"Odd that there are only investigations into conservative groups breaking campaign finance laws. Sort of like the IRS only vetting conservative groups tax-exempt status."

Quoting mccullough the commenter in our conversation last night about the partisan-seeming judge in the Wisconsin John Doe investigation, Instapundit says: "The bureaucracy is a one-party state."

"Darrell Issa’s committee says Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights..."

"... but her attorney says she isn’t going down without a fight."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 22-17 on Friday that the embattled IRS official voluntarily waived her rights by reading an opening statement during a hearing last month on the agency’s tea party targeting scandal.

"Nerf footballs purchased for a team-building exercise but never used and currently stored in a filing cabinet."

From a list of things we bought for the IRS.

Drudge at his best: "Wanna Come to Russia?"

That links to a Guardian story with the far less ominous heading: "Edward Snowden: Russia offers to consider asylum request/Vladimir Putin's spokesman says any appeal for asylum from whistleblower who fled US will be looked at 'according to facts.'"

Drudge's attitude is shown by other links at the top right now.

Above Putin's image: "Democrats Love Gov't Surveillance -- As Long As It's Obama, Not Bush..." (which is about the same WaPo-Pew poll that we're talking about here).

At the top of the left-hand column is: "Plan B: In latenight announcement, Obama allows morning-after abortion pill for under-17s..." (which makes it look like Obama is trying to woo us over into women's issues), "UPDATE: Soldier Who Read Conservative Books Faces Charges..." (more political bias in the exercise of power), and "US Ambassador to Belgium 'Solicited Prostitutes, Including Minors': State Dept IG..." (the new scandal).

The middle column begins with 3 headlines about terrorism in airports, and then another story about  political bias in the exercise of power: "Audio: IRS agent tells pro-life group: 'Keep your faith to yourself'..."

The right-hand column is devoted to the NSA story, pairing a Republican — "Boehner: NSA Leaker a 'Traitor'..." — with a Democrat — "AL FRANKEN: 'There Are Certain Things Appropriate For Me To Know That Is Not Appropriate For Bad Guys To Know'..."

"If the NSA leak is a bid by Obama to gain sympathy, it's working."

Says Meade, just now. (Note to Althouse blog outsiders: Meade is my husband. He doesn't blog. He's a commenter. Sometimes he comments in the comments here, sometimes over at Isthmus, and sometimes not on the Internet at all, but on what we call the Neighborhoodnet, at least in the summer, when the windows are open and voices carry.)

We've been speculating about Obama's possible complicity in leaking the NSA story. To participate in this conspiracy theorizing — come on, you know you want to — you need to come up with reasons why Obama and his people would see a benefit to his political interests in releasing this story. We know that in the post-Benghazi period, the administration has dropped scandals on top of scandals. The IRS scandal was dumped on top of Benghazi, distractingly.

But letting out a national security secret? That's something that should never have come out, as opposed to something that was going to come out eventually (where the decision would be when — not whether — to let it out).

But the NSA program is also different in that — unlike Benghazi, IRS, etc. — it wasn't a screwup. It was quite intentional, and it's something they can and will defend. We're not going to hear the usual statements about doing a thorough investigation into how something like that could have happened and the need, going forward, to insure that it never happens again. It's an opportunity to talk about competence. This scandal/"scandal" requires us to focus on the most serious duty of government — national security — and a program that is carefully planned and implemented and (apparently) completely legal.

Now, libertarians and lefties are enraged, and we've been hearing a lot from them in the last few days. Consider whether this is just what Obama wants. Get Rand Paul over there with Glenn Greenwald and his crowd. Let them blow off steam. Meanwhile, the moderates, including many moderate conservatives, are gravitating toward Obama. The left and right extreme are peeling off together, going to their happy place where the fear of foreign terrorists goes numb when Our Own Government threatens Our Liberty.

But the vast middle is coalescing... around Obama... just as planned.

Discuss!

Some clarification about what the government does with the 3 billion phone records it collects every day.

I'm not saying the first guest on today's "Fox News Sunday," Rand Paul, wasn't sharp and interesting, but I really appreciated the knowledge and calm expertise that General Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA and the CIA (under Bush), brought to the table. (The boldface is mine.)

CHRIS WALLACE: General Hayden, let's talk first of all about the general reaction you have to Senator Paul. I'm going to get into specific issues with you. As a man who used to run these programs, how important and how effective have they been in keeping us safe and how do you feel when you hear Senator Paul talk about class action lawsuits to the Supreme Court, new congressional restrictions?

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER HEAD OF NSA AND CIA: Well, first of all, Chris, with regard to how effective they are, I think they're very effective. We had two presidents doing the same thing with regard to electronic surveillance. Now, that seems to me to suggest that these things do work. Now, with regard to what the senator said -- if I believed NSA was doing some of the things the senator fears they're doing, I would have been backstopping him during your first segment. He said we're trolling through millions of records. That's just simply not true. The government acquires records as business records from the telecom providers, but then doesn't go into that database without an arguable reason connected to terrorism to ask that database a question. If you don't have any link to that original predicate, terrorism, your phone records are never touched.

WALLACE: Well, let's get into that and let's talk a little bit -- and I know we're getting into kind of a sensitive area here about the tradecraft that you were involved with -- as especially the head of the NSA, but also the CIA. According to one estimate, the NSA is getting the phone records of 3 billion of our phone calls every day -- 3 billion phone calls every day. Two questions: one, how can you possibly process 3 billion records a day? And, secondly, why not just target, from the very beginning, the bad guys?

HAYDEN: Well -- well, first of all, you have to identify who are the bad guys. So, let's begin the acquisition. Three billions is a big number. Keep in mind, Chris, that our telecommunications providers do that every day on their own. So, it's not impossible to do. Now you've got the data stored. Here's the important part and this is the part that protects civil liberties and balances... security and our freedom.

You ask the database a question, but the question has to be related to terrorism. I'll give you a concrete example so this is very clear. So, you roll up something in Waziristan. You get a cell phone. It's the first time you've ever had that cell phone number. You know it's related to terrorism because of the pocket litter you've gotten in that operation. Here's how it works: you simply ask that database, hey, any of you phone numbers in there ever talked to this phone number in Waziristan? I mean, you're already going into the database with the predicate, with a probable cause, with an arguable reason why you're asking for the data.

WALLACE: I've been talking -- obviously, this has been the subject in Washington and across the country this week. People are concerned about this mountain of data that you have. OK. I mean, what you say sounds perfectly sensible. You know that there's a guy in Waziristan. You want to know who he's talking to in the United States. One, what do you do with all the records, the billions of records that you have on all of us law-abiding citizens and what's the potential for abuse with the fact that you have all of that stored in computers somewhere?

HAYDEN: First, to answer your question, what do we do with all of the other records? Nothing. All right?

WALLACE: You keep it, though.

HAYDEN: Of course, because -- I mean, you get the cell phone with that number six months from now you want to know the history of that number. When does the value of that information begin to age off? So, you do retain the information so that you can ask questions of it in the future. With regard to abuse, there are no records of abuse under President Bush, under President Obama.

Now, I was criticized because I theoretically didn't have enough oversight mechanisms, but no one accused us of abuse. President Obama has in some ways added incredible oversight mechanisms to this. Again, no abuse under either president.

WALLACE: ... Back in 2006, Senator Obama voted against your nomination to be CIA director because of your involvement in government programs. From what you know and I understand you've been on the outside, how much has he changed? He expanded, restricted these government surveillance programs that he inherited....

HAYDEN: Expanded in volume, changed the legal grounding for them a little bit, put it more under congressional authorization rather than the president's Article II powers and added a bit more oversight. But in terms of what NSA is doing, there is incredible continuity between the two presidents.

WALLACE: How do you mean he's expanded in volume?

HAYDEN: Well, it may just because we've gotten more of these records over time and with the amendment to the FISA Act in 2008, which Senator Obama finally voted for, NSA is actually empowered to do more things than I was empowered to do under President Bush's special authorization.

Now, obviously, there's worry about abuse, and the fact that we haven't seen "records of abuse" isn't that reassuring, especially when we're so aware of the abuse for political purposes within the IRS. That topic came up later in the show during the panel discussion:

WALLACE: Well, Bill, as someone who I suspect thinks that these surveillance programs are a necessary part of the war on terror, do you worry that all the leaks, all the disclosures this week are going to create some sort of backlash?

BILL KRISTOL, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I do, particularly because they're coming into context of genuine abuses of government power, especially by the IRS. I think the big thing to remember is national security is different from internal management of the government. We're dealing with foreign terrorist threats here. And, secondly, apparently this program really does require court orders to go target particular individuals or groups. You can't just then migrate through the whole database and data mine and say this looks suspicious. You need to say this is a group in Waziristan. Let's see who they're talking to. And if they're talking to me, you then have to go back to the court and get an order for me. That is not what the IRS did, obviously. Lois Lerner on her own decided let's target people who have Tea Party in there...

WALLACE: But you would agree that when Rand Paul says what he says about, you know, let's have specific targeting and let's not just Hoover off, vacuum up all of this information on law-abiding citizens, that certainly has at least a political appeal.

KRISTOL: Maybe. But honestly, I think the concern is Republicans are making a huge mistake. A, I think it's mischaracterizing what's happening. They're getting a lot of data because they don't want to have to go to Verizon and AT&T and everyone else each time they get a phone number. But they're not allowed to go into that data until they have a particular warrant signed off on by a judge, with some cause to suspect a foreigner of terrorism -- that is totally different from the IRS abuses, which I think are very serious. And I think it's very important for conservatives and Republicans to make that distinction....

"One of the criteria is to work independently and do research and make decisions based on your experience and education."

"Whereas in this case, I had no autonomy at all through the process,” Cincinnati IRS staffer Elizabeth Hofacre told the investigators from the House Oversight and Ways and Means committees. As The Hill reported it on Thursday (linked last night by Instapundit):

Hofacre’s handling of those cases, she said, was highly influenced by Carter Hull, an IRS lawyer in Washington.

Hofacre said that she integrated questions from Hull into her follow-ups with Tea Party groups, and that Hull had to approve the letters seeking more information that she sent out to those organizations. That process, she said, was both unusual and “demeaning.”

I wanted to see how the NYT covered this story. Using the NYT's own search engine, I got zero hits for "Carter Hull" and only one for "Elizabeth Hofacre," a May 17th article, "Confusion and Staff Troubles Rife at I.R.S. Office in Ohio." Obviously, the May 17th article is telling the story of the low-level people screwing up, and not even out of a political agenda:

The specialists, hunched over laptops on the office’s fourth floor, rarely discussed politics, one former supervisor said. Low-level employees in what many in the I.R.S. consider a backwater, they processed thousands of applications a year, mostly from charities like private schools or hospitals.

For months, the Tea Party cases sat on the desk of a lone specialist, who used “political sounding” criteria — words like “patriots,” “we the people” — as a way to search efficiently through the flood of applications for groups that might not qualify for exemptions, according to the I.R.S. inspector general. “Triage,” the agency’s acting chief described it.

Has the NYT ever explored any alternative version of the events? I use the search "I.R.S." in the time period of the last 7 days, and get some reports on the spending on conferences, a piece about a poll on what Americans think ("Americans were divided over whether blame for the scrutiny of conservative groups should extend to the Obama administration..."), and some things about GOP strategy ("While some in the G.O.P. aim to scar the Obama administration... "Some Republicans See I.R.S. Troubles as Means to a Big Goal: Tax Overhaul").  I'm not finding anything that varies from the original story of the confused, overworked staffers.

Here's the June 6th article showing the results of a NYT/CBS poll: "I.R.S. Targeting of Conservatives Wrong, Most Say in Poll."

But the public is divided along party lines when assigning the blame for the scrutiny of the Tea Party and other conservative groups. Over all, 4 in 10 (including two-thirds of Democrats) think the I.R.S. acted on its own in investigating the conservative groups while slightly more (including 7 in 10 Republicans) say the Obama administration was involved. Those following the scandal closely and Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than those who were not to say that the scrutiny was politically motivated.

What if they were following the scandal closely in the New York Times? Is that even possible?!

"Americans Think Officials Knew About IRS Political Targeting/Majority disapproves of the way Obama has handled the matter."

A new Gallup poll.

Americans generally see the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS as a serious problem, and they don't believe it was merely a function of rogue behavior at the local IRS branch responsible for processing the applications, but something top-ranking officials at the IRS or within the Obama administration were aware of. Importantly, independents join Republicans in expressing these concerns.

How damaging this will be for President Obama is still unclear, however. On the one hand, his overall job approval rating continues to register well above his rating on the IRS matter, suggesting that other issues matter more to Americans....

Or people just insist on liking Obama.

"Thank You for Data-Mining: The NSA's 'metadata' surveillance is legal and necessary."

Say the editors of the Wall Street Journal.

Someone leaked a classified three-page order from the special court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian newspaper, who is a committed anti-antiterror partisan....

I suspect it was someone who wanted to distract us from the IRS scandal (and other scandals) so that the scandal of the moment would be one that's about Bush. I supported Bush's war on terror and resisted the "committed anti-antiterror partisan[s]." It became very important to fight terrorism after 9/11, and one reason I decided to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 was that I thought it would be helpful for Democrats to be put in a position where they would need to endorse things Bush chose to do to protect us from terrorist attacks. This is what we are seeing now. It's also important not to violate constitutional rights, but questions of rights and national security need to be analyzed. Don't assume Glenn Greenwald has it right. He's an advocate for one side of a difficult argument.

Back to the WSJ:

The outrage this time seems to stem from the fact that the government is widely collecting call records, not merely those associated with a particular suspect or group. But this fear misunderstands how the program works. From what we know, the NSA runs algorithms over the call log database, searching for suspicious patterns over time.

Here's where the other Obama scandals come in. How do we know the government is dutifully concentrating on national security — fighting terrorists and not political enemies? That kind of mistrust matters, but it's not specific to the NSA program. It undermines everything government does. What would you like government to stop doing now that you can't trust it with anything?

If the NSA's version of a computer science department operates like the rest of FISA, the government is cautious to ensure that its searches are narrowly tailored and specific protocols are reviewed by FISA judges.

If... That's an important if, but that's not the focus of the criticism by people like Greenwald.

The real danger from this leak is the potential political overreaction....

"I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy."

"I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered."

Becky Gerritson of the Wetumpka Tea Party, testifying today before the House Ways and Means Committee about abuse by the IRS.

"I think we ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax where the average American can fill out taxes on postcard."

"Put down how much you earn, put down a deduction for charitable contributions, home mortgage and how much you owe. It ought to be a simple one-page postcard, and take the agents, the bureaucracy out of Washington and limit the power of government."

Said Ted Cruz, puzzlingly preserving the charitable deduction, which would require that somebody keeps making those determinations about which organizations count as charities for tax deduction purposes.

George Bush "demanded a level of accountability and candor that this president has not."

Jennifer Rubin, on today's "Fox News Sunday":

I think the question is whether the president is ever going to order his people to cooperate. Lois Lerner took the Fifth and was then put on [administrative leave].... But [Obama] has not sent out an order as George Bush did, in the Valerie Plame decision, I do not want anyone in this administration to refuse to cooperate. That cost some people in his administration dearly. But no one took the Fifth in that case. Karl Rove testified, Scooter Libby testified. He demanded a level of accountability and candor that this president has not. And I think that whole hide the ball mentality, and the president's unwillingness to push his people forward to give a complete story is going to hurt him as well.

Humanizing the IRS.

This latest effort at extending the outrage at the IRS scandal is — in my opinion — backfiring.

These nameless, faceless bureaucrats are subjected to inane activities that look like something from "The Office." It doesn't look like profligate spending. It looks like sad and misguided morale-boosting.

Don't make me empathize with the taxman, you hapless scandalmongers!

What am I doing?! Simultaneously empathizing with the taxman and the scandalmongers?

Finding everyone here far too human, I will return to the mountaintop retreat I call Cruel Neutrality.

"Americans are overly deferential to bureaucracy, but, in my observation, they are uniquely fearful of the state’s tax collectors..."

Mark Steyn writes:

I am an immigrant to this great land, and I love it, but I will make a small observation from my years in the United States which I hope won’t be taken the wrong way: Like citizens of almost all Western democracies in the 21st century, Americans are overly deferential to bureaucracy, but, in my observation, they are uniquely fearful of the state’s tax collectors to a degree I have never seen with Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in London or equivalent agencies in Paris, Ottawa, Rome, Canberra. The IRS has, in American terms, extraordinary powers.... Americans are fearless if some guy pulls some stunt in a shopping mall, but an IRS assault is brutal and unending. Many activists faded away, and the media began writing stories about how the Tea Party had peaked; they were over; they wouldn’t be a factor in 2012. And so it proved.... [T]he plan worked.

"American voters say 76 - 17 percent, including 63 - 30 percent among Democrats, that a special prosecutor should be appointed..."

"... to investigate charges the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today."

President Barack Obama gets a negative 45 - 49 percent job approval rating, compared to 48 - 45 percent positive in a May 1 survey... conducted before the IRS allegations surfaced....

Americans are divided 49 - 47 percent on whether Obama is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 - 37 percent, the last time Quinnipiac University asked the question September 1, 2011.

Support for an independent prosecutor to probe the IRS issue is 88 - 6 percent among Republicans and 78 - 17 percent among independent voters, 78 - 17 percent among men and 74 - 18 percent among women.

"There is overwhelming bipartisan support for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters apparently don't like the idea of Attorney General Eric Holder investigating the matter himself, perhaps because they don't exactly think highly of him. Holder gets a negative 23 - 39 percent job approval rating."

"This White House is so politicized that when it comes to a sort of a controversy like this, what they want to do is to get out a good story instead of getting out the real story."

David Gergen on "Face the Nation" today. (I've added italics that I hear in the audio.) Context (with my boldfacing):

BOB SCHIEFFER: David, you've seen a lot of controversies in your time in Washington. We had this IRS thing. We got the leaks investigation, all of the stuff going on. How do you think the White House has been handling it?

DAVID GERGEN (Harvard University): Not well, but I-- I do think it has to be put in context, Bob. Give them credit on one point and that is overall when you look back over the five years, this has been-- administration has been remarkably clean and-- and free of scandals and I think they do deserve credit for that. Having said that now that these events have come up, I-- I must say it's been a real surprise. We all think that the-- the Obama people do a superb job running a campaign but when it comes to running the government they can be so ham-fisted. It really sort of boggles the mind sometime. On these-- on these recent controversies, as you call them--and you know I have seen a lot of them--and they don't amount-- amount to Watergate, they don't amount to Iran-Contra. But they are important. They-- the government I think mishandled it in allowing these things to take place on the IRS front and allowing the things to take place with going after reporters. Then we came to the White House and how you communicate about this, I think-- you know, it's-- it's been a little stunning. I mean there's no-- they had to paraphrase in our world of journalism, what you need to do in the government when you got a bad set of facts on your hands you need to get them out-- you need to get the story out fast. But first you need to get it straight. And that's exactly what they haven't done. You know, they've had all these different conflicting stories and now we're into a third phase of this where we're not getting the answers. We don't know. I think right now the biggest thing they have to do: come clean. Tell us complete facts.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Michael Gerson:

MICHAEL GERSON (Washington Post): Well, I'd start by-- by reminding people that these are not second-term scandals, they're actually first-term scandals where the information on them was delayed until after the election for variety of reasons. So I don't know if that's successful or not successful in that-- in that political context. Clearly, they missed some classes in crisis management one-o-one. You're supposed to get information out before people even ask for it. You should have consistent explanations. But we need to remember two things: one of them is the Obama agenda was pretty much in trouble before the three scandals, if you look at what was going on at the time in budget negotiations, failure to pass gun control, or really overplaying their hand on-- on, you know, some other issues. So that's one thing. You know, this didn't create the problems. The second one is that messaging has limits here. You know communication-- sometimes you don't have a communications problem, sometimes you have a reality problem, okay. And we have an IRS that engaged in abuses and is stonewalling right now. And we have an attorney general that's deeply compromised and may have misled a congressional committee. I mean that's a serious set of accusations. These things are not going to be determined by what the White House--how it explains it. The facts are going to determine how this moves forward.

DAVID GERGEN: I agree with that. You know-- and my sense is-- Michael, I'll be curious about yours. My sense is that this White House is so politicized that when it comes to sort of a controversy like this what they want to do is to get out a good story instead of getting out the real story. And that that causes them problems. But if they just come with-- if they'd told us all the facts in the beginning on the IRS thing, I think they'd be in a lot less trouble right now.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, do you think the President has hurt himself? Have these things hurt the President?

MICHAEL GERSON: Well, we're going to see how much they hurt politically. We can't really judge right now. We-- we don't know. I think that they've hurt the President philosophically. He has a certain view of the role of government. It's a benevolent government to help the middle-class and to help people rise in-- on the ladder of opportunity. Right now-- you know I'll point out two figures. One of them, according to Pew, the reputation or trust in government is at historically low levels and the scandals contribute to that. The second one is by a recent number more than twenty-two percent-- twenty-two percent of people more than that want to keep the law want to repeal Obamacare. That's a huge gap.

DAVID GERGEN: Summing up, it's widened.

MICHAEL GERSON: Right. It has widened in-- in recent months. Now-- so I think the President-- that's a tough message to bring into a midterm election when your philosophy of government is really under question and it's just a tough thing for American liberalism. At-- at the same time the President has expanded the role and reach of government that-- that we've had a declining reputation of government in America. I think those things are at odds.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You heard Senator Coburn say he thinks that the attorney general should not be in charge of this review of the leaks and so forth. I-- I actually agree with him on that. What-- what do you think?

DAVID GERGEN: I-- I think an outside group I'm not-- I'm not sure why a special counsel is needed on-- on the question of-- of the leaks. I'm not sure that there are any criminal laws that have been violated here. It's simply been a failure to observe the guidelines that were already in place and some-- and I think an outside group to do that. Question of special counsel arises more in the IRS situation and who is actually going to get to the bottom of this? Because right now we don't-- I think-- I think Michael's right. There is this-- it's in effect a crude form of stonewalling is going on.

"The Giving Tree" — "Remember that book - written in the early 60's by Satanist, Anton LaVey?"

"The story follows the lives of a female apple tree and a male human who are able to communicate with each other; the racist kingdomist tree addresses the human as 'Boy' his entire life. In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, and eating her apples. However, as time passes the tree becomes mean, jealous, and stingy...."



ADDED: Reading that Meadepost, I made the association — for the first time — between the Xs on the eyes that signify death in the language of comics and the XX signifying the female in the world of chromosomes.

"A White House can powerfully shape other perceptions... For years the administration has conducted a concerted campaign to demonize Fox News..."

"... delegitimizing it as a news organization, even urging its ostracism," writes Charles Krauthammer.

Then (surprise!) its own Justice Department takes the unprecedented step of naming a Fox reporter as a co-conspirator in a leak case — when no reporter has ever been prosecuted for merely soliciting information — in order to invade his and Fox’s private and journalistic communications.

No one goes to jail for creating such a climate of intolerance. Nor is it a crime to incessantly claim that those who offer this president opposition and push-back — Republicans, tea partyers, Fox News, whoever dares resist the sycophantic thrill-up-my-leg media adulation — do so only for “politics,” power and pure partisanship, while the Dear Leader devotes himself exclusively to the nation, the middle class, the good and just.

The climate theory of Obama's responsibility. You don't need to actually connect anything to the President. You just show how he created a climate, and the underlings responded accordingly, as he can be said to know and intend that they would.

If you want to needle those who don't like this theory, you could call them climate skeptics.

The figurative use of the world "climate" goes back as far as 1661, according to the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary.

1661   J. Glanvill Vanity of Dogmatizing xxiii. 227   The larger Souls, that have travail'd the divers Climates of Opinions, are more cautious in their resolves....
1765   L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy VIII. i. 2   In this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible and insensible, gets vent....
1860   F. D. Huntington Christian Believing & Living vi. 105   Every moral climate here is more or less tainted, and grows pestilential if we linger in it too long....
2004   H. Kennedy Just Law (2005) xiii. 272   It is crucial that a climate of suspicion does not develop which creates reservations amongst citizens about voluntarily submitting to DNA intelligence screens.

Watch out for anthropogenic climate change! 

"Bachmann’s absurd claim of a vast IRS health database of 'sensitive, intimate' information."

WaPo's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler gives 4 Pinocchios to Michele Bachmann's stirring up of deep fears about big government.

The picture she has sketched is pretty frightening — that the “most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS” via a vast database....

Since the health care mandate is effectively a tax — most Americans will either need to have health insurance or pay a penalty — the IRS was given an important role in administering various tax credits and penalties that are part of the law....

[T]he official descriptions of the “Data Services Hub” show that it is not what would generally be considered “a database.” It will not actually store information, but will be used so that health exchanges, which are being creating [sic] for the purchase of health insurance, can ask questions about application information. The Hub will be built by the Department of Health and Human Services, with the IRS in a supporting role.

All right then... "official descriptions"... it's a "hub," not a database... IRS only in a "supporting role."

Kessler quotes congressional testimony from a "nonpartisan and independent" tax expert named Nina Olson who said this wasn't "an unprecedented expansion of IRS powers but rather an unprecedented expansion of IRS work." She said it was "my understanding... that we would get the information from insurers whether or not that taxpayer was covered, and essentially nothing else — the amount of the premium paid — and that would be it. Nothing about their state of health or anything like that."

 “The Affordable Care Act maintains strict privacy controls to safeguard personal information,” said Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Service. “The IRS will not have access to personal health information. Application for financial assistance will be part of applying for coverage on the Marketplace and will take place in near real time."

It's not a great time for feeling reassured by assertions about "strict... controls" within the IRS. Obviously, we have reason to be skeptical and to fear abuse of power. With health care so intricately interwoven with the tax authority, we have to worry. That doesn't justify politicians like Bachmann misstating the facts, however.

[Bachmann spokesman Dan Kotman] also pointed to a recent lawsuit, described in a news report as “a lurid but vague class action accuses corrupt and abusive IRS agents of stealing 10 million people’s medical records without a warrant — including ‘intimate medical records of every state judge in California.’”  The claims are interesting, but they are simply unproven allegations at this point. It is not clear what the allegations have to do with the health care law.

We need to keep the facts straight. There are things to fear, and that creates political opportunities to aggravate fear in all sorts of screwy ways. Those who oppose "big government" might think they can get away with a lot more inaccuracy. Just foment mistrust, and you'll win people to your side. Those who promote big government desperately need our trust and must allay our fears... or maybe they think all they need to do is make us see Bachmann and her ilk as liars and nutcases.

WaPo article "On IRS issue, senior White House aides were focused on shielding Obama" seems to be about throwing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler under the bus.

Here's the article.

[White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and other senior White House aides] agreed that it would be best not to share [news of an upcoming inspector general’s report on the Internal Revenue Service] with President Obama until the independent audit was completed and made public....

... Obama’s top aides were trying to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency....

But Ruemmler and McDonough’s careful plan for the IRS was upended on May 10, when Lois Lerner, a senior official at the agency, broke the news.... Senior White House officials were stunned to see the IRS trying to get ahead of its own story...

I don't know how much of this to believe, but the article strains to portray Ruemmler as narrowly legalistic:

Ruemmler views her mission strictly as advising Obama on the law and protecting executive branch prerogatives, colleagues and friends said. “She’s a lawyer’s lawyer,” said Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general in Obama’s first term...

Yet Ruemmler’s lawyerly focus sometimes conflicts with political imperatives....

In the IRS case, many prominent Washington lawyers say Ruemmler made the sensible legal call. She protected her client — Obama — by distancing him from a politically sensitive problem and ensuring that he could not be accused of meddling in an inquiry.

How "protected" is he from the criticism that he was out of touch and failing to protect us?

As counsel, Ruemmler is a regular presence in the Situation Room and the Oval Office, making legal judgments....

“I think she’s one of the most cool-headed people in the entire White House and does a lot to ensure that nobody gets themselves in trouble,” said [Stephanie] Cutter.... “she did the president a huge service by keeping it away from him until the IG report was final. That’s her modus operandi. . . . It makes everything that much cleaner.”

Much cleaner! Ruemmler is fastidious about keeping the President clean.

Associates say the way the IRS situation was handled fits with Ruemmler’s approach to making decisions: wary to act before knowing all the facts, but then decisive once they are clear.

“She’s very deliberate,” said Akin Gump lawyer John M. Dowd, a friend. “There’s no reason to go busting into it. . . . Even though it’s a hot subject and there’s going to be some political implications, to me you wait until you’ve got a work product in your hands.”

See how all these compliments are really blaming her for the President's being out of touch?

Unlike most senior White House aides, Ruemmler has no campaign experience. Although she has worked in Washington for years, as a prosecutor and as a litigation partner at Latham & Watkins, former colleagues said she showed little interest in politics.

So we're supposed to think that keeping the President insulated from knowledge that could be used against him wasn't political. It was the doings of a nonpolitical, legalistic lawyerly lawyer's lawyer.

Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis said Ruemmler lacks political and media savvy. He said she had “an obligation to give the president a heads-up and generally describe what might be coming down the track [on the IRS] so you can do crisis management planning.”

So now you see, her lack of political savvy led to something that wasn't good for the President politically. She was just so darned law-focused that she failed to meet an obligation. The article ends with 2 seeming defenses of Ruemmler, but they reinforce the theory that Obama knew nothing because Ruemmler was completely legalistic and not at all political:

1. David Plouffe said others gave political advice, and Obama "needs a top-flight lawyer who’s going to run a good process, and that’s what she’s done."

2. Beth Wilkinson (Washington lawyer and former Justice Department official) said:  “She stays in her lane, which people appreciate.... She really sees her role as the counsel to the president and to protect the presidency and provide legal advice. She doesn’t try to do other people’s jobs.”