The smackdown video above was released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Message: What IRS scandal? Not that the failure of Republicans, particularly Rep. Darrell Issa of California and the puppets in the right-wing media noise machine, will ever shut up about this no matter what is learned about the reality.

We've had months of "investigations" and allegations that there was a partisan effort by the IRS, coordinated by the White House, to target tea party organizations over their tax-exempt status. What have we learned? Democratic and independent groups were looked at in the IRS examination of tax status, not just tea party groups. None of the tea party groups were denied tax-exempt status. While bellyaching about the supposed partisan nature of the IRS's evaluation of these groups, Issa asked IRS Inspector General J. Russell George to confine himself to looking solely at conservative and tea party groups in his internal investigation into what happened.

As for Issa's claims that he would tie the "scandal" to the White House? Bupkis.

At a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday, senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer had sharp words for the "investigation":



"The allegation was, by many Republicans, that the White House was directing the IRS to target Tea Party groups," he said. "That was the allegation. And that has turned out to be completely false. There is no evidence to suggest that. And now it has turned out that the IRS was not just targeting conservative groups but also looking at a large number of progressive groups as well. So that changes the dynamic of what it was."

Issa warned us in November 2010, gloated actually, just before he became head of the House Oversight committee, that he would be overseeing seven investigatory hearings a week, 40 weeks a year. Many of those since then have been overblown, partisan affairs at best and cheap-shot smear jobs of President Obama at worst. All of it designed to capture the limelight.

Government should be held accountable. Scandals should be exposed. Reforms should be instituted where problems are uncovered. But using government authority and wasting taxpayer resources to launch baseless attacks for partisan gain and public attention are themselves deserving of some official probing. Perhaps Congressman Issa could focus that Klieg light he loves to wield in another direction—on himself.