NEW YORK POST: Justice, Tea, and the AP.

At hearings yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, conservatives found themselves defending the press when they hammered away at Attorney General Eric Holder over the Justice Department’s secret gathering of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors.

Pity the AP didn’t show similar vigor when conservatives were hollering about their own mistreatment by overreaching government officials. That was roughly two years ago, when conservative groups complained the IRS was singling them out in its partisan treatment of their applications for tax-exempt status.

Now that the IRS has admitted guilt and the acting commissioner has resigned, the complaints are getting full coverage. But a Factiva search of news stories for the words “IRS” and “tea party” at the time the complaints were raised found only a handful of AP stories on the subject.

They were happy to be tools, until they found themselves treated with the respect that people who are happy to be tools tend to get.