After producing 750,000 documents for the Republican IRS witch hunt at a cost to taxpayers of 10 million dollars, it is revealed that some of Lois Lerner's e-mails were lost when her computer crashed, which immediately inspires Sarah Palin and the Right Wing to compare it to Watergate. No, seriously.

Courtesy of Sarah Palin's Twitter page:  

Remember the 18 minute gap in Nixon’s White House tapes during the Watergate scandal? Now Obama’s IRS top dog claims a communications gap of 1,052,000 minutes. Hmm. Wonder if the press will recognize similarities. Maybe a smidgen? The IRS claims it just “lost” two years worth of email records sent to and from the central figure in their harassment of conservatives scandal. Try claiming that next tax season: “Oops-a-daisy, computer crash, all records gone, so... just trust me on what I claim I owe you, IRS.” You know, Obama Administration, at this point why not just say the dog ate it? Watch now as the Administration tosses us a bone while the public demands Obama find those evaporated emails. And about that promise of transparency? About that claim to be “The Most Transparent Administration Ever”? All bark, no bite. 

- Sarah Palin

Just in case you are not up to date on the recent Right Wing conspiracy theories, this is what Palin is  gnashing her teeth over:  

Congressional investigators are fuming over revelations that the Internal Revenue Service has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency's tea party controversy. 

The IRS said Lois Lerner's computer crashed in 2011, wiping out an untold number of emails that were being sought by congressional investigators. The investigators want to see all of Lerner's emails from 2009 to 2013 as part of their probe into the way agents handled applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups.

Now if you are absolutely convinced that this administration is the most corrupt in the history of presidential administrations, this might seem like a smoking gun to prove that everything you hear on Right Wing news sites is real and the End Times are nigh.

However if you read a little further down into the AP article you discover this: 

The IRS said technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner's computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency's criminal investigations unit. But to no avail. 

The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency said it pieced together the emails from the computers of 82 other IRS employees.

So while some are apparently missing, 24,000 of them have been made available for Cotton Mather and his Inquisition to sift through with a fine tooth comb.

And then there's this: 

The IRS said in a statement that more than 250 IRS employees have been working to assist congressional investigations, spending nearly $10 million to produce more than 750,000 documents. 

Overall, the IRS said it is producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013.

So to be clear, the IRS has spent ten million dollars  of taxpayer money, to produce 67,000 e-mails and 750,000 documents, on a "scandal" that has already been proved to be bullshit, and THIS is what Sarah Palin and the Right Wing feel is comparable to Watergate?