My must read of the day is "Lois Lerner break silence," in Politico:
"I didn’t do anything wrong," Lerner said in her first press interview since the scandal broke 16 months ago. "I’m proud of my career and the job I did for this country." [...]
Very few details of Lerner’s personal history, professional background or life since her fall have been detailed in the news media. One thing is clear: She doesn’t seem poised to back down or give her Republican critics in Congress any satisfaction.
"Regardless of whatever else happens, I know I did the best I could under the circumstances and am not sorry for anything I did," the 63-year-old said. [...]
Lerner, for her part, assumes she is at the center of the storm because "I was the person who announced it. I assume the other part of it is because I declined to talk, and once I declined to talk, they could say anything they wanted, and they knew I couldn’t say anything back."
Lerner refuses, Politico writes, to give her "Republican critics in Congress any satisfaction?"
Did Ms. Lerner ever stop to consider, this isn’t actually about them?
It’s about the integrity of any institution that impacts the lives of every average member of the American public. It’s about those people—people who, by Lerner’s admission, were unfairly treated and wrongly scrutinized by an organization that happens to wield enormous power.
Sometimes profiles like this can humanize a figure that exists in the confines of a media representation or a single action. This one doesn’t.
What it shows is that Lerner has little, if any, comprehension of the anger and frustration people felt when they learned they were targeted, and perhaps more importantly, she doesn’t care to.
Lerner lacks empathy on a staggering level, but expects everyone else to have it for her. Someone should tell her that’s not the way it works.
In three pages, Lerner’s most humanizing anecdote is the time she saved animals after Hurricane Katrina. Maybe that’s fitting, because she appears inept when it comes to understanding people.