{"id":19128,"date":"2013-06-08T20:42:30","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T00:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19128"},"modified":"2013-06-08T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2013-06-09T00:42:30","slug":"why-character-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19128","title":{"rendered":"Why Character Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Character is one of those seemingly old-fashioned virtues that people mention every now and then. It sounds like something we all should have, but it doesn&#8217;t\u00a0 seem relevant to everything. The events of the past few weeks show that it is.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Peggy Noonan\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peggy_Noonan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Peggy Noonan<\/a> posted an article in the <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887323844804578529713576219412.html\">Wall Street Journal<\/a> this weekend about the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Internal Revenue Service\" href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Internal Revenue Service (IRS)<\/a> scandal. The article details some of the facts of the IRS treatment of conservative groups&#8211;including the leaking of donor information for the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"National Organization for Marriage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nationformarriage.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">National Organization for Marriage<\/a>. That organization did its own computer forensic investigation and determined that the leak of donor information came from the IRS. Since that discovery, the IRS has stonewalled the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The article is very interesting in the examples it gives and the conclusions it reaches&#8211;I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article.<\/p>\n<p>The closing paragraph of the article says it all:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Finally, this week <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Russell George\" href=\"http:\/\/www.russellgeorge.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Russell George<\/a>, the inspector general whose audit confirmed the targeting of conservative groups, mentioned, as we all do these days, <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Richard Nixon\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Nixon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Richard Nixon<\/a>&#8216;s attempt to use the agency to target his enemies. But part of that <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Watergate scandal\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Watergate_scandal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Watergate<\/a> story is that Nixon failed. Last week David Dykes of the Greenville (S.C.) News wrote of meeting with 93-year-old Johnnie Mac Walters, head of the IRS almost 40 years ago, in the Nixon era. Mr. Dykes quoted Tim Naftali, former director of <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=33.8891666667,-117.819444444&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=33.8891666667,-117.819444444 (Richard%20Nixon%20Presidential%20Library%20and%20Museum)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum<\/a>, who told him the IRS wouldn&#8217;t do what Nixon asked: &#8220;It didn&#8217;t happen, not because the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"White House\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8976694444,-77.03655&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=38.8976694444,-77.03655 (White%20House)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">White House<\/a> didn&#8217;t want it to happen, but because people like <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Johnnie Walters\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Johnnie_Walters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Johnnie Walters<\/a> said &#8216;no.&#8217; &#8220;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>That was the IRS doing its job\u2014attempting to be above politics, refusing to act as the muscle for a political agenda.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Man\u2014those were the days.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This whole scandal could have been avoided if someone with character had stood up and said, &#8220;No, I won&#8217;t do that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=2f5b7886-efb0-4046-a6be-3309ca061e0d\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Character is one of those seemingly old-fashioned virtues that people mention every now and then. It sounds like something we all should have, but it doesn&#8217;t\u00a0 seem relevant to everything. The events of the past few weeks show that it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19128\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[284,678,5685,5683,5684,2586,5547,238,211],"class_list":["post-19128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-irs","tag-john-eastman","tag-johnnie-walters","tag-peggy-noonan","tag-richard-nixon","tag-russell-george","tag-wall-street-journal","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19130,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19128\/revisions\/19130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}