one that only political junkies can grasp. But this and the AP news reporters people can get, and they don't like it. What we should have done is announced it, and then fired everyone involved publicly. Now, we're left saying that nothing is happening, and the harder the people look, the more folks are going to take the fifth, which is absolutely their right, but it shows the average person out there that there really is something going on under the surface.

Politically speaking it almost certainly won't lead to President Obama's resignation/impeachment. But it does set the Rethugs up to take more seats in the Senate, and even picking up more seats in the House. It kills any chance of a Democratic Legislative Initiative making it through Congress. It puts us on the Legislative Defensive, especially if the Republicans can parlay this into six seats in the Senate, which is highly improbable, but hardly impossible. A full court press on this scandal puts a lot of things at risk, a weaker Democratic Senate is almost guaranteed. A stronger Republican House is equally probable.

We need a smart way out of this, and we don't have one. So expect it to keep up in the front parts of the Newspapers, and the special reports to continue at least once a week.