Readers React: What to do about those lost IRS e-mails

Jonah Goldberg displays an opportunistic use of logic. (“The IRS email scandal: Where’s the outrage?,” Column, June 16)

He correctly relies on the observation of no evidence for a supposed increase in applications to the IRS by conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. However, he refers disparagingly to there being no evidence “of corruption at the IRS, despite the fact [the Obama] administration’s own investigations are still underway.”

Fortunately, an argumentum ad ignorantiam (appeal to ignorance fallacy) such as this cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Jim Johnson, Whittier

The second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon included his use of the IRS to go after his political enemies. A White House tape had 18 minutes missing, and the media uproar appropriately deafened me in both ears.

Now the IRS says it has lost two years of relevant emails pertaining to the scandal over the alleged targeting of conservative groups, and the media are positively somnambulant. Go figure.

Robert Chapman, Downey