The Dog Ate My Homework, and also my Backup Homework…

Although I certainly missed my share of homework assignments throughout my unspectacular journey through higher education, I never had the nerve to use the above-mentioned as an excuse for not turning an assignment in.

First off we never had a dog, only a small cat and the thought of her choking down a spiral notebook could only be envisioned with the aid of some choice pharmaceuticals.

Although admittedly after blowing off an English paper in 11^th grade, I once used an old ace bandage I found in my father’s closet, wrapped it around my writing hand rather professionally and claimed that it was rendered useless after an unsuccessful slide into home plate.

For those keeping score at home, my teacher didn’t quite believe me and requested a note from a certified orthopedist, which to no one’s surprise, I failed to produce.

But somehow my concocted fable seems far more believable than what’s currently going on at the Internal Revenue Service these days, where the agency claims to have um, lost, err…TWO years’ worth of email messages between Lois Lerner, the former director of the Exempt Organizations unit who is facing contempt of Congress charges. Apparently a number of hard drive crashes resulted in the emails going into limbo, or more precisely, crashes of her hard drive and the backup hard drive.

Ms. Lerner has been under investigation since she revealed last year that the IRS Exempt Organizations unit had been using terms such as “Tea Party” and “Patriot” to screen applications from organizations applying for tax-exempt status. She asserted her Fifth Amendment rights in a pair of congressional hearings and Republican lawmakers have filed contempt charges against her.

For those who are unfamiliar with Ms. Lerner and her bullying tactics before her sudden rise to infamy, let’s set the way back machine to 1996 when a lawyer named Al Salvi, ran on the GOP ticket for a Senate seat in Illinois against then-Congressman Dick Durbin.

Democrats filed with the Federal Elections Commission charges against Salvi’s campaign, alleging campaign finance violations. Salvi contacted the head of the FEC’s Enforcement Division, who he remembers saying: “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.” Want to guess to whom he was speaking?

If you guessed Lois Lerner you get to advance to Final Jeopardy.

After losing the race to Durbin, Salvi spent four years and $100,000 fighting the FEC, on whose behalf FBI agents even visited his elderly mother demanding to know, concerning her $2,000 contribution to her son’s campaign, where she got “that kind of money.”

When the second of two federal courts held that the charges against Salvi were at best, spurious, the lawyer arguing for the FEC was of course, Lois Lerner.

Fast forward to the present, where she has taken the Fifth more times than Tony Soprano, and GOP bulldogs like Dave Camp and Darrell Issa have no intention of turning down the heat.

I wonder if she can use an ace bandage?