ost: our next call for michael beckel comes from jane's -- james in pennsylvania. caller: glad to be on this morning. it is a great thing that michael is with us today, because he has -- is offering truth to the situation. i am making light of yesterday's hearing. some may think i am cynical, but in today's world, you have to find a way to stay sane if you want to make an attempt to understand what is happening in the political world. i thought it played a comedy routine, i can't wait until the politicians deal with him. i think it is a serious matter, but the talking points are the irs -- mr. beckel will show us another side to the story. he will offer points that speak o the truth. host: thanks, james. he mentioned the former commissioner of the iraq that will be at both of the hearings on tuesday and wednesday. - irs. explain his role in this. caller: -- guest: i want to thank the caller. mr. shulman was appointed by former president bush. the irs is full of civil servants. they are generally not politically appointed. the director of the irs is appointed and mr.

our guest is michael beckel. our next call is from georgia on the line for republicans. .aller: thank you i want to say thank you to mr. beckel for the great work of the center for public integrity is engaged in. i received your e-mails and follow the online. i think a little bit different position. any unfair treatment by the government sanctioning one particular dynamic of the political process or even the nonprofit process, my position is this -- i think anybody with a little bit of general understanding realizes that for the most part, the tea party crowd is very much a political -- hard-core political advocacy dynamicsh very little will bring to their work. tea party stuff would have done some educational dynamics and i appreciate that, but i want to take a little bit different position. i think that perhaps the scrutiny following sentences in a bit over-the-top. i i figure to be more scrutiny on other organizations, not just the tea party. maybe a little bit of overzealousness has taken place with the tea p

host: michael beckel is here to continue our discussion about the situation over at the irs. the headline in this morning's "washington post," -- your thoughts about what came ut against a possible ways and means hearing. guest: thank you for having me here. yes today was definitely a day f bipartisan theory on capitol hill. both democrats and republicans are really going after the republicans -- going after the irs yesterday. host: this headline in "the financial times" is emblematic of what we have seen -- does that come as a surprise to you? guest: that poses a question, when exactly did higher-ups' in the chain of command know what was going on? which of these groups were political? which ones deserve special attention? ooner or later somebody up the chain of command knows what is going on and there are a lot of questions still about who, hat, when? host: there's an editorial in this morning's "wall street journal," -- what did you think about that when he said that? guest: the center for integrity as been monitoring these 501 (c)4 groups for a while. their reception 527

michael beckel looks at the i.r.s. and the revelations that the agency targeted conservative groups. "u.s.a. today" reporter exams the relationships that the presidents have had with the i.r.s. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> how do you feel about describing your science in 30 seconds? attempt. ng make an take that remaining thing and throw it away. you go from a yardstick to the size of my fingernail. if you do it 10 times you get the size of the atom. we have no instruments to measure that. so people like me have been working on a piece of mathematics called string theory to answer that question. i tried. my wife is asked by people what does your husband do? her answer is he makes up stuff for a living. that is kind of right but i tell my story as the following. most people know what a novelist do. they take words and sentences and makes stories. that's what we do except we use mathematics to make up our characters and tell our stories. if we're good, our story corresponds to something th