The IRS scandal doesn’t seem to be going away.
This week the Senate Finance Committee gets its turn, with members questioning Douglas Shulman, the Bush-appointed former IRS chief who was in charge when the tax-exemption scrutiny of Tea Party groups occurred.
A recent CNN/ORC poll shows that 54% believe the Congressional GOP’s reaction to the IRS scandal was appropriate, while only 42% think they are overreacting. Yet the same poll shows that President Obama’s approval rating has had a boost, rising to 53% compared with 47% back in March. “The president’s ratings are holding up reasonably well given what’s been happening here,” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank said. “If the economy continues to improve, he’ll be fine regardless of what happens with these various scandals.”
The Republicans will keep pursuing hearings and raising questions, Milbank predicted. [But] “I think the public’s appetite for congressional probes is very limited so I think if Republicans take it as a cue that they should have seven House committees going after President Obama right now, they are probably going to make a mistake.”
The president had a very difficult week last week.. But, said Milbank in his Washington Post column, “President Obama remains lucky in one crucial category: his opposition.”
If Republicans are “seen as being unfair and going over the top… people will get tired of that pretty quickly,’ Milbank said. “It doesn’t require an election–it requires some bad polls for people to know that they have to reverse course.”
Abby Borovitz