NOAH ROTHMAN: ‘Phony scandals’ and an election year ‘demon’: Lois Lerner’s unconvincing defenders.

In fact, an objective assessment of the Republicans conduct over more the course of the 14 months since this scandal broke has been relatively apolitical, especially considering that the IRS is charged with executing a partisan vendetta against conservatives. By and large, members have avoided bombast and overreach in pursuit of the facts surrounding the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. The Republicans’ prudence in concert with the IRS’s improbable self-defense has resulted in a great majority of the country backing the GOP in this matter.

Republicans and Democrats, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the poor, the old and the young; according to a recent poll, the vast majority of the public across the political spectrum believe this matter deserves a thorough investigation – one which results in accountability.

Then you have President Barack Obama who joined Taylor in denouncing the “phony scandals” which plague his presidency. “It’s all geared towards the next election or ginning up a base,” he insisted. He and Taylor are speaking to the minority of the minority who are just partisan enough to convince themselves that it is the IRS who are the real victims here.

It sounds to me like it is the president and his allies who are in need an election year demon.

They seem to need a “demon” — an Emmanuel Goldstein — all the time, not just in election years.