"Scandalgate" Is The Big Scandal

It's ridiculous, getting worse, but it also doesn't matter Daily Kos is now calling it "Scandalnavia":

Good reporters like Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel aside, even Politico’s trademark triviality sometimes provides an important political service.

Case in point: Its hilarious “D.C. turns on Obama” piece last week, which marked the crest of Scandalmania and also helped explain polls that show Americans trust President Obama’s version of events when it comes to the Benghazi and IRS controversies. I expected polls to show people believe the president on these issues, but I’ll admit I was surprised to see his approval rating actually ticked up a bit despite the constant drumbeat of scandal. But it did — and that should force the media to look in the mirror, though it probably won’t.

...The GOP tipped its weak hand on the IRS scandal over the weekend, when top Republicans were forced to complain about a White House “culture of intimidation” rather than point to evidence that the White House directed (or even knew about) the Tea Party targeting. Not only Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell but Texas Sen. John Cornyn used the very same “culture of intimidation” talking points. The creative Peggy Noonan came up with the memorable notion that the GOP doesn’t need (and won’t find any) proof that the White House directed the IRS mess, because Obama was using a “dog whistle” to sic his pack of political hounds on his enemies.

...MSNBC’s Chris Hayes has taken to calling the past 10 days of media frenzy “Scandalgate,” making the point that the real scandal here is journalists conflating three very different issues — Benghazi, the IRS and the DOJ’s targeting journalists in its leak investigations — into one big, undifferentiated mass of … well, they don’t know what, except it’s gotta spell trouble for the president.

...What’s most disturbing, though, is that the paranoia and anger of the Tea Party base, as echoed by an intimidated, primary-averse GOP leadership, are taken seriously by Beltway journalists, who then lose their own ability to distinguish fact from right-wing fantasy. I keep thinking scandal fever has broken, but it’s not over yet. Still, these latest polls may make a few journalists nervous about insisting that they speak for the American people, and the American people are angry about scandals. They’re not, yet, and the Beltway’s insistence that the opposite is true just shows how “the town” doesn’t know much about the rest of the country.