It only took four and a half years, but the liberal media finally found something to criticize President Obama for.
After former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw excoriated the administration on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday for using the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate political opponents, NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd said, "This story has more legs politically in 2014 than Benghazi" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHUCK TODD: [President Obama] had a chance on Friday afternoon. You know, this thing broke a lot earlier, this IRS agent. He had a healthcare event about 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon. He should have used, he had an opportunity to say something. I think the, they let Jay Carney's words speak. I thought they were very weak. It didn't seem like they had a sense of urgency about it, a real sense of outrage.
And then look at the reaction of the entire Democratic Party. Of course the Republican Party is jumping on this. They’re standing up for their, for members of their base constituency and, at the same time, beating up the IRS is always good politics. Why aren't there more Democrats jumping on this? This is outrageous no matter what political party you are, that an arm of the government, maybe it's a set of people just in one office but, mind you, that one office was put in charge of dealing with these 501c3s and 4s and things like that.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Chuck, why didn't the President say something Friday afternoon?
TODD: I don't know. I don’t know. Maybe they were distracted by Benghazi. Maybe they made the decision they didn’t want it to be about healthcare. You know, I raised this question. I said, “Where was the sense of outrage?” And the only pushback was, like, “Well, you know, Jay did, you know, Jay Carney spoke about this at the press briefing. He was pretty strong.”
I have to say it didn't sound very strong to me. I just, this is one of those, I don't know if the White House realizes. I think this story has more legs politically in 2014 than Benghazi.
Wow!
So I imagine you're asking yourself why prominent liberals - on MSNBC, no less! - are taking this position.
Is it because they're truly outraged by these revelations and can't restrain themselves even if it means damaging the President they helped get elected as well as Democrat chances to take back the House in 2014?
Or do they feel they were taken advantage of by this White House concerning the events in Benghazi last year and are therefore not feeling the loyalty they once did?
Maybe they're just afraid that there will be a quid pro quo when the Oval Office is occupied by a Republican and that then it will be them that will be so targeted?
Whatever the reason, it sure is nice to see journalists act like journalists for a change.
Let's see how long it will lasts.
