The third reason for a special counsel is that the government has serious business to conduct, and the scandal circus on Capitol Hill is a terrible distraction. Oversight, so-called, is what we do these days instead of passing a budget, reforming the immigration system, or processing the countless government and judicial appointments awaiting confirmation. Handing off the I.R.S. problem to a special counsel and putting congressional hearings on hold would allow everyone, including journalists, to turn their attention to all that unfinished business.

In Keller's alternate universe, one nust assume, the GOP is not refusing to pass a budget, not blocking appointees, not filibustering every bill and not refusing to fund programs already on the books. In this universe, on the other hand, the only thing the scandals are distracting the GOP from doing more of is obstruction.

Well, whatever. It's not exactly breaking news that this White House, like any White House, isn't politically infallible. If the scandal is poor handling of the scandal, we are a very long way from the original claims, which are still being repeated every single second throughout conservative-land, that the administration has gotten caught deploying the IRS to destroy the First Amendment rights (which apparently includes the right not to pay taxes and to hide donors) of innocent activists who were minding their own business.

The ultimate howler here is that we are supposed to believe that IRS bureaucrats, in obedience to the "dog whistle" of the president's demonization of conservative groups' involvement in the 2012 presidential campaign, chose to ignore the groups that were actually involved in the campaign in a significant way, and instead go after small fry Tea Party organizations (who apparently could not express their views without a certificate of tax-exempt status), many undoubtedly operating in non-competitive states. This idea reflects the deeper delusion that the Tea Party Movement is perceived by Democrats as a deadly threat to their electoral prospects, instead of as the Democratic Party's very best friend, driving the GOP into extremism and political cul de sacs every day. You know, like the one we're all barreling down right now in inflating IRS stupidity in processing 501(c)(4) applications into the central issue of American politics (with the possible exception of Benghazi!).

But hey, forget all that: Lois Lerner (the same bureaucrat who came up with the brilliant idea of making this whole subject very public by planting a question about IRS "targeting" at a luncheon so that she could "apologize") is taking the Fifth! Crimes must have been committed! To hell with those portions of the Bill of Rights that don't involve the self-protection of Tea Folk! To hell with the law and logic! Down the rabbit hole we go, world without end!

If this is the best they got, 2014 just might pan out substantially better than expected --- for Democrats.

Gov. Rick Scott has signed an elections bill that allows more early voting, in an attempt to reverse some of the restrictions the Republican-controlled Legislature put in place in 2011...is a response to the ridicule Florida received in the days after President Barack Obama's re-election, when votes were still being counted in a few counties...some urban counties like Miami-Dade, Broward and Orange saw lines that stretched for hours.

Miami-Dade, in particular, has been blasted for not re-aligning its voting precincts with updated population data, resulting in some polling sites that were slammed and others largely empty. Other counties like Palm Beach complained that vendors botched up ballots and software...The bill, HB 7013, lets the State Department fine vendors $25,000 for voting-machine problems that don't get fixed.

...It also increases the allowable early voting hours, and goes from eight days to 14 days. The Legislature had reduced that early-voting window to one week in 2011, which some evidence has found decreased early-voting turnout last year -- particularly among minorities.

And it expands the locations for early voting from just election offices and city halls to include courthouses, civic centers, stadiums, convention centers, fairgrounds and government-owned senior and community centers.

"...With this election reform package, Florida has achieved what many of us thought at one time might be impossible: a huge improvement to our democratic process and a giant step forward for Florida voters," said Deirdre Macnab, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida.

...But Democrats and some voting-rights groups have been less-than-thrilled with the bill because it gives county election supervisors discretion in the number of hours of early voting they offer -- as much as 168 hours -- and whether or not to hold early voting on the Sunday before a general election. Some rural counties have said that Sunday is rarely used by voters, while it's a main get-out-the-vote day among minorities in more urban counties...

The Republicans' heavy-handed voter suppression may be backfiring with swing voters. Certainly the outrage about FL's long lines at the polls in 2012 -- 8 plus hours in some Miami precincts -- aren't helping the state GOP. Gov. Rick Scott seemed to be campaigning for poster boy for voter suppression before the election. Now he is all about expanding voter access, no doubt to save his political skin. He is running scared.

Looking toward 2014, polls taken in March by Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac University showing Gov. Scott running 8 and 6 points, respectively, behind likely Democratic candidate for FL Gov. Charlie Crist.

Whether Dems can beat Gov. Scott or not in 2014, leveraging voting reforms in key states is a critical concern for Democratic GOTV. Florida is not only a key swing state with the 3rd largest electoral vote bloc (29 e.v.'s, tied w/ NY) ; it's also a bellwether, having picked the winner in 12 out of the last 13 presidential elections (12 of the last 14, for those who believe the 2000 election was stolen). The DNC, major party contributors and progressives in general should gladly provide whatever help the Florida Democratic Party needs to take full advantage of the reforms.

Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton's second term, after the Monica Lewinsky story broke? During that time, Republicans became so consumed by their hatred of Clinton and their conviction that this event would bring him down that they convinced themselves the rest of the country was just as outraged by his behavior as they were. By the way, what was Clinton's lowest Gallup job-approval rating in his second term, throughout the travails of investigations and impeachment? It was 53 percent. The conservative echo machine had worked itself into such a frenzy, the GOP didn't realize that the outrage was largely confined to the ranks of those who never voted for Clinton anyway.

These days, the country is even more polarized, and the conservative echo chamber is louder than ever before....Although the Republican sharks are circling, at least so far, there isn't a trace of blood in the water. A new CNN/ORC survey of 923 Americans this past Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, pegged Obama's job-approval rating at 53 percent, up a statistically insignificant 2 points since their last poll, April 5-7, which was taken before the Benghazi, IRS, and AP-wiretap stories came to dominate the news and congressional hearing rooms...

In Gallup's tracking poll, Obama's average job-approval rating so far this year is 50 percent. For this past week, May 13-19, his average was 49 percent, the same as the week before. The most recent three-day moving average, through Sunday, May 19, was also 49 percent. Over the past two weeks, even as these three stories/scandals have dominated the news, they have had precisely zero effect on the president's job-approval numbers. His ratings are still bouncing around in the same narrow range they have been for weeks.

Cook acknowledges that "things could change" and the public might care more about the scandals later on. However, Cook notes that economists expect the economy to perk up at least a little in the second half of this year. Regarding the GOP's scandal-mongering, Cook observes:

One wonders how long Republicans are going to bark up this tree, perhaps the wrong tree, while they ignore their own party's problems, which were shown to be profound in the most recent elections. Clearly none of these recent issues has had a real impact on voters yet. Republicans seem to be betting everything on them, just as they did in 1998--about which even Newt Gingrich (who was House speaker that year) commented recently to NPR, "I think we overreached in '98."...Republicans and conservatives who are so consumed by these "scandals" should ask themselves why, despite wall-to-wall media attention and the constant focus inside the Beltway--some are even talking about grounds for impeachment--Obama's job-approval needle hasn't moved.

It's a good question. But don't expect a coherent answer from leaders of a political party that prefers pandering to hatred and wallowing in self-delusion to addressing the economic priorities of middle-class Americans with credible reforms.

Just watch how this world Olympic-class "it's not really his fault except it really is" gymnastic logical summersault is performed:

"Obama the Uniter? Not Really",

...there's little question that Republicans in Congress have been driven to the ideological right over the past few years due in large part to a series of primary victories by conservative insurgents over incumbents viewed as insufficiently loyal to party principles.

But, Obama is still the president who pledged -- loudly and repeatedly -- to change how Washington works. That has not happened. The economic stimulus bill and the healthcare law passed on party line votes in his first term. The gun bill failed on party lines in his second term. And, with a series of scandals and investigations now mounting, it seems more likely that partisanship will grow rather than shrink in the coming months...

None of that is Obama's fault and there is nothing -- or virtually nothing -- he can do to change it. But, add it all up and you are left with one inescapable conclusion: The president who pledged to change Washington is almost certain to come up short on that promise.

Wow. I sure am glad Cillizza and Sullivan weren't writing in the early 60's. They probably would have evaluated Martin Luther King something like this:

Martin Luther King, Man of Peace? Not Really

...there's little question that segregationists have been driven even further to the ideological right over the past few years due in large part to the growing demands for equality ...But Martin Luther King is still the leader who pledged -- loudly and repeatedly -- to seek civil rights without violence.

That has not happened....A church in Birmingham has been bombed, civil rights workers have been murdered and John Kennedy has been assassinated.

None of that is King's fault and there is nothing -- or virtually nothing -- he can do to change it. But, add it all up and you are left with one inescapable conclusion: The leader who pledged to seek civil rights without violence is almost certain to come up short on that promise.

Does anybody except me think that this is just world class crazy? I sure do hope so.

How the Index works is by combining the two elements that I discussed in the two prevoius weeks' diaries: The House districts occupied by Republicans that have the most Democratic-friendly presidential results (and vice versa), and the districts where the incumbent members won the narrowest victories the year before. That way, it downplays members who had a close call (probably because they were running in open seats, without the benefit of incumbency) but who are likely to be protected by the blueness or redness of their districts, and it downplays members who are in "crossover" districts but have gotten entrenched and rarely attract top-tier competition. Instead, it casts the spotlight on those House members who fall into "perfect storm" territory of future vulnerability, of being in both difficult districts and having had a difficult election themselves.

Jarman has quite a bit to say about particular House races, and his insights are well worth a read, especially by those who want to more closely monitor the 2014 mid terms. As for vulnerable Republicans, he observes:

You'll notice that, compared with the Democratic table, there aren't a lot of vulnerable freshmen near the top of the list. (With 2012 winds blowing in a fairly Dem-friendly direction, Democrats won most of the close races in swing districts). In fact, once you get outside the top 10 or so, there really isn't that much to see on the list in terms of inviting targets; you start getting into the territory of guys like Scott Rigell and John Kline, who are largely unremarkable and who just perform largely in line with their district's leans ... but who are in districts that are Republican-leaning enough to protect them, absent a wave.

As you make your way down the list, a few names do pop out as outliers, and these are races that will no doubt be competitive. That includes Dem-leaning CA-21, where David Valadao's large victory margin was aided [by] Democrats getting saddled with a poor candidate; with a better Dem candidate, he'll face a tougher race, although in this mostly-Hispanic district, he'll also be helped by extra-large falloff in a non-presidential year. That also includes MN-06, where Michele Bachmann just gives you so much material to work with, so much so that even an R+10 district might not be enough to get her over the top.

Jarman's model doesn't yet provide a metric for predictions, since it's still early in the cycle. "...We'll need more information about how much of a wave is building," he adds "in order to determine how far up the table the waves will splash and how many people get taken down." But in his conclusion, Jarman does venture sort of an 'all other things being equal' guestimate: "As it stands right now, it looks like a rather status quo election, and I'd be surprised to see more than five or ten seats changing hands in either direction."

The wild cards which could improve the 2014 outlook for Dems going forward would be if reports of much-improved Democratic GOTV, technological advantage and significantly better candidates are accurate. But it's not likely we will have a clear fix on that admittedly optimistic scenario until after the votes are counted.

For a president who "has just weathered one of the worst weeks of his time in office," in the words of The Fix's Chris Cillizza, Obama's approval ratings are looking pretty decent in this latest CNN poll.

Derek Thompson has it at The Atlantic: "A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever."

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight post "New Audit Allegations Show Flawed Statistical Thinking" crunches I.R.S. auditing by income data and shows why Peggy Noonan is wrong to imply that conservatives are more likely to experience I.R.S. abuse.

Sarah Jones's "ABC's Jonathan Karl is an Alumnus of a Conservative Media Training Program" at PoliticusUSA raises questions about the cred of ABC's sr. political correspondent's "now infamous Benghazi email lie."

Sarah Kliff has a must-read Wonkblog post, "When Medicare launched, nobody had any clue whether it would work," which puts all of the current criticism of Obamacare into much-needed perspective. Kliff's post includes images of newspaper articles showing how attitudes toward Medicare evolved.

Michael Lind has an informative primer on "How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government" at Salon.com.

"The increase in African American turnout, rather than simple byproducts of the changing demographics of the electorate or Obama's popularity among Black voters, should be attributed to election reform legislation and enforcement over the last twenty years and aggressive targeted outreach by organizations in communities of color. Federal election reforms like the National Voter Registration Act of 1993(NVRA) or so-called "Motor Voter" law and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) as well as similar efforts at the state level reforms like same day registration and early voting, expanded and eased voter registration." So says Michael Jackson in his post, "Increased Voter Turnout in Communities of Color & the Myth of 'The Obama Effect'" at Demos Policy Shop.

Robert Kuttner's HuffPo post, "Needed: A Mass Movement for College Debt Relief," illuminates a strategy that could give Dems added support from young voters.

It appears that we have a new frontrunner in the "most useless opinion survey ever conducted" competition.

Rapoport's five "voting fights" include: voter i.d.; same-day registration; early voting; online registration and 'partisan wars.' Most readers of TDS probably have an idea about the first three of Rapoport's categories, which have been pretty well-covered here and elsewhere. But do read her post to get current. Regarding online registration, however, actual bipartisan cooperation (gasp) seems to have gained a foothold, Rapoport explains:

...Going into the year, 15 states had approved online registration and Virginia and West Virginia have since joined the ranks. (Not all of those states have implemented systems yet.) New Mexico also passed a law allowing voters to update their voter information online, a significant move towards full online registration. Both liberals and conservatives supported these measures.

Republicans like that the policy saves money and cuts down on errors in the voting rolls. Democrats like how the policy increases access for people who move or need to get signed up for the first time. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state policy, there are currently 12 states still considering measures. In Pennsylvania, where the legislators warred over voter ID, the online registration passed unanimously through the Senate. ...

With respect to 'partisan wars,' Rapoport is somewhat encouraged by other efforts to bridge gaps in interstate cooperation regarding interstate data sharing and more cooperation between local and state authorities to help insure voter eligibility. She adds that the difference between Republican and Democratic reforms is largely the difference between measures to shrink or expand the electorate, respectively.

Rapoport does not get into felon disenfranchisement, which is one of the GOP's most powerful means of voter suppression, with an estimated 5+ million, mostly African American citizens rendered ineligible to cast ballots in 2012 (there is a good Sentencing Project fact sheet on state laws here). It's a problem that deserves more coverage in the blogosphere, as well as the MSM.

At Talking Points Memo, Hunter Walker reports on "Ohio Republicans Push Law To Penalize Colleges For Helping Students Vote," which is one of the more blatantly partisan 'reforms' being pushed by Republicans. According to Walker,

Republicans in the Ohio Legislature are pushing a plan that could cost the state's public universities millions of dollars if they provide students with documents to help them register to vote. Backers of the bill describe it as intended to resolve discrepancies between residency requirements for tuition and voter registration, while Democrats and other opponents argue it is a blatant attempt at voter suppression in a crucial swing state.

"What the bill would do is penalize public universities for providing their students with the documents they need to vote," Daniel Tokaji, a professor and election law expert at Ohio State University told TPM. "It's a transparent effort at vote suppression -- about the most blatant and shameful we've seen in this state, which is saying quite a lot."

..."The way that they've written this bill makes it clear that its only purpose is to suppress student voting," he said. "What I'd say to the Republican Party is this is not only a shameful strategy, but it's a stupid strategy because, you know, the Republican Party already has a signifcant problem with young voters. They're on the verge of losing a generation of voters. Their path to victory is not to suppress the student vote, but to win the student vote."

Looking ahead to 2014, midterm political apathy remains a serious problem for Democrats, and a major asset for the Republicans. In addition, Democratic GOTV mobilizers will have to bring their 'A game' to thread through the latest round of election law reforms in the states, good and bad.

...President Obama may not prove to be the only one hurt by the eruption of controversies around the Benghazi attack, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records.

...Examining such questions is a necessary congressional function. But in our polarized era, oversight often becomes a partisan cudgel. And that process, which is already infecting the Benghazi inquiry, could bruise not only Obama but the Republicans driving the investigations as well.

These confrontations' most predictable effect will be to enrage the GOP base, which will strengthen the party factions most dubious about any compromises with Obama. In that way, these storms will likely weaken not only the president but also Republicans who believe the party must reboot to restore its competitiveness for the White House. "The base of the party is going to go ballistic on this, particularly the IRS [issue]," says Tom Davis, the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "It makes it harder for [GOP legislators] to go along with Obama on things in general."

...Even before these disclosures, congressional Republicans had dramatically escalated their resistance to Obama's second term. While the House is voting yet again this week to repeal the president's health care law, Senate Republicans have blocked consideration of Obama's nominees for Labor secretary and Environmental Protection Agency administrator. As in Clinton's era, the approaching cycle of investigation, media leak, and hearing-room confrontation over the IRS and Benghazi will deepen a sense of unstinting partisan conflict that will further narrow the space for serious legislative negotiations.

But the polarization is even worse now, owing to Obama derangement syndrome and tea party hubris. Brownstein adds:

Davis, now director of federal affairs at the Deloitte consulting firm, says one critical difference from the Clinton years is that many GOP leaders still consider deals with Obama on immigration and the debt ceiling to be in the party's self-interest. But to the extent Republicans believe scandal is bloodying Obama (and thus Democrats for 2014 and 2016), party leaders will face greater pressure not to buttress him with any policy agreements...

Prospects for any legislative reforms are seriously imperiled, Brownstein believes, and that hurts Obama's legacy prospects. However, concludes Brownstein, "Yet such a breakdown would also endanger the GOP's need to expand its unsustainably narrow electoral coalition. Republicans could find that stoking the flames of scandal may sear not only Obama's hopes but also their own."

The Washington Post has an editorial today that takes a clear stance on the deeply bogus nature of the current GOP attacks on Obama. The title - "Obama a new Nixon? Oh get serious" -- very accurately suggests the tone of the piece.

But, startlingly, directly below this title on the online Post's opinion page is a subtitle that profoundly alters and deeply undercuts its message

The subtitle says "But Obama's misdeeds aren't trivial"

Whoa, Hang on. Stop the clock. Wait a minute. That's a very nasty little allegation. It claims that Obama has actually committed "misdeeds." Misdeeds that "aren't trivial." That's a profoundly serious accusation and one that essentially says that there is indeed some degree of truth to the Republican attacks.

Now if that's what the editorial itself argues then there's nothing wrong with this subtitle. But, in fact, there is actually nothing in the editorial itself that supports this accusation.

Here's how the editorial frames the basic issue:

Nixon, in a series of crimes that collectively came to be known as Watergate, directed from the White House and Justice Department a concerted campaign against those he perceived as political enemies, in the process subverting the FBI, the IRS, other government agencies and the electoral process to his nefarious purposes. Mr. Obama has done nothing of the kind.

The Post editorial writers then review each issue in turn:

(1) "The Benghazi talking points scandal is no scandal whatsoever. ...there was no cover-up of the failure and no conspiracy to deceive the American people about what had happened."

(2) "The broad search of telephone records from the Associated Press in search of a government leaker seems, on all available evidence, to have been a dangerous and unjustified violation of normal Justice Department practice, ...[but] There's no reason to believe that Mr. Obama knew anything about it."

(3) "The IRS targeting conservative opponents of Mr. Obama for special scrutiny is horrifying and inexcusable....But there is so far no evidence of White House knowledge or instigation of the practice."

Well, the editorial does indeed say this:

...the president's unwillingness to condemn [the search of telephone records] is sadly consistent with his administration's record of damaging the First Amendment in its ill-advised pursuit of leakers.

O.K. But does that criticism actually merit a subhead that essentially contradicts the main thrust of the editorial and says "Let's be fair, there is indeed some merit to the Republican claims"?

Aside from this, there is only one other direct criticism of the president in the editorial:

For its part, the administration this week has seemed at times arrogant and at others defensive and flat-footed. When the second-term team took shape a few months ago, we worried about the preponderance of staff loyalists over people of independent stature. Mr. Obama's advisers are smart and hardworking, but when you think about his first-term circle -- including Robert M. Gates, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel and Timothy F. Geithner -- it's not clear this time around who might have the standing and the inclination to speak up when the president errs. Every second-term president needs that kind of help, even if he doesn't relish it.

Wow. Is this really all the Washington Post headline writers have to back up their nasty little smear of a subhead? Obama's frequently and openly stated hard-line policy on leaks? The fact that his second-term advisors might possibly not give good advice at some completely undetermined time in the future on some as yet completely undetermined issue? The absolutely damming fact that this week Obama "seemed at times arrogant and at others defensive and flat-footed?"

If the Washington Post's headline writers think that these things are "misdeeds," somebody better get these poor victims of a disastrously inadequate education a dictionary as quickly as possible; they clearly have absolutely no idea what the word "misdeeds" actually means and why it's an extremely vicious, dishonest and explosive accusation to level at Obama in the current highly charged situation.

In fact, as an alternative, I'll give you a real example of a damn "misdeed" - one that really "isn't trivial." It's when the headline writers at one of the most influential newspapers in the country are so appallingly and pathetically timid and unwilling to take a completely uncompromised position that they deliberately undermine the thrust of an major editorial because they are absolutely terrified of being accused of being insufficiently "evenhanded" and not automatically blaming Democrats or Obama equally with the GOP regardless of the actual facts.

Now that's a really serious "misdeed." One that really "isn't trivial." Maybe the Washington Post should start following Obama's example of how to deal with a scandal and start firing some people itself.

Greg Sargent argues persuasively that the I.R.S. does not quite "make the broader case against liberal governance that Republicans are trying to weave out of it."

This NYT editorial says GOP's scandal-mongering is all about distracting the public from their obstruction of needed economic reforms.

You're probably sick of the Republican's Benghazi nothing-burger. But if you can read just one mare article about on the topic, make it Chris Gentilviso's HuffPo post, "Republicans Altered Benghazi Emails, CBS News Report Claims."

Sen Ayotte doubles down against background checks, bets on "Blame Bloomberg" strategy to raise dough. 'American Future Fund,' reportedly a Koch Bros. political conduit, ponies up $550K to support her.

At Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, Geoffrey Skelley probes "How migration does -- or doesn't -- change how a state votes."

Here's an interesting approach to fighting suppression of young voters ---lower the voting age to 17, like they are getting ready to do in Illinois.

Jonathan Bernstein explains "Why Obama's Popularity Still Matters," even though he is a lame duck.

Nate Silver debunks the "second-term curse," noting that "some recent presidents have overcome the supposed curse and actually become more popular on average during their second terms."

For those who long for a tell-it-like-it-really-is president, Ezra Klein's "If Obama went Bulworth, here's what he'd say" is just the tonic.

Several months ago, the GOP announced that it would begin a concerted outreach program to groups of voters, including women, who consistently vote for Democrats by large margins. So last week, just in time for Mother's Day, House Republicans offered American mothers the "Working Families Flexibility Act." The more appropriately titled "More Work, Less Pay Act" would essentially eliminate overtime pay, putting working families on a collision course with rising prices at the grocery store and mounting costs of childcare, rent, and education.

That is not an agenda that works for working women. It is little wonder that 60 percent of women say Washington is not addressing the issues that are important to them. As one women in Denver told us a few months ago, "Oftentimes I worked 5 jobs, never saw the kids. They raised themselves. A majority of politicians don't understand."

While Washington politicians focus on solving crises of their own invention and dreaming up new ways to squeeze working people, our research has found that working women are intensely concerned about their own pocketbook economies--concerns that somehow eluded supporters of the "More Work, Less Pay Act."

Our most recent Democracy Corps survey found clear evidence that women want Washington to advance a serious working women's economic agenda. This agenda must address the cost of childcare, invest in education and job training, expand paid maternity and sick leave, and finally put resources toward enforcing pay equity.

If Republicans want to put forward policies that will actually work for working women, it should look more like this:

Jobs. Any working women's agenda must include a plan for good jobs that provide good incomes, employment security, family leave, and health and retirement benefits. Pay equity and raising the minimum wage are necessarily part of this agenda; the Economic Policy Institute estimates that women comprise 56 percent of those who would be directly affected by an increase in the minimum wage. The "good jobs" agenda must also include job training and education to afford women the opportunity to get and keep those good jobs.

Cost of living. The working women's agenda must address the cost of childcare. For middle-class families, the average cost of childcare is high--about 10 percent of monthly income. But for low-income families (a majority of which are headed by women), the average cost of childcare was 50 percent of monthly income in 2010. Addressing the cost of living also means expanding access to affordable healthcare, including preventive care for women.

Retirement security. Retirement security is critical for women because they live longer and because they are less likely to have jobs that provide pension and retirement benefits. Well over half (56 percent) of Medicare recipients are women. Older women are more likely than older men to pay for health care out of pocket and more likely to be low-income. For many of these women, Medicare is a necessity.

While few are defending the Internal Revenue Service for targeting some 300 conservative groups, there are two critical pieces of context missing from the conventional wisdom on the "scandal." First, at least from what we know so far, the groups were not targeted in a political vendetta -- but rather were executing a makeshift enforcement test (an ugly one, mind you) for IRS employees tasked with separating political groups not allowed to claim tax-exempt status, from bona fide social welfare organizations. Employees are given almost zero official guidance on how to do that, so they went after Tea Party groups because those seemed like they might be political. Keep in mind, the commissioner of the IRS at the time was a Bush appointee.

The second is that while this is the first time this kind of thing has become a national scandal, it's not the first time such activity has occurred...."I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way," California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. "I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I'm glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern."

The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church's tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. "Jesus [would say], 'Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,'" rector George Regas said from the dais.

Shouldn't Democrats insist, make that demand, loud, clear and relentlessly, that any probe of I.R.S. political activity also include an investigation of abuses against progressive organizations?

Seitz-Wald adds "And while All Saints came under the gun, conservative churches across the country were helping to mobilize voters for Bush with little oversight." A couple of conservative churches in Ohio were said to have "essentially campaigned for a Republican gubernatorial candidate...and even flew him on one of their planes." And then there is the harassment of the NAACP during he Bush administration:

And it wasn't just churches. In 2004, the IRS went after the NAACP, auditing the nation's oldest civil rights group after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization. "They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you," then-chairman Julian Bond said. "It's pretty obvious that the complainant was someone who doesn't believe George Bush should be criticized, and it's obvious of their response that the IRS believes this, too."

In a letter to the IRS, Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel, Pete Stark and John Conyers wrote: "It is obvious that the timing of this IRS examination is nothing more than an effort to intimidate the members of the NAACP, and the communities the organization represents, in their get-out-the-vote effort nationwide."

Greenpeace was also targeted by he I.R.S. under Bush, reports Seitz-Wald, at the behest of an organization heavily subsidized by Exxon Mobil Oil Co., which Greenpeace had labeled the "No. 1 climate criminal."

None of this is to argue that there should be no accountability for the latest I.R.S. abuses -- only that any probe and punishments should be scrupulously nonpartisan. Otherwise it's a partisan farce masquerading as concern about ethics.

Kilgore quotes the Politico tag team:

....Buy-in from all three D.C. stakeholders is an essential ingredient for a good old-fashioned Washington pile-on -- so get ready for bad stories and public scolding to pile up...Obama's aloof mien and holier-than-thou rhetoric have left him with little reservoir of good will, even among Democrats. And the press, after years of being accused of being soft on Obama while being berated by West Wing aides on matters big and small, now has every incentive to be as ruthless as can be.

They add that NYT columnist Maureen Down has joined the bash-Obama fest, as if she is the emblematic Democratic progressive, to which Kilgore dryly responds, "Yes, MoDo is your representative Democrat. When you've lost her, you've clearly lost the Blue States altogether."

The Politico tag team also trots out the "Anonymous Insider Democrat" to whine about Obama's lack of political courtship skills -- "He has never taken the Democratic chairs up to Camp David to have a drink or to have a discussion," no "flowers and candy" blah blah.

Kilgore observes that "...The new "narrative" of Obama being on the ropes is bringing back all sorts of stupid and discredited criticisms. "This town" has turned on him! That's all that matters." Allen/VandeHei also attribute Bush's miserable record to his failure to observe D.C.'s political etiquette, rather than his failed policies on a broad range of national issues.

The Politicos "come so close to self-parody that every sentence is like a pinata you could hit from any direction," notes Kilgore. "...Make no mistake: this is a declaration of war by elements of the Beltway Media who are determined to show us all they still have the power to "bring down a president," as they arrogantly used to say about Watergate, and that not only the GOP but the Breitbartian wingnuts have a new ally in the "Vetting" of Barack Obama."

Meanwhile, far, far from the beltway, out in the real world, the actual electorate's response to all the village hyper-ventillating can most accurately be described as a collective yawn, as Charlie Cook explains, quoted in the post below.

... At this point, the significance of each is more in the eye of the beholder. Liberals and Democrats tend to de-emphasize both affairs, while many conservatives and Republicans think that each rises to the level of impeachment. It will take time to know which end of this ridiculously broad spectrum of assessments proves to be more accurate.

...One wonders whether the same Republicans who are frothing over Benghazi would have been quite as vigilant had they been in Congress after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, 18 sailors, and three Army soldiers in the largest single-day loss of American military since Vietnam and the largest number of Marine Corps fatalities since the Battle of Iwo Jima. By the end of December 1983, hearings and investigations were complete, reports had been issued, and the tragic episode soon became history (other than to the families and friends of those lost). In today's political culture, such sad events have considerably longer shelf lives.

...Perhaps the best way to determine whether either (or both) of these stories is starting to resonate with the American people is to simply watch Obama's daily and weekly Gallup job-approval ratings. After all, this is the first presidency that will be covered from start to finish with daily public-opinion samplings. Since the beginning of March, the president's approval ratings each week have been between 47 and 51 percent, and between 48 and 50 percent for all but two weeks. For the week of May 6-12, with the last interviewing being conducted Sunday night, Obama's approval rating was at 49 percent, down a point from the previous week, and his disapproval was at 44 percent, the same as the week before.

According to the Gallup Organization, the average job-approval rating for presidents in their 18th quarter in office, covering the post-World War II period, was 51.3 percent. That's a little over a point higher than where Obama is right now. Bill Clinton had the highest job-approval rating at this point in his presidency over the past 50 years, with 57 percent. Ronald Reagan was at 55 percent, George W. Bush at 46 percent, and Richard Nixon at 45 percent. Nixon had been above 50 percent until early April, and then he began his gradual decline, never to recover.

If Obama were a stock, you could say he has a very narrow trading range; indeed, one can argue that he has had a higher floor and lower ceiling in terms of job approval than any other modern president. His bedrock support--particularly among minorities, youth, and liberals--keeps him from dropping below a certain level in all but the worst weeks. But the equally vehement opposition among conservatives and older white men puts a ceiling on how high Obama can go in even a great week.

Going forward, Cook suggests,

The most objective way to ascertain whether either or both of these stories have "legs" and are beginning to get traction with the public is to watch every Monday afternoon for the release of the Gallup approval rating for the previous week, ending the night before. Although you can look at the Gallup three-day moving average, those have a smaller sample size than the full week of interviewing and tend to be somewhat volatile. As long as Obama's job approval remains in that 47-to-51-percent range, particularly between 48 and 50 percent, it's safe to say that neither story is hurting him significantly, at least with the public. If you are going to look at other polls, take a gander at that poll's "trading range" for Obama over March and April, and see whether it drops below that range. Each pollster's methodology is a bit different, and each has its own idiosyncrasies, making comparisons between polls a little more iffy. It's always better to compare each poll with previous numbers from that specific pollster.

Cook adds that such distractions tend to burden second-term presidencies by taking away time and attention from more urgent problems. He could have also added that these distractions also help Republicans avoid acknowledging that the budget deficit they have been whining about for years as the mother-of-all-issues is now rapidly declining.