Two-thirds of American voters believe IRS targeting was part of a “high-level operation to punish political opponents,” according to a new Fox News poll, while only 23 percent think it was a mistake by a few low-level employees.
Even Democrats, by a seven percentage-point margin, are more likely to think the targeting was a punitive measure ordered by higher-ups.
In addition, most voters continue to believe the Obama administration knew about (40 percent) or was directly involved in (28 percent) the IRS treating conservative groups unfairly.
That’s little changed from last month when 37 percent thought the administration was aware of the operation and 29 percent thought it was behind it.
Plus, 78 percent want Congressional investigations into the matter to continue.
Meanwhile, however, The Big Three news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) seem to have already forgotten about the scandal. According to the Media Research Center, by May 24 these networks “seemed ready to move on” despite revelations about the agency’s waste of taxpayer money on conference training videos, which included a Star Trek spoof and line dance video.
The only coverage so far this week of the IRS imbroglio was when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. John Boehner about it on the June 11 Good Morning America.
When the IRS scandal first broke in May, even reliably liberal network reporters saw it as a real threat to President Obama and his political agenda. The fact that they have so quickly dropped it from the news agenda is just more evidence that the broadcast networks filter their so-called “news” through a partisan lens. After all, does anyone doubt that if an identical scandal had erupted during the Bush years, the networks would have essentially walked away after just a couple of weeks of heavy coverage?
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