Washington Post: Majorities of Americans believe that the Internal Revenue Service deliberately harassed conservative groups by targeting them for special scrutiny and say that the Obama administration is trying to cover up important details about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans last year.Of course, the IRS/Tea Party controversy wasn’t deliberate — conservatives are just especially good at whining about their perpetual victimhood. But the polls findings suggest that although most believe the IRS focus on Tea Party groups was intentional, they’re cool with it. I’m not willing to read minds here, but I might speculate that a lot of people are wondering why TP groups get to masquerade as nonpolitical social welfare charities.They should be taxed as political entities and the fact that they’re not is the real scandal in all this.
But a new Washington Post-ABC News poll also finds that allegations of impropriety related to the controversies have yet to affect President Obama’s political standing.
The president’s approval rating, at 51 percent positive and 44 percent negative, has remained steady in the face of fresh disclosures about the IRS, the Benghazi attack and the Justice Department’s secret collection of telephone records of Associated Press journalists as part of a leak investigation.
A bare majority of Americans say they believe that Obama is focused on issues that are important to them personally; just 33 percent think so of congressional Republicans. Brighter assessments of the economy may be one reason that the president has been able to weather controversies. For the first time since the 100-day mark of Obama’s first term, most say they are optimistic about the direction of the economy. More than half, 56 percent, say the economy is on the mend, the most to say so in polls since 2009.
[photo by Glyn Lowe Photoworks]
