Almost everything you hear and read in the media about the current IRS ‘scandal’ is based on deliberate falsification of basic facts. Some might call it lying.

Here’s a reasonably typical media-framing of the IRS lie, from the usually careful and accurate Economist, posted May 23: ‘Even before this month’s revelation that conservative political groups applying for 501(c)(4) status were being singled out for special scrutiny … ‘

You see this false framing of the IRS story across the media spectrum, from Infowars to ABC News and NBC News to the Economist to DemocracyNOW (the latter on May 24: ‘the scandal over the targeted vetting of right-wing groups …’). Even the usually reliable Wonkblog at the Washington Post doesn’t get the story right, apparently because it hasn’t read the relevant law.

An exception to this remarkable mental stampede in the wrong direction was Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker, May 14) who wondered, ‘Did the I.R.S. actually do anything wrong?’ His answer started to put the story in reasonable perspective, with a focus on tax law and political money: ‘ … the scandal isn’t what’s illegal – it’s what’s legal. It’s what society chooses not to punish that tells us most about the prevailing ethical […]