More Than Thirty Days Later...

On May 16, Politico reported:

Democratic strategist James Carville had some good news for President Barack Obama amid three controversies: It will all be over in a month.

Carville, who helped guide former President Bill Clinton through crises, on Thursday described Benghazi and the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena The Associated Press phone records as non-stories to start with and he predicted the IRS scandal would fizzle out within a month.

“These guys are awfully frustrated right now,” Carville told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, referring to the GOP. “They’re taking the anger out, and I understand that. I think the White House has just go to live with this for 30 days, get the truth out and you know, just roll with the punches here. They’re down to swinging pretty wildly here."

The title of After Hope and Change still seems apt. More than a month has passed, and the controversies keep burning bright.

CNN reports:

A growing number of Americans believe that senior White House officials ordered the Internal Revenue Service to target conservative political groups, according to a new national poll.

And a CNN/ORC International survey released Tuesday morning also indicates that a majority of the public says the controversy, which involves increased IRS scrutiny of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, is very important to the nation.

AP reports:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington scrutinized the very first application from a tea party group seeking tax-exempt status - and dozens of others, including some requests that languished for more than a year without action, an IRS official has told congressional investigators.

Holly Paz, who until recently was a top deputy in the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, told congressional investigators she reviewed 20 to 30 applications after learning that field agents had stopped working on them. Her assertions contradict initial claims by the agency that a small group of agents working in an office in Cincinnati were solely responsible for mishandling the applications.

Paz, however, provided no evidence that senior IRS officials ordered agents to target conservative groups or that anyone in the Obama administration outside the IRS was involved.

Eliana Johnson writes at National Review Online:

Applications of pro-Israel groups for tax-exempt status are routinely routed to an antiterrorism unit within the Internal Revenue Service for additional screening, according to the testimony of a Cincinnati-based IRS agent.

Asked whether Jewish or pro-Israel applications are treated differently from other applications, Gary Muthert told House Oversight Committee investigators that they are considered “specialty cases” and that “probably” all are sent to an IRS unit that examines groups for potential terrorist ties.