Fun from MSNBC’s early afternoon “news” bloc of programming via Noah Rothman. The logic is ironclad and inexorable: Doug Shulman, appointed IRS commissioner by Bush in March 2008, was so fiercely loyal to his Beltway Republican masters that he decided to risk his career to kneecap conservative insurgents’ nonprofits in 2010 … even though Bush had left office more than a year before and the GOP establishment he represented was widely loathed by pretty much everyone in America. Oh, and even though (again per Rothman) Shulman himself has donated to the DNC in the past. Say it with me, guys: This. Is. A. Republican. Scandal.

In the same spirit of half-assed spitballing/“news,” how’s this for an alternate theory: Shulman tacitly approved of the tea-party targeting because he was eager to prove himself a loyal soldier to a new Democratic administration that might have been suspicious of his Bush pedigree. After hearing tea partiers impugned a thousand times by Dem officials and liberal media outlets — none more so than MSNBC — maybe he got it in his head that singling out these right-wing would-be domestic terrorists was the patriotic (and career-furthering) thing to do. Slightly more plausible, yes? As theories go, I’d say it’s 51-percent-assed. Soon we’ll get to hear Shulman’s side of it when he’s inevitably subpoenaed by Darrell Issa’s committee. And, almost as inevitably, his testimony won’t be carried live by MSNBC.

Update: How embarrassing is this? Dude:

[email protected]thomasaroberts you really said @msnbc Bush appointed IRS commish may have targeted tea party groups because they made GOP look bad? — David Shuster (@DavidShuster) May 20, 2013