IRS: Taregtting Conservatives And Liberals

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IRS vs Bridgegate

I posted the difference in media coverage between the Chris Christie bridge scandal and the IRS targeting scandal.  I made the point that media coverage of the bridge scandal has dwarfed that of the IRS scandal in recent months.

In the comments nickgb called shenanigans base on the fact that the tails of a scandal are less covered than the beginnings of the scandal.

Full point.

However, elsewhere in the comments, it was pointed out that the IRS scandal may not have been truly a scandal based on the fact that liberal organizations were targeted along with conservative ones.

I went looking for data and found the graph below:

IRS TargettingWhen I read through the chart above I’m struck by two things:

1.  Most people still think that the opposite of “conservative” is “liberal”, not “progressive”.

2.  The first collection of terms numbers three.  The second collection of terms numbers only one.

So, admitting that the data is skewed, can we still find valuable information?

Conservative vs Progressive

Take just one group of applications from each “side”.  Further, take the most common one; conservative and progressive.

Each has the same number of flags – 8 and 7.  After that, the similarity ends.  The level of questioning and the approval rate are very divergent.

While it it true that both groups had applications flagged, they treatment of those two groups is clearly different.

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