Crazies Offended by Being Called Crazy: Can't Take It? Don't Dish It.

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Tea Partiers, anti-tax zealots, and assorted other Troglodytes are shocked–shocked I tell you–by reports that former Internal revenue Service official Lois Lerner didn't like them. But wait–it gets worse. She called them names!!!! Awwwwww–poor babies.

And not just any names; Lerner called the Tea Party Republicans "crazies" and the people who troll on right-wing radio "assholes." I'm not seeing the problem here–sounds like straightforward description to me. Nonetheless, Rep. David Camp of Michigan said Lerner demonstrated "disgust with conservatives." Funny, I thought the First Amendment gave her the right to hold such views, but we'll come back to that. Others, of course, claim she "targeted" conservative groups to audit because of her politics. We'll come back to that as well.

First, how about some context? The IRS was under intense attack by the Tea Party, including many that wanted it shut down. If you were Lerner, might you too have thought a bunch of "crazies" were at the gates? Her comments stemmed from hearing a rightwing woman rave that "America was going down the tubes." She emailed a colleague about it, who told her that the standard line on rightwing talk radio was that "The US is through; too many foreigners sucking the teat; time to hunker down; buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end." Lerner's in context response was, "Great. Maybe we are through if there that many assholes." When told that the callers were more rabid still Lerner remarked, "So we don't need to worry about alien terrorists. It's our own crazies that will take us down." I couldn't agree more, but let's move on.

If the right is going to whine when it's called names, maybe it should STFU. Dear old Rush Limbaugh has called pro-choice advocates, "extremists" and the Surgeon General "obese" (said the fat man!), claimed that Democrats opposed voter ID because they want to preserve "cheating," castigated young people for having "a romantic attachment to civil rights and "emancipating people from oppression," liberally (pun intended) drops the term "feminazi," and lampooned liberals as "champions of ignorance." He's lame compared to Ann Coulter, who counsels we should "invade other countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," calls swing voters "idiots," says that soccer moms are "as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as they are to develop linear thinking," calls for a return to poll taxes, and accuses liberals and Democrats of treason. Give me a buck for every time the Tea Party uses the N-word to describe Barack Obama–and its members tend to misspell it on signs!–and I'll buy Fox News and fire these assholes.

The Crazy Right did this.

Do you want crazy? Trent Franks (MS) called President Obama "an enemy of humanity," Glen Urquhart (Tea Party candidate DE) thinks those wanting church/state separation are Nazis, Carl Paladino (governor candidate NY) thinks urban kids want to go to prison for their excellent facilities, and the NRA put a target on a map showing Gabby Giffords' home before she was nearly assassinated. Eight Planned Parenthood workers have been murdered since 1993 and there have been bombs at 41 clinics and arsons at 173. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, schools are like NRA firing ranges, and far-right ideologues have killed 34 people for political reasons since 9/11. Does anyone remember the bloodiest attack on US soil before 9/11? That would be Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City in 1995, a man who thought himself right–Far Right. So yeah, there are a whole lot of assholes out there and they're probably a bigger threat than Al Qaida.

Is anyone over the age (chronological or mental) of twelve surprised that the IRS (and FBI, ATF, DEA, etc.) is sometimes politically motivated? Google COINTELPRO and get back to me. Or is it okay if it's the left that's targeted? In my view, all agencies and (especially) banks and businesses ought to be scrutinized by the IRS, but you have to be a crazy not to think this stuff hasn't been politicized for decades. And the answer is always the same–have nothing to hide. Imagine the gall of the IRS to check on whether or not an organization was cheating on its taxes! Let's say it again: Awwwww! Poor babies!