President Barack Obama

Yet, despite Tea Party protests to members of Congress, who made inquiries of the IRS, the discrimination against groups with “Tea Party” and “Patriot” in their names continued, and was extended to groups whose proclaimed mission was to defend the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Literally for years this went on. Investigations were begun by the IRS, and the results reported to the Treasury Department.

But nothing was made public before the election of 2012.

This weekend we learned that the White House counsel was told this April about the IRS misconduct and the investigations, but she did not inform President Obama. He learned about it from news reports.

What we have here, it appears, is a government out of control and a president clueless about what is going on in that government.

And that is the best case. For it is difficult to believe the IRS could conduct a full-court press on Obama’s opponents, that IRS higher-ups knew about it, years ago, and that Treasury knew about it before the election—but the White House was kept in the dark about a scandal that could have derailed the Obama campaign.

But whatever Obama knew, he and his allies in Congress bear moral responsibility for denying these Tea Party folks for years their right to participate fully in the politics of their country.

For years, Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other Democrats have slandered and slurred Tea Party people as enemies of progress—smears echoed by their mainstream press allies.

Should we then be surprised that IRS bureaucrats, hearing this, thought they were doing what was right for America by slow-walking applications for tax exemptions from these same Tea Party folks?

Who demonized the Tea Party people? Who created the climate of contempt? Whoever did gave moral sanction to those IRS agents.

And the Spectator President is right in the vanguard.