"No." (Answer by Steven Miller, acting Commissioner of the IRS).

Whew!  That's a relief.

No problemo!

But it brings up one of the incidents in the Sacred Texts of Western Civilization (also known as the original 69 episodes of Star Trek).

Spock: "Captain, what can you say if you go to bed and the countryside is bare and when you wake up it is covered with snow?"

Kirk: "That is snowed last night."

Spock: "Exactly."

Mr. Miller of the IRS seems to be unaware of this method of thought.  He believes that one can draw no conclusion from a body of evidence.  As do his Democratic supporters on the House Committee on Ways and Means.  This must make their lives very bewildering - things happen but there is no cause and no intent behind the actions of people.  Apparently, for them, life consists of just random activity. 

The Republic would have been in real trouble if the Republicans - who are doing a great job in the hearings - had not won the House in 2010.  Because if the Democrats were in charge, it is clear from the hearing that no conclusion could be drawn by conservative groups being denied tax exempt status.

So, what happened?  So far, the president's fingers are not on this caper.  Perhaps that is through some labyrinthine process in the Chicago Way that protects the top people.

But very likely we are seeing something worse than orders from the top being carried out.  We are probably seeing an effort to advance the Leftist cause by breaking down the norms of impartial government.  This would be similar to the activities of the MSM where it is not necessary for there to be a conspiracy on how issues are covered or not covered because they all have the same motivation. 

After all, the IRS can hardly view with enthusiasm groups advocating limited government and lower taxes because they are part of large government, not just in the fact of their employment, but in the level of their compensation.  So by approving the tax exempt status of conservative groups they would be acting against their own interest, a significant part of which was the reelection of President Obama. 

We know that one of the objectives of the Leftist movement is delegitimizing the norms of republican government where all parties are treated equally.  As the president said when nominating Justice Sotomayor, he seeks judges, and by implication public officials, that have empathy for specific groups and issues, i.e., not impartiality.

Very likely, this was "working toward the president" in his project of transforming America, by the IRS in its area of operations.  If the IRS had gotten away with profiling conservative groups, that would have been an advance for the president's project and a further rollback of limited government of enumerated powers with impartial public officials implementing neutral rules for an independent citizenry.