The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Out on a Limb 
“Living Near Fast-Food Outlets Might Boost Obesity Risk”–headline, HealthDay.com, May 16

Shortest Books Ever Written 
“Why You Should Feel Sorry for the IRS”–headline, NationalJournal.com, May 16

Questions Nobody Is Asking 
“Holder Is at It Again: Do These Guys Ever Tell the Truth?”–headline, Washington Post website, May 17

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “During Rose Garden Press Conference, Obama Refuses to Apologize for Secretly Seizing AP Phone Records, Shifts Blame to Congress for Benghazi Security Lapses, and Dodges Question About White House IRS Knowledge”–headline, Daily Mail (London), May 17
  • “[White House spokesman Jay] Carney Caught Lying to Press Again”–headline, Breitbart.com, May 17

President Asterisk
No one can deny that Barack Obama is a highly skilled politician, at least by the measure of election outcomes. His record is undefeated, save for an ill-advised 2000 primary challenge to an entrenched incumbent congressman. His 2008 presidential victory, after a fraction of a term in the U.S. Senate, was especially dazzling. It disproved those who said that Hillary Clinton was invincible, that a left-wing Democrat couldn’t win, and that America wasn’t ready for a black president.

No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. The use of the Internal Revenue Service’s coercive power to suppress dissent against Obama is the political equivalent of steroids. The history books should record Obama’s re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means.

The Weekly Standard notes that the NBC’s Lisa Meyers “reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election”:

The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What’s going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when–after these officials are briefed by the [inspector general] that this is going on, they don’t disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we–if you can–what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different.”

One thing we have learned from the IRS scandal is that sports journalists are morally superior to political journalists. Whereas the former understand that cheating is an assault on the basic integrity of the sport, the latter all too often treat it as if it were just part of the game. …

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.