Confused by Obama's Incredibly Brief IRS Statement? Here's Krauthammer's Take

President Obama. (Getty Images)President Obama took a break from his regularly scheduled events Wednesday to speak for three minutes and 24 seconds on the increasingly-serious Internal Revenue Service scandal.

"I've reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog's report, and the misconduct that it uncovered was inexcusable," the president said. "It's inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I'm angry about it."

He added later that Steven Miller, the IRS acting commissioner, had tendered his resignation.

And that was about everything the president said.

The presser, as noted in this post’s headline, was incredibly brief. Brief to the point where more than a few people have asked: “What was the point of that?”

Conservative author and columnist Charles Krauthammer offers his analysis: "[The announcement] was a holding operation. That was the absolute minimum he could have done. He relieves one person – he obviously had to – he had to relieve at least one person and he chose, of course, the acting commissioner."

"But I would’ve expected more," he added. "The other actions he announced are, up to now, meaningless. Obama, this administrating, has said a hundred times they’re going to hold X, Y, or Z accountable for all kinds of behavior."

He continued:

In Benghazi, regarding a lot of other scandals, he even speaks about Syrian generals are going to be held accountable. It means nothing.

And then he says there’s going to be an investigation from Treasury. Well, that just means that the left hand of the government investigating the right hand. He did say he’d cooperate with Congress, but then he has the chutzpa to essentially warn republicans not to make this into a political event.

[W]e’re talking about is the IRS applying political criteria -- inexcusably, unconstitutionally, probably criminally -- and deciding who it’s going to investigate.

“I found this the bare minimum,” he concluded. “It’ll hold them for 12 hours, but no more.”

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