Liberals and the Double-Standard. Again.

In order to understand the liberal double-standard, all one needs to do is imagine the current crop of liberal democrats reacting to exactly the same situation as is happening, but flip the sides.

Imagine, if you will, that it was discovered that the IRS during the Bush years had begun harassing any group that could be tied to liberal causes, demanding that in order to secure funding, they had to turn over donor records and answer a series of increasingly invasive questions that no one should have to answer. Imagine that any group that was deemed "liberal" by the IRS had their applications held up for months as answers to more and more deeply invasive questions are demanded of them, all while conservative groups get their applications fast-tracked.

Picture a congress who stone-walls the liberal groups who petition them, and tells them it's their own fault for having dared apply. Picture a group of stone-faced Republican congressmen sloughing off these concerns by suggesting that these liberal groups are "highly political" and that they're "just trying to hide how much money they're making", or even making the asinine statement that somehow being tax-exempt is the same as being funded by tax-payers (hello, Jim McDermott, tax-exempt means they get by on charitable donations, not tax dollars, idiot) and therefore heavy scrutiny is just routine. Imagine they're being told this while groups that openly advocate for George W. Bush see no delays whatsoever in receiving their tax-exempt status.

Because that's what happened yesterday, and what has been happening for the last four or five years, only in reverse. It's conservative groups that were held up, delayed, asked questions the IRS had no right to ask, and yesterday it was they who were told that the delays and questions were due to the groups' "highly political" nature, they who were told that their groups, unlike all those liberal tax-exempt groups, don't represent "the public good", and therefore it was their fault for all this scrutiny because they dared to apply.

Meanwhile it was the Democrats talking out of both sides of their mouth, both claiming that the actions of "a few rogue IRS agents" were deplorable, but that the conservative groups deserved them.

And that's one of THREE scandals to hit recently.

Now, the press has repeatedly acted as if there is no scandal here, and the other two aren't scandals, either (even if they're struggling mightily to justify the AP phone tapping). But think for a moment how the press reacted any time George W. Bush so much as sneezed. Think about the immediate reaction of the press during the Bush years whenever ANYTHING bad happened. 9/11? That's Bush's fault! (Maybe he even planned it!) Hurricane Katrina? It's Bush's fault that people weren't evacuated in time even though it's a state-level responsibility and the Louisiana governor actually told Bush that no help was needed and not to send anyone.

If a fly farted on the wall of a school room, the teacher would call it an example of failed Bush policies. The only difference is, she still would, and Bush hasn't been president in four and a half years!

If you truly believe Benghazi, for example, isn't Obama's fault, ask yourself, if it happened during the Bush years, would it be Bush's fault? Of course it would! Don't lie to yourself! Bush was at fault for EVERYTHING bad that happened.

Bush planned 9/11, Bush failed to capture the terrorists responsible, the war on terror was going badly, the economy stunk and so did the unemployment rate of 5.2%, taxes were too high and spending was out of control. All Bush's fault.

Benghazi, however, isn't Obama's fault, and neither was the BP oil spill (somehow that was Bush, too), Obama personally captured Osama bin Laden, and the fact that he waited for two weeks to give the order to proceed means nothing (same with the fact that it was the very enhanced interrogation techniques he derided that got the info on where he was), and Obama has killed at least as many civilians with his drone strikes as Bush's war ever did. Now, Obama has declared the war on terror "over", and he liked to claim Al Queda is "on the run", which is why he had to call Benghazi something other than a terrorist attack and had to pin blame on a clearly not responsible youtube video. After all, the only other option was to admit that Al Queda is far from "on the run". The economy is worse and joblessness is at all-time high. But hey, look, Obama just created 12,000 jobs! Forget that it was millions of jobs that were lost. Taxes are higher and spending is through the roof; Obama has spent more in his first term than Bush did in two.

...But that's not his fault. He's still a great president.

He's apparently so great a president that anything bad that happens in his term just has to be someone else's fault. Has to be. He never ordered the IRS to target conservative groups! It must have been rogue agents. He didn't tell the DOJ to monitor AP's phone records and pursue a criminal investigation of a reporter for the "crime" of doing his job just because he worked for Fox News! Even the Attorney General was unaware of that! And forget that his signature is on the order.

All you have to do is replace the names. Put Bush were it says Obama, et al. Now do you see how ridiculous Obama's defenders look? Do you think for one minute anyone would buy it if Bush had been caught in the same scandals currently plaguing Obama and tried to suggest that the first he heard of it was on the news? Do you think for one minute that he wouldn't be blamed for Benghazi, or even suggested to have planned it? Do you think for one minute that it wouldn't be said that as Commander in Chief, he's responsible for what his IRS and DOJ do?

You don't think it would be blown up into the story of the year if Bush's DOJ was caught targeting an MSNBC reporter for criminal prosecution for the "crime" of trying to get a good lede on a story? You don't think Bush would be raked over the coals if it was his IRS that was targeting groups like Organizing for Action or Media Matters for America (both of whom make more money in a day than the groups that were targeted do in a year, and are overtly political)? And I can tell you right now he'd be blamed for Benghazi 100%.

Are you starting to get a picture of why we keep talking about a double standard? For liberals, it's okay as long as a liberal does it. It's not okay if a conservative does it. Nothing is.