The strange struggle to explain Lois Lerner’s missing email

It may not yet amount to the 18-minute erased taped of the Nixon/Watergate scandal, but it’s getting awfully close.

The “it,” of course, is the strange series of events that now results in the mystery of Lois Lerner’s missing email.

Reason.com, in a piece entitled “The IRS Won’t Say Why It Wiped Lois Lerner’s Blackberry After Congress Began Questioning Her,” recounts in a most convincing fashion the failures of the IRS to answer simple questions about this scandal, very much raising questions about who knew what when.

The result of any thoughtful American reading this can only be one of suspicion, likely foot-dragging and zero transparency reminiscent of the Nixon to Haldeman to Mitchell to Colson to Hunt shuffle.

For those who know their history, the Nixon White House did, in fact, use the IRS to spy on and punish political adversaries. It looks like the Obama White House may have done the same thing. It’s very important that we get to the bottom of this, not just for those who were harmed by Lerner and the IRS, but for those who might come under attack from this administration or any administration in the future.

If Team Obama has nothing to hide, it should instruct the IRS and all involved to put their cards on the table for Congress and all to see. But that ain’t happening. And that alone ought to scare good people into demanding answers.

Take a look at the Reason.com piece and see if you don’t arrive at the same conclusion as the writer: “There may be a reasonable explanation for all this. But if there is, the IRS has yet to provide it, and in fact has refused when asked to do so. Combined with all the other suspicious and convenient omissions, lapses, and losses related to this case, it does make one wonder if perhaps there isn’t a reasonable explanation to be offered.”