Looking like this lawless administration getting shot down in court again is the way to bet:

Even liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who was perhaps most favorable to the president’s case, expressed puzzlement at the administration’s claim that Congress was actually in a lengthy recess at the time Obama acted. Breyer noted that if the Senate recessed it ran afoul of the Constitution by failing to notify the House.

“Would you write an opinion that [says] the Senate of the United States has violated two provisions of the Constitution?” Breyer asked Verrilli.

Of course, at some point, they’ll just start defying the Supreme Court as well. The only real Constitutional solution to this president is impeachment and removal.

[Update a while later]

I don’t know who has the tougher job when it comes to defending this administration, Carney or Verilli.

Of course Hillary has one.

They had one in the nineties. They never suffered for it. What would have changed? It’s only bad when Republicans do it.

Why it’s a scandal, but the IRS targeting isn’t:

you know what is also something everybody would find “relatable”? Politicians who sic the tax man on others for political gain. Everybody has to deal with the IRS and fears it. Last year, we learned from the Internal Revenue Service itself that it had targeted ideological opponents of the president for special scrutiny and investigation — because they were ideological opponents.

That’s juicy, just as Bridgegate is juicy. It’s something we can all understand, it speaks to our greatest fears, and it’s the sort of thing TV newspeople could gab about for days on end without needing a fresh piece of news to keep it going.

And yet, according to Scott Whitlock of the Media Research Center, “In less than 24 hours, the three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy.”

Why? Oh, come on, you know why. Christie belongs to one political party. Obama belongs to the other. You know which ones they belong to. And you know which ones the people at the three networks belong to, too: In surveys going back decades, anywhere from 80% to 90% of Washington’s journalists say they vote Democratic.

Scandals are not just about themselves; they are about the media atmosphere that surrounds them. They are perpetuated and deepened by the attention of journalists, whose relentless pursuit of every angle keeps the story going. That is exactly what has been missing from the IRS scandal from its outset; Republicans in Congress have been the dogged pursuers, not the press.

…in the end, [it’s] because Christie is a Republican. Christie isn’t them.

Yup.

[Update a few minutes later]

Bridging the scandal gap.