Jon Stewart incredulously mocks the IRS's shoddy record-keeping

Jon Stewart incredulously mocks the IRS&#039;s shoddy record-keeping

(Image credit: Daily Show)

Add Jon Stewart to the list of people disgusted with the IRS's vanished emails. Well, disgusted may not be the right word, exactly. The IRS scandal isn't, as conservative Tea Partiers would like to believe, President Obama ordering the tax collectors "to target them, while he sat in a dark room smoking a cigar, stroking a cat," Stewart said on Tuesday night's Daily Show, but it is something — the IRS is definitely "giving off scandal stink."

Stewart is as archly annoyed as everyone else that the government agency which forces "Americans to live like borderline hoarders only keeps their shit for six months." But unlike the IRS's myriad other critics, Stewart said the big scandal is that the government's internal communication systems border on "criminal idiocy." And that makes him sad. So he ended with a plea to Uncle Sam, on behalf of the citizenry: "Just because we're totally unreasonable doesn't mean that you have to be totally incompetent." --Peter Weber

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.