Nearly three years ago, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noticed a problem with Karl Rove's attack operation, American Crossroads. The group sought and received tax-exempt status from the IRS, but it was clearly a partisan political operation, not a "social welfare" group, raising vast sums from anonymous donors. The senator urged the tax agency to investigate whether Crossroads deserved the generous tax benefit.
Rove, who in 2005 accused Durbin of trying to kill American troops by criticizing George W. Bush, apparently holds a grudge.
Rove unloaded with both barrels on the Illinois Democrat, blasting him in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News and in a column in The Wall Street Journal. Rove is charging that Durbin's sending a letter in 2010 to Internal Revenue Service officials, asking them to investigate American Crossroads, was nothing less than a bid to "silence conservatives."
"What was going on is obvious: Mr. Durbin wanted the IRS to silence conservatives," Rove wrote. ... "[I]n the glare of public attention, using the IRS to cripple or destroy opponents looks corrupt. Abuse of power always is."
There's a near-constant strain of self-pity and victimization that underscores Rove's approach to politics, which makes this new argument rather predictable. Nevertheless, on the merits, the argument is also quite dumb.
I can appreciate why the IRS controversy offers Republican media personalities an attractive excuse for self-indulgence, settling old scores against perceived enemies, but neither Durbin nor any other Democratic officials tried to "silence" anyone. The entire line of attack is nonsense.
In 2010, Durbin saw Rove's group flouting a loophole in the tax law, taking advantage of a tax benefit it almost certainly was not entitled to. Durbin didn't say American Crossroads shouldn't exist, and certainly didn't argue that the attack operation lacks the right of free speech, but simply said the group did not deserve to be tax-exempt and asked the IRS to take a closer look. (It's unclear if the IRS acted on the request.)
If Rove wants to argue that his political group deserves to be tax-exempt, fine, let's have the debate. But that's not an argument the Republican pundit wants to have. Instead, it's better for fundraising and base-mobilization for Rove to use his media platform to complain, "Dick Durbin was mean to me three years ago."
It's misleading; it's based on a faulty premise; and it's kind of pathetic.
