The IRS acted in an "intolerable and inexcusable" manner in singling out conservative advocacy groups for extra scrutiny, President Barack Obama said Tuesday evening in a statement about the emerging controversy. 

Amid an uproar in Washington over revelations that IRS agents targeted conservative and Tea Party groups as part of their oversight of a new crop of political groups established as tax-exempt groups in recent years, the president roundly criticized IRS employees to subjected those groups to additional scrutiny. 

"[T]he report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable," Obama said in a statement. "The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity.  This report shows that some of its employees failed that test."

The president had criticized the report during a press conference on Monday, before the publication this evening of an inspector general's report detailing the additional scrutiny of conservative groups. The report pointed to incompetence and poor management for the persistent scrutiny of conservative groups. The IRS also argued that the behavior was relatively isolated, and did not come at the direction of any outside official.

Nonetheless, the IRS controversy has prompted a major uproar among conservatives in Washington, who have openly suggested the Obama administration had deliberately targeted political enemies. Some Republicans have likened Obama to President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. 

The controversy comes at an inopportune time, too, for the White House, which has struggled at times to address other imbroglios regarding its response to the terrorist attack last year in Benghazi, Libya, as well as new reports that the Department of Justice surreptitiously monitored the phone records of Associated Press journalists. 

Of the IRS uproar, Obama said he had directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to "hold those responsible for these failures accountable," and implement the recommendations of the inspector general report.

"[R]egardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong," Obama said. "I expect everyone who serves in the federal government to hold themselves to the highest ethical and moral standards. So do the American people. And as president, I intend to make sure our public servants live up to those standards every day."

NBC News, via a government source, has obtained an email Obama administration officials believe contradicts last week's reporting that Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that the State Department's "concerns needed to be addressed" in the drafting of the talking points about the Sept. 2012 attack in Benghazi.

In the actual email -- dated Sept. 14, 2012 and with the subject "Re: Revised HPSCI Talking Points for Review" -- Rhodes writes: 

"All--

"Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects equities, particularly the investigation.

"There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don't compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

"We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies."

CNN was first to report on the actual language from Rhodes' email.

And the email contradicts this reporting on Friday from ABC News, which wrote: 

"In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. - three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows - Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department's concerns needed to be addressed.

"We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation. "We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting."

Then there were three controversies for the Obama administration… The latest: AP says Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records in possible leak case… Latest developments with the IRS story… Why did the IRS focus on the small fish -- but not the big ones?... Obama outraged by IRS story, as well as Benghazi “sideshow”… Some perspective, per Charlie Cook: Much of the outrage right now is selective outrage… Dems put changing the filibuster back on the table?... Rubio PAC airs TV ad defending Ayotte … And Christie goes negative.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in New York City, May 13, 2013.

*** Then there were three: Finding itself already under siege on two different fronts -- the Benghazi and IRS stories -- the Obama administration now encounters a third controversy, and this one features one of the most influential news organizations in the world. The Associated Press revealed yesterday afternoon that the Justice Department “secretly obtained two months of telephone records” of AP reporters and editors “in what the news cooperative's top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.” Per NBC’s Michael Isikoff, DOJ confirmed that it obtained these phone records without notifying the news organization, saying the step was needed to avoid "a substantial threat to the integrity" of an ongoing leak investigation. When it rains, it pours, as the conservative Drudge Report gleefully notes. While this Justice Department move is sweeping, chilling for journalists (why didn’t DOJ attempt to negotiate?), and an apparent attempt to intimidate future leakers, let’s don’t forget that Congress asked the Obama administration to investigate all the national-security leaks. “Republicans accused the administration of deliberately leaking classified information, jeopardizing national security in an effort to make Mr. Obama look tough in an election year — a charge the White House rejected. But some Democrats, too, said the leaking of sensitive information had gotten out of control,” the New York Times says.

*** Three makes it harder: While the president’s defiant tone on Benghazi probably would have been enough to quell things under normal circumstances, the times aren’t normal right now. The rule of three (toss in IRS and AP) means the president’s credibility is truly on the line right now with the public. No amount of denial or outrage will be as persuasive to the public right now and the president’s political foes know it. And that’s why you saw some senators yesterday going even further, hitting the White House on the implementation of health care or Mitch McConnell who attempted to use the IRS news to connect the dots and claim a concerted effort was taking place all over the government to target conservatives or limit freedoms. Many of these charges are baseless but the environment right now for the White House is a mess and they are in a position where it’ll be a lot easier for issues to stick to them. The Teflon is wearing off. 

*** Latest developments with the IRS story: The IRS controversy is only growing as more organizations come forward about exactly how the IRS went about investigating conservative groups. The Washington Post: “Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status… IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations.” (However, it’s unclear in the story if these Washington employees were only targeting conservative groups or if they were scrutinizing a wider scope of groups applying for tax-exempt status.) What’s more, Politico notes That the IRS’s acting commissioner “first learned about the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups more than a year ago, the agency revealed Monday.” As for the White House, the president claimed he only heard about the IRS story when it went public on Friday. Jay Carney later said, the White House Counsel’s office was made aware of the IG investigation in late April but that the president was NOT informed at the time and that the Counsel’s office wasn’t told many specifics about the report.   

*** Focusing on the small fish -- but not the big ones: Also regarding the IRS story, the New York Times’ Confessore makes a great point: While the IRS scrutinized relatively small conservative-sounding groups in their application for tax-exempt 501c4 status, the agency has hardly lifted a finger when it comes to the bigger political players. “The I.R.S. has done little to regulate a flood of political spending by larger groups — like Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by Mr. Rove, and Priorities USA, with close ties to President Obama… ‘We’ve complained about a few big fish and we’ve heard nothing from the I.R.S.,’ said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed many of the complaints with the agency. ‘We would far rather see scrutiny of these big fish — the groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections — than to see the resources spent on hundreds of small groups that appeared to spend very little on elections.’” One of the unintended consequences of this IRS story: It probably will set back any effort to close the loopholes that allow overtly political organizations to obtain tax-exempt status and to shield their donors.

*** Obama outraged by IRS actions and Benghazi “sideshow”: In his news conference with British Prime Minister Cameron yesterday, President Obama called the IRS story “outrageous,” saying: “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that had been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it. And they have to be held fully accountable.” But in the outrage department, the president got a lot more animated when the topic turned to Benghazi, making it clear he believes it’s nothing more than a partisan sideshow. “The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow. What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were. It happened at the same time as we had seen attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film. And nobody understood exactly what was taking place during the course of those first few days.”

*** Dems put changing the filibuster back on the table? Largely lost by all the Benghazi/IRS/AP coverage has been this fact: Senate Republicans have used procedural tactics to so far block many of Obama’s nominees, including his picks to head the Labor Department and EPA. That has spurred Democrats and their allies to reconsider ways to change the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, which has been used for even the most routine of measures. The Hill: “Senate Democrats frustrated with the GOP’s blocking of a string of President Obama’s nominees are seriously weighing a controversial tactic known as the ‘nuclear option.’ The option — which would involve Democrats changing Senate rules through a majority vote to prevent the GOP from using the 60-vote filibuster to block nominations — was raised during a private meeting Wednesday involving about 25 Democratic senators and a group of labor leaders.” Remember, it was that same “nuclear” option threat that spurred Senate Democrats and Republicans to reach the “Gang of 14” compromise to approve some of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

*** It’s the eye of the beholder: That said, political analyst Charlie Cook provides an important historical perspective: Right now, much of the controversy the White House is facing is selective outrage. “Whether the White House is in Democratic or Republican hands, we have to put up with a degree of selective outrage from one side and the turning of a blind eye from the other,” Cook writes. “Democrats who were quick to pounce on any possible transgression during George W. Bush’s presidency are noticeably quiet these days. At the same time, one wonders whether the same Republicans who are frothing over Benghazi would have been quite as vigilant had they been in Congress after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, 18 sailors, and three Army soldiers.” And that selective outrage makes many of the “Nixon” comparisons seem VERY premature right now. Regarding Nixon, Watergate, and that administration’s cover-ups, the condemnation -- of activity that went straight to the top -- was bipartisan.

*** Rubio PAC airs TV ad defending Ayotte: We’ve been covering politics for a while, but we don’t think we’ve ever seen this -- a possible presidential candidate’s PAC airing a TV ad to help a COLLEAGUE who represents an early-nominating state. “Sen. Marco Rubio's political action committee is going up with a TV ad defending New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte's votes on gun control. ‘Safety, security, family - no one understands these things like a mom, and no one works harder for them than this one,’ the ad says, showing a photo of Ayotte. ‘A former prosecutor, Kelly Ayotte knows how to reduce gun violence.’”

*** Christie goes negative: And it’s rare you see this, too: A political candidate who’s leading his opponent by 30-plus points is going negative. But that’s exactly what New Jersey Chris Christie is doing with this new TV ad. As Politico writes, “Sky-high approval ratings be damned — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going on air next week with an ad that paints his Democratic rival Barbara Buono as a tax-hiker who is yoked to unpopular former governor Jon Corzine, POLITICO has learned.The spot, which begins running Monday, is part of an $800,000 ad buy over the course of roughly a week.” Per last week’s NBC/Marist poll, Christie was leading Barbara Buono 60%-28% among registered voters.

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

AP: “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.”

USA Today: “They say these things come in threes. Already facing criticism over the Benghazi attack and Internal Revenue Service problems, President Obama and aides must now deal with news that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists who work for the Associated Press.”

“Journalists on Monday called the news the Justice Department seized records from phone lines assigned to Associated Press offices and its reporters over a two month period ‘chilling’ and a ‘dragnet to intimidate the media,’ Politico writes.

By the way, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

“President Barack Obama tried to swat down a pair of brewing controversies Monday, denouncing as ‘outrageous’ the targeting of conservative political groups by the federal IRS but angrily denying any administration cover-up after last year’s deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya,” AP writes. “Simultaneous investigations — and demands by Republicans for more — have put the White House on the defensive, emboldened GOP lawmakers and threatened to overtake a second-term Obama agenda already off to a rocky start.”

“Huddling with A-list celebrities and top re-election donors, President Barack Obama bemoaned the partisan forces that have stymied compromise in Washington as he raised campaign cash for Democrats in New York,” AP writes. Of the GOP “fever,” Obama said at film producer Harvey Weinstein’s house, “It’s not quite broken yet. I am persistent, and I am staying at it.

And Obama said this: "I want to get some stuff done -- I don't have a lot of time. I've got three and a half years left -- and it goes by like that."

Jill Lawrence: “The bombshell disclosure that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors could be dramatic enough to move even the phlegmatic Obama administration to action. Three concurrent scandals or controversies are just too many. Could that mean we will be bidding farewell soon to Attorney General Eric Holder?”

George Condon notes that Obama appears more outraged with Republicans than the IRS.

On Benghazi, so why wasn’t it Hillary Clinton on the Sunday shows instead of Susan Rice. Glenn Thrush reports: “Three sources” say “it was less a matter of fatigue, and more a matter of Clinton not wanting to go on the shows. The aides said Clinton had a ‘default’ policy of rejecting all Sunday requests. None of the officials was willing to speculate on why the secretary wouldn’t make an exception after such an extraordinary event — or whether Clinton had wanted to avoid a controversy that could have compromised her political future.”

Vice President Joe Biden wrote a 7-year-old Wisconsin child a hand-written note praising his idea for guns that shoot chocolate. Biden writes, “Dear Myles, I am sorry it took so very long to respond to your letter. I really like your idea. If we had guns that shot chocolate, not only would our country be safer, it would be happier. People love chocolate. You are a good boy, Joe Biden.”

Donald Rumsfeld’s back on the scene appearing mellower as he promotes his new book. He was on Today Tuesday morning. 

“Legal immigration is the focus as the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes the work of amending legislation overhauling the U.S. immigration system,” AP writes. “Amendments expected to be offered Tuesday could reshape a painstakingly negotiated deal between business and labor on a visa program for lower-skilled workers.”

Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) says the IRS scandal is like Nixon.

Nancy Pelosi on John Boehner: "If he were a woman, they'd be calling him the weakest speaker in history."

National Journal: “The nation’s leading health insurance industry group gave $850,000 to a top small-business trade association as part of a campaign to repeal a key provision of President Obama’s health care law, National Journal Daily has learned.”

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent seizes on the news that the Obama White House had already briefed House Speaker John Boehner’s staff -- back in March -- on the Benghazi talking points. But now, almost two months later, Boehner and other Republicans are demanding that the White House release all the emails. “If they were shown all of the dozen talking point revisions reported on by ABC News last week, as well as the controversial emails about them — which seems like it may be the case — and didn’t see them as problematic at the time, then the plot thickens.”

Charlie Cook: The political “significance” of the IRS and Benghazi scandals “is more in the eye of the beholder. Liberals and Democrats tend to de-emphasize both affairs, while many conservatives and Republicans think that each rises to the level of impeachment. It will take time to know which end of this ridiculously broad spectrum of assessments proves to be more accurate.”

How to measure, per Cook: “The most objective way to ascertain whether either or both of these stories have “legs” and are beginning to get traction with the public is to watch every Monday afternoon for the release of the Gallup approval rating for the previous week, ending the night before. Although you can look at the Gallup three-day moving average, those have a smaller sample size than the full week of interviewing and tend to be somewhat volatile. As long as Obama’s job approval remains in that 47-to-51-percent range, particularly between 48 and 50 percent, it’s safe to say that neither story is hurting him significantly, at least with the public. If you are going to look at other polls, take a gander at that poll’s “trading range” for Obama over March and April, and see whether it drops below that range.”

Crossroads has been going after Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration on Benghazi. Now, Bridge Project, the 501(c)4 of American Bridge,  is going after Karl Rove with this video called, "Karl Rove's Decade of Deception.” It hits on the selling the war in Iraq, Valerie Plame, and more.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Amid roaring chants from supporters and tears from opponents, the state Senate took a historic, final step Monday to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota. The 37-30 vote came after a failed, last-ditch attempt by opponents to scuttle the measure.”

More: “Minnesota becomes the first Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage by legislative vote [and the 12^th state overall], and the latest victory for those working to extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples across the nation. Monday’s action technically repeals a state statute that had prohibited such unions. Gov. Mark Dayton will sign the bill at 5 p.m. Tuesday, on the Capitol steps, kicking off a parade that will take supporters to a massive downtown St. Paul celebration. The law will take effect Aug. 1.”

Roger Simon said John McCain’s use of “emotional” to describe Hillary Clinton’s congressional testimony was “sexist.”

Political Wire: “Pablo Pantoja, who was most recently the State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, changed his voter registration to become a Democrat, according to Florida Nation.” Pantoja wrote: "It doesn't take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.”

FLORIDA: Could Rick Scott actually pick ex-Rep. Allen West as his lieutenant governor?

MASSACHUSETTS: John McCain’s raising money in Boston for Gabriel Gomez (R) May 20.

The Boston Globe: “First deadline passes with 24 in Boston mayoral field.”

NEW YORK: Maggie Haberman reports that Anthony Weiner is hiring staff for a mayoral run.

President Barack Obama repeatedly said during last year's presidential campaign that a partisan "fever" in Washington would break after the 2012 election, but on Monday, he acknowledge it hadn't broken yet.

Almost four months into his second term, the president told Democratic donors at a fundraiser in New York City that the nation's capital is still ensconsed by "hyper-partisanship."

"My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet," Obama said, according to pool reports of his remarks. "But I am persistent. And I am staying at it."

Obama had outlined an agenda heading into his second term headlined by immigration reform, gun control and reaching a wide-reaching fiscal deal with Republicans. So far, immigration reform only seems realistically attainable; a scaled-back version of Obama's gun control proposals was blocked in the Senate. A "grand bargain" on taxes and spending appears out of reach, as well.

Obama told his supporters that he still intended to seek a broad agenda, rather than succumb to the ennui of a lame-duck presidency. That included an allusion to forcing Republicans to pay a price at the polls in 2014 should they continue to block his agenda.

"My intentions over the next 3 ½ years are to govern," he said. "If there are folks who are more interested in winning elections than they are thinking about the next generation then I want to make sure there are consequences to that."

Sen. Marco Rubio's political action committee is going up with a TV ad defending New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte's votes on gun control.

"Safety, security, family - no one understands these things like a mom, and no one works harder for them than this one," the ad says, showing a photo of Ayotte. "A former prosecutor, Kelly Ayotte knows how to reduce gun violence."

The ad, being run by Reclaim America PAC, represents the first time the PAC has gone on air for a specific candidate. Reclaim will spend six figures on the ad, a source familiar with the buy said, in New Hampshire markets. The ad will start airing on Tuesday.

Ayotte, who is not up for reelection until 2016, has been the focus of gun-control advocates after she voted against the compromise bill on stricter background checks proposed by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) last month. Ayotte got into a back-and-forth with a Newtown family member victim at a town hall earlier this month during a congressional recess in New Hampshire.

A Dartmouth poll out Monday showed Ayotte's favorability rating slipping in the Granite State, a place Barack Obama won twice. Ayotte's negative rating ticked up seven points in the poll, going from 36 percent favorable, 24 percent negative before the gun debate to 37 percent positive, 31 percent negative afterward.

This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 1:27 PM EDT

Top recruiters at both the Democratic and Republican congressional campaign committees are making no secret about it: They’re trying to recruit more women to run for House seats in the 2014 midterms.

“We are looking for women in those districts where we believe that we have an opportunity -- either through a retirement, an open seat, or even for a challenge that is a good challenge for us,” said Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), one of the recruiters this cycle for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It really does bring a very complete picture to discussions on the issues.”

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the recruitment chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says that she is emphasizing to ask women to run, especially those who haven’t before. “It may be true that men stand up and say ‘I want to run.’ Women have to come in a different way,” she said.

Why are women such a focus?

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), the co-chair this cycle of Women LEAD, an arm of the DCCC that’s dedicated to electing more women to the House, explains that women have extra appeal in a political environment where Congress is gridlocked and unpopular.

“I think the public -- they’re looking for problem-solvers and people who can be more conciliatory or compromising … also trustworthy,” said Frankel. “I think that’s why women are more prime candidates. Maybe it’s also because [voters] are not blaming us for how paralyzed the Congress is today.”

Reps. Edwards and Black elaborated on their parties’ efforts to recruit more women in phone interviews. Here is some of what they had to say…

Q: Is the DCCC doing anything specific to recruit women from outside of politics, like you mentioned?

Edwards: We’re looking at the non-profit sector, in the business sector and other areas of the public sector – people who are firefighters, who are teachers. They bring a strong commitment to public service that really lends itself to the kind of responsibilities, the kind of problem-solving that we face in the Congress…. We can’t just continue to look at the traditional lawyers and elected officials as our pipeline for leadership in the 21st century.

Q: A new report by American University says that women are less likely to see themselves as qualified to run for office. What, if anything, are you doing at the DCCC to overcome that?

Edwards: Part of that is because we’ve always thought about people in elected office coming from a particular background, and I think that the more that we broaden that, the more that we can encourage younger women to think about their political ambitions early on -- because they see people who come from a range of different experiences in Congress.

Q: Is there anything different being done this cycle in terms of recruiting more women? Is anything new about female congresswomen mentoring recruits?

Black: I think what’s new about that is that we are utilizing the women that are currently serving. They’re being mentors for these candidates. I don’t know that we’ve been as strong at doing that before. It really is more difficult for a woman to make that decision, because of all of the responsibilities they have at home that they feel so strongly that is their role and their responsibility.

Q: Why do you think that the Republican Party traditionally has struggled to expand its ranks of female lawmakers?

Black: I think part of that is effort. I think it was done in the last election and it is even intensifying in this election. I think we have conservative women who feel a real commitment to their family – not to say that women who serve as Democrats don’t have that – but what I hear is a real struggle, you know, ‘My family needs me. I need to be there.’ I hear that consistently from women. I don’t know that we’ve done a good job in helping them understand that you can do both things and you can do them well.”

The White House’s terrible, horrible Friday spills over… Why the IRS story packs a bigger political punch… The White House’s slow response to both the IRS and Benghazi stories… Q&A time for Obama: He holds joint press conference with British PM David Cameron at 11:15 am ET… Recapping Rand Paul’s speech in Cedar Rapids, IA… New Gomez internal shows him trailing Markey by just 3 pts… New Cuccinelli ad focuses on the economy, taxes.. And Herseth Sandlin won’t run in SD.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney during his daily news briefing at the White House, Friday, May, 10, 2013. Carney responded on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, calling on top-to-bottom review of the Obama administration after the IRS admitted that it had targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election.

*** The White House’s terrible, horrible Friday spills over: Everything that happened last Friday -- the reporting on the revisions to the Benghazi talking points, the news that the IRS had targeted conservative groups, reporters pummeling White House Press Secretary Jay Carney at his briefing -- represented the White House’s worst day since the first presidential debate. And it all spilled over to the Sunday shows and today’s news. As the Washington Post now reports, “At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.” Indeed, the IRS story is bigger long-term problem for the Obama administration than perhaps it realized on Friday afternoon when its initial response lacked a real sense of outrage.

*** IRS story packs a bigger political punch: One reason why is because Benghazi has already been litigated so much (at congressional hearings, at two presidential debates, during Susan Rice’s consideration for the secretary of state job). But Friday’s revelation that the IRS had targeted conservative-sounding names (and not liberal-sounding ones) in applications for tax-exempt status will trigger new congressional hearings and new questions for the president and his team. More significantly, the IRS news is a political gift to a Republican Party whose base was strained on immigration (remember that Heritage Foundation study?) and even on guns (remember the tough questions Sens. Kelly Ayotte and Jeff Flake were getting?). Now, you’re seeing a GOP base united by two things they absolutely dislike: President Obama and the Internal Revenue Service. The news also is a gift to Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, or any incumbent Republican in Washington hoping to avoid a tough primary in 2014 -- they get to demagogue the heck out of this story and show they will stand up for the Tea Party.

*** Slow ride, take it easy: For the Obama White House, if there’s one common theme to both the Benghazi and IRS stories, it’s how slowly it responded to them. It’s something that Sen. Dianne Feinstein alluded to on “Meet the Press” yesterday when NBC’s David Gregory asked her what she would have liked to see Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton do different after Benghazi. “Oh, to move faster. To say, ‘Yes, this was in fact a terrorist act.’ I mean, it was so evident.” When Gregory asked her why the administration dragged its heels, Feinstein responded, “I think this is a cautious administration. You see it in other respects.” That’s a kind interpretation. On Benghazi, the White House is essentially leading reporters to believe they were ultimately refereeing a bureaucratic turf fight between the CIA and State. But they also, when questioned, claim they’d do nothing differently other than -- perhaps -- delay giving a public accounting even further in the hours and days after the attack. When it comes to this Benghazi controversy, the questions for non-partisans (because partisans are searching only for what supports what they believe): Why did State push for the big change in the talking points? Was this about pushing back on the CIA, because it thought the agency was deflecting responsibility since the Benghazi outpost was more CIA than State? Was this about State doing CYA regarding CIA warnings about diplomatic security?

*** Q&A time for Obama: Don’t be surprised if these two stories -- Benghazi and the IRS -- come up at President Obama’s joint press conference with British PM David Cameron at 11:15 am ET. Afterward, Obama travels to New York City, where he hits two DNC fundraisers and then a joint DSCC/DCCC event. Also today, Vice President Biden delivers the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania.

*** Cedar Rapids: Outside of Washington… Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had a pretty important weekend in Iowa. The dispatch from NBC’s Mike O’Brien: “On Friday, Sen. Rand Paul put his stake in the ground for a possible run in 2016 by mocking the Obama administration and delivering a blistering critique of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The administration has been criticized for failing to provide security during the attack and for its characterization of the incident afterward. Speaking at the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner, Paul questioned the initial response to the attacks and asked, ‘First question to Hillary Clinton: Where in the hell were the Marines?’ ‘It was inexcusable, it was a dereliction of duty, and it should preclude her from holding higher office,’ the Kentucky Republican added to loud applause” at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Cedar Rapids, IA. Also, speaking of Paul in Iowa, don’t miss the story in the Washington Post about Rand Paul’s concerted effort to reach out to evangelicals, a core GOP constituency that Rand’s father Ron, rarely courted and usually alienated.

*** New Gomez internal poll shows him trailing Markey by 3 points: In Massachusetts’ special Senate election, which takes place next month, the Gabriel Gomez (R) campaign has released an internal poll (conducted May 5-7) showing him trailing Ed Markey (D) by just three points, 46%-43%, with 11% undecided. That’s in contrast to independent surveys conducted around the same that finds Markey with larger leads (46%-38% per WBUR and 52%-35% per Suffolk). According to the Gomez internal poll, the Republican has a 14-point lead among independents (50%-36%) and is carrying Republican by a 94%-3% clip. Yet Markey leads among Democrats by just 73%-12%. (The question to ask: Does that continue to hold up?) The timing of the release of this Gomez internal poll is important: It comes after Democrats had hammered Gomez on news that he “claimed a $281,500 income tax deduction in 2005 for pledging not to make any visible changes to the facade of his 112-year-old Cohasset home… But Gomez and his wife, Sarah, were already barred from making any changes to the exterior of their home under the bylaws of the local Historical Commission, raising the question as to whether their donation — the price of which is based on the loss of value in their real estate — had any monetary worth.” Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has a new web video hitting Markey for the “bounced check” scandal of the early 1990s.

*** New Cuccinelli ad focuses on the economy, taxes: In Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli (R) is up with his second TV ad of the race, and the spot is all about the economy. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy,” Cuccinelli says to the camera. “But they are being overtaxed and over regulated I’ve a plan to make Virginia an engine for job growth It starts with closing tax loopholes and putting an end to special interest giveaways. We’ll use the savings to cut taxes for those who’ve earned it.” Last week, NBC's Mike O'Brien reported that Cuccinelli's $1.4 billion tax plan "would cut the personal income tax rate to 5 percent (down from 5.75 percent) and reduce the corporate tax rate to 4 percent (from 6 percent)... [T]he attorney general would help offset the $1.4 billion price tag for his tax cuts by identifying and eliminating 'outdated exemptions and loopholes that promote crony capitalism.'" 

*** Herseth Sandlin won’t run in SD: And in South Dakota, here’s a big recruiting loss for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin won’t run for the Senate. MSNBC’s Jessica Taylor gets comment from the DSCC, which had been bullish on Herseth Sandlin’s chances of getting into the race: "There will be a strong Democratic candidate that can seize on the divisive GOP primary and provide South Dakotans with a clear alternative to the dysfunction on the Republican side. Mike Rounds is like the second coming of Tommy Thompson.”

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

Advancing the ball… USA Today: “President Obama holds a brief news conferenceMonday morning with British Prime Minister David Cameron, but he is likely to be asked about pressing domestic issues: Benghazi and the IRS.”

“President Barack Obama is welcoming British Prime Minister David Cameron to the White House for talks on subjects ranging from Syria’s civil war to preparations for a coming summit of the world’s leading industrial nations in Northern Ireland,” AP writes. “Iran, the Mideast peace process, counterterrorism and trade are other likely topics forMonday’s meeting.” 

Glenn Thrush: “President Barack Obama genuinely believed he could buck the second-term curse of fecklessness and scandal that afflicted the last three two-term presidents, even if history — and his adversaries — suggested otherwise. The combination of clever and determined Republican resistance on nearly every front, bad luck, Obama’s overconfidence in his capacity to leverage a decisive reelection victory into legislative clout and his own administration’s past mistakes have left the president feeling deeply frustrated, even angry — and eager to find a way to recapture the offensive.”

Stu Rothenberg: “Maybe it’s because two-term presidents suffer from hubris, or merely that after an administration has been in office for years, it inevitably makes mistakes (and too often tries to cover them up). But recent news reports ought to make Democrats at least a little nervous about the next few months and even 2014.” 

“Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates forcefully defended the Obama administration on Sunday against charges that it did not do enough to prevent the tragedy in Benghazi, telling CBS' ‘Face the Nation’ that some critics of the administration have a ‘cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.’”

Said Gates: "Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were. We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." Suggestions that the U.S. “could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to ‘scare them with the noise or something,’ Gates said, ignored the ‘number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals.’ ‘I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances,’ he said.” 

Yet Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Mike Huckabee are crying “impeachment,” or as Inhofe called it, the “I word.”

Politico: “The IRS repeatedly changed the criteria it used for singling out nonprofit applications for further review, at one point looking at all groups hoping to make‘America a better place to live,’ according to new reports Monday morning.

The Wall Street Journal and Reuters both reported that the IRS moved beyond giving a skeptical eye to ‘tea party’ and ‘patriot’ groups. It was also targeting groups focusing on specific issues including ‘government spending,’ ‘government debt,’ ‘Education of the public via advocacy/lobbying to ‘make America a better place to live,’ and all groups that ‘criticize[d] how the country is being run.’”

USA Today: “Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the IRS actions were ‘truly outrageous’and ‘chilling’ on CNN's State of the Union. A public apology was ‘absolutely’ needed, Collins said. ‘I think that it's very disappointing the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out. ... (T)he president needs to make it crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.’”

Carl Bernstein, the other half of Woodward and Bernstein, said on Morning Joe that there’s “no evidence” that this is some kind of Nixon-style plot: “In the Nixon White House, we heard the president of the United States on tape saying ‘Use the IRS to get back on our enemies. We know a lot about President Obama, and I think the idea that he would want the IRS used for retribution — we have no evidence of any such thing.” 

Obama later heads to New York to raise money for Democratic committees.