I’m tired of liberal guilt. One whiff of criticism and we prostrate ourselves, baring our backs for the conservative whip. “We’re bad, oh so bad! Please beat us so we can prove how sorry we are!”

Let’s stop the self-flagellation long enough to think. Now, nobody’s saying that even one Tea party applicant was inappropriately denied tax-exempt status (we’d have heard about that for sure).  Nobody’s saying that the IRS held conservative applications to different, more stringent standards—their applications were all judged by existing IRS rules on who can get tax-exempt status. No, what the Tea people are complaining about to high heaven is that a higher percentage of conservative applications were given detailed scrutiny—instead of, apparently, a quick gloss that lets more applications be mistakenly given tax-exempt status. In other words, they were less likely to be able to get away with cheating.

Well, too stinkin’ bad! I can’t work up a lot of guilt about someone whose main complaint is that it’s harder for them to cheat than the other guy and that they’re being made to follow the rules. What I can get worked up about is the fact that apparently not everybody who wants tax-exempt status is getting carefully scrutinized. The IRS should look at every such application with high suspicion. But people who get caught breaking the rules have no legitimate beef.