President Obama isn’t going to let the Republicans ‘politicize’ the IRS scandal and keep him from doing his job, according to Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications Dan Pfeiffer.
Pfeiffer appeared on many of the Sunday morning news shows this week, continually trying to downplay the IRS scandal that’s currently plaguing the Obama administration. And while the advisor admitted the IRS has “serious issues,” he also accused Republicans of making it into a bigger deal than it needs to be.
“This is the Republican playbook here, which is try — when they don’t have a positive agenda — try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations,” Pfeiffer told CBS‘s Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation.”
“We’re not going to let that distract us and the President from actually doing the people’s work and fighting for the middle class,” he added.
Schieffer pointed out that the Nixon administration used almost the exact same rhetoric when addressing the Watergate scandal, even though he said the IRS abuse of power doesn’t rank on the same level as Watergate. Pfeiffer stressed that the Obama administration finds the IRS situation unacceptable.
Throughout his appearances on the Sunday shows, Pfeiffer pointed the finger of blame at the Republicans, stressing that they were playing party politics and creating a ‘scandal’ where there shouldn’t be one.
“There is no question that Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” he also said on NBC‘s “Meet the Press.” “We have to know what the facts are.”
Earlier this week, blame also fell on the very Tea Party groups that were targeted by the IRS, as both comedian Bill Maher and “Saturday Night Live” actors Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler said the conservative groups were partially at fault. And earlier this week, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) tried to pin the blame on the Bush administration.
No matter how this IRS situation shakes out, Pfeiffer and fellow liberals are trying to make it clear that the President did nothing wrong, knew nothing and is really just focused on the ‘real issues.’
