TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 264.

VIETNAM’S CLASS WAR:

So the Communists won the war, but apparently we capitalists won the argument. Reforms known as doi moi opened up the Vietnamese economy, leading to membership in the World Trade Organization, the historic visit of President Clinton (one pho eatery renamed itself Pho 2000 to honor the year of his visit), and the transformation of the economy from a rigidly state-run system that barely met basic needs to a more free-wheeling state capitalism that encourages foreign investors, public-private companies and a host of joint ventures in nearly every sector of the economy. While small-bore entrepreneurship is rampant, Vietnam is still a “Communist” country with a one-party system and a controlled media. But in the past decade the portraits of Ho Chi Minh (who died before the country was reunified) seem to have gotten a little smaller, and remnants of what the Vietnamese call “the American War” are harder to find. Yes, day trips to the famous Vietcong underground complex of tunnels at Cu Chi are available, now with expanded passageways for wider-girthed Westerns. But there are also nearby “cultural villages”—a kind of self-conscious theme park to make Vietnamese life fit more easily for Western visitors—and a waterslide park for the kids. The war museums in Saigon still showcase Western atrocities and those by the losing South, but Saigon Tourist promotes these museums less than it does the local markets, musical performances or exotic boat trips on the Mekong.

Along with the opening of the economy, there were to be changes in the education system. The Communist Party promised increased literacy, educational access and a more open marketplace of ideas. As Meat Loaf once sang, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” Today Vietnam boasts a literacy rate above 90 percent and invests a higher percentage of its GDP in education than the United States or France. Quality K–12 schools exist in the major cities, as do private schools whose tuition eclipses average income. Many of these schools are quite rigorous, with standardized testing, international faculty and strong links to U.S., Canadian, British or other nations’ accreditation standards.

On the “open marketplace of ideas” front, however, results are mixed. In the larger universe of learning, a quick scan of the shelves of the major book chain in the country, FAHASA, reveals plenty of books on business, personal growth, technology, English as a second language and vampires. But books on current affairs, politics, history (except government-authorized ones), critical thinking, modern art or anything that might be even indirectly critical of the regime simply are unavailable.

So, like a lot of American colleges, then . . . .

IN DISCUSSING PETE SEEGER’S DEATH, they’re glossing over the dark side.

Related: If only Leni Riefenstahl had been a communist like Pete Seeger.

PROF. JACOBSON: Some Criminals Are More Equal Than Others: What if Dinesh D’Souza had waved around a 30-round magazine?

WILL LEGAL POT MEAN FEWER DRUG ADDICTS? “Fortunately for the curious, two states are experimenting right now. We should have our answer in a few years.”

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TIM CARNEY: Crony Capitalism vs. Market Morality.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of North Carolina Apologizes for Fake Classes, Promises Real Change. But they’re still going after the whistleblower. And when will the NCAA investigate?

JAMES TARANTO: Tu Quoque ad Hitlerum: A brief history of Kristallnacht analogies.

Today’s New York Times column from Paul Krugman, titled “Paranoia of the Plutocrats,” typifies the prog-left’s reaction. “You may say that this is just one crazy guy,” Krugman writes. “But Mr. Perkins isn’t that much of an outlier.” Rather, according to Krugman, Perkins belongs to “a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality.” . . .

Are they? A little context is in order here. Krugman notes that Perkins isn’t “even the first finance titan to compare advocates of progressive taxation to Nazis.” (Nor is he in fact the latest; his letter is about what he hears as a hateful tone, not about taxes or any other substantive question of policy.) Krugman cites an earlier example, from 2010.

But Kristallnacht references have been a part of public debate for decades. And their use hasn’t been limited to “finance titans” or people on the right. Blogger Ed Driscoll notes an example nearly a quarter of a century old: a March 1989 op-ed titled “An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen.”

“In 1939, as clouds of war gathered over Europe, many refused to recognize what was about to happen,” wrote the op-ed’s author. “In 1989, clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.” (Kristallnacht actually occurred in 1938.) In case that wasn’t heavy-handed enough, he also invoked Neville Chamberlain.

The author of that piece was one Albert Gore, then junior senator from Tennessee. It appeared–where else?–in the New York Times. . . .

In March 2010, Krugman’s then-colleague Frank Rich experienced 1938 flashbacks. Congress had just enacted ObamaCare, by a partisan vote and over public opposition that was both broad and intense. “How curious,” Rich wrote, “that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.”

Ninety-one Jews were murdered on Kristallnacht, and some 30,000 were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. In the 2010 “vigilante violence,” not only was no one killed, but the Daily Beast’s John Avlon reported only four windows hurt. Yet Avlon was as excited as Rich: “The parallels, intentional or not, to the Nazis’ heinous 1938 kristallnacht . . . are hard to ignore.” (As an aside, has an adjective ever done less work than that “heinous”?)

Well, there’s a class of rich people who are out of touch with reality, all right. . . .

ROGER SIMON: Will Obama Continue the Assault on Science During the State of the Union?

ONE SOURCE OF GROWING “INCOME INEQUALITY:” An increase in asssortative mating. Yeah, bosses don’t marry secretaries anymore so much as they marry other bosses. Sexual-harassment rules in the workplace likely strengthen that trend.

HEH: Obama vows no political harassing by NSA, says that’s the IRS’ job.

THE HILL: Obama’s distant cousin calls him ‘worst president in our time.’

ED DRISCOLL: The Evil of Banality.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: IRS, The Emblem Of Big Dirty Government, Gets Dirtier.

The IRS is stonewalling two congressional committees over new evidence it illegally targeted dissidents, this time citing employee confidentiality. If this means zero accountability for abuse of power, it’s time for new laws.

Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party candidate from a few years ago, may not be everyone’s cup, but she was spot-on when she told the Washington Times on Sunday: “Unless this is all exposed, unless every level of inappropriateness and corruption is exposed, I certainly won’t be the last person to be politically intimidated like this.”

Back in 2010, as she campaigned for a Senate seat in Delaware, O’Donnell’s private tax records were leaked by the IRS to her political opponents and phony claims about her tax liabilities were leaked to the press, all in a sleazy subterranean effort to keep her from winning that election.

And by remarkable coincidence, that was done by the same agency that has since admitted to targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, harassing them with insanely intrusive questions and delaying their applications for years at a time — all to repress political groups disliked by President Obama, who made it clear his administration considered them “terrorists.”

And let’s not forget that Joe the Plumber’s tax records were leaked in 2008 and conservative Commentary magazine was targeted for a “corruption” probe in 2009. Now Chuck Heath Jr., brother of Tea Party manque Sarah Palin, has declared on his Facebook page that their father was “horribly harassed” six times beginning in 2008, after 50 years of faithfully paying his taxes without a single IRS inquiry.

During the tax-exempt debacle, IRS operatives such as Lois Lerner admitted wrongdoing but were allowed to resign with zero consequences and a full pension and invoke their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination before Congress, a privilege never extended to taxpayers. The travesty was compounded earlier this month by an FBI probe that insisted “nothing to see here, move along” and took no further action.

Now the dodge is getting creepier. The Washington Times is reporting that the IRS is stonewalling the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, each of which is seeking the truth about the illegal targeting.

Perhaps mobs of protesters should visit their homes. It’s what lefties do, with far less provocation. Of course, since they’ll be Tea Party mobs, they’ll probably rake the lawn and leave baked goods.

BUSINESS INSIDER: Here’s What Everyone Is Too Polite To Say About Ezra Klein, Wonkblog, And Vox. With Wonkblog’s traffic, which is a fraction of InstaPundit’s, I don’t see how he can support that gigantic staff. (And a $10 CPM is very high these days; I’d be surprised if he gets that). I guess Jeff Bezos didn’t see that, either. But perhaps Ezra will be proved right.

NSA UPDATE: Lawmakers demand Obama dump Clapper.

A bipartisan group of House members is criticizing President Obama for not going far enough in his attempts to rein in the country’s surveillance programs.

In a letter to the White House on Monday, six lawmakers led by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that the Obama administration should “take immediate and effective safeguards” to reform the National Security Agency (NSA) and make sure that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is not involved in the process.

“The continued role of James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs and ensuring the highest level of transparency,” they wrote. . . . Clapper has been a subject of lawmakers’ ire since early last year, when he denied that the NSA spied on millions of Americans while under oath. He has since said that he tried to give the “least untruthful” answer without revealing classified information.

Trust has been lost.

OBAMA’S MOST DANGEROUS YEARS: Still to come? “Who needs Congress? Not Obama. But that’s not new; he made it clear even in his first term that he would expand executive power though the liberal (pun intended) use of agencies and executive orders, if Congress wouldn’t play ball. After all, how many divisions does Congress have? Or SCOTUS? And he knows the MSM won’t object, and in his second term he no longer fears the people, if he ever did in the first place.” Gird your loins.

DOES THE “STRUGGLING” GOP NEED IMMIGRATION REFORM, when it’s risen 6 points in the poll since October?

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Is Barack Obama an imperial president? President Obama’s use of executive action to get around congressional gridlock is unparalleled in modern times, some scholars say. But to liberal activists, he’s not going far enough. Some “liberal activists” are pretty comfortable with autocracy.

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BEN WEINGARTEN: Climate Change vs. Free Speech.

I DON’T THINK SO. I THINK SHE KNEW WHAT SHE WAS DOING, AND IT WORKED. Hugh Hewitt Audio: Mitt Romney: Candy Crowley Inserting Herself Into Debate “Was A Mistake On Her Part.” If people on the right responded like people on the left, she’d be radioactive now.

WITH GRISSOM, WHITE AND CHAFFEE ON A ROCKET RIDE TO HEAVEN: Apollo 1 Astronauts Did Not Die in Vain.

There’s a Rainmakers song. Though the initial inspiration for that song came from another event.