The IRS scandal is an absolute fiasco, and we're already witnessing the media doing their level best to downplay its significance. Unfortunately, part of that concerted effort will include the attempt to shoehorn racial, religious, and ethnic victimology narratives into the mix.
Submitted for your consideration is a May 15 post on CNN's Global Public Square (GPS) blog by Sahar Aziz headlined "Muslims to Tea Party: Welcome to our world":
[w]hile some may see the case of Muslim organizations and Tea Party affiliated groups as different, the same principles are involved – the uneven application of the law and discriminatory treatment directed at a minority. In one case the minority is targeted for its faith, while in another they are targeted for their politics.
But something I find troubling is that for the largely white, conservative, anti-government Tea Partiers and their supporters it is apparently acceptable to target legal immigrants or first generation American Muslims in the name of national security, even as any singling out based on political affiliation is treated as an outrage.
Now, liberals have said that their groups were targeted as well, but they represent only 5 percent of the harassing audits executed by the IRS. Additionally, they weren’t singled out by words, like “ progressive” or “liberal.” As Rick Moran wrote of PJ Media wrote yesterday, “liberals are missing the point; it isn’t numbers, it’s the criteria used to single out applications for special scrutiny.”
In the case of Muslim – and liberal – organizations being targeted, it’s an outrage, and perhaps an investigation is warranted, yet were those organizations singled out by keywords on their forms? Were they asked about the contents of their prayers as Tea Party groups apparently have been?
What's more, the alleged targeting of Muslims organizations falls within the purview of national security, given how terrorist groups have often used non-profits like the Holy Land Foundation for financing terror operations, whereas the Tea Party is an example of grassroots activism. Even in that case, however, at issue were shady transactions going on at Holy Land years after it was authorized as a tax-deductible non-profit, not when it was an upstart organization seeking recognition from the IRS.
