More conservative writers are beginning to discover the Malik Obama / Omar al-Bashir / IRS uber-scandal. The prominent Roger Kimball is the latest to do so:

The IRS scandal: it just gets worse

We applaud Kimball for picking up the story but he seems to open his article with a qualifier that helps to feed the narrative that Barack Obama’s ignorance is somehow excusable to some degree. In so doing, Kimball also diminishes the significance of the scandal and gives the left an opportunity to defend more Barack Obama pleas of ignorance, this time when it comes to Malik’s work as Executive Secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO).

Via PJM:

Remember Malik Obama? He’s the Kenyan-born half brother of the more famous Obama. The men, who first met in 1985, are not close, but each served as the best man at the other’s wedding. Malik has what The Daily Caller delicately calls “a checkered past.” That’s not the President’s fault, of course, any more than Jimmy Carter was responsible for his erring brother Billy.

This isn’t about owning the sins of your brother; it’s about knowing about them when they involve potential threats to national security. It’s also about knowing that an IRS official may be complicit in facilitating it by being an accessory to terror funding.

Besides, if WE know all of this without ever knowing Malik personally, how could it (or even should it) be that Barack knows nothing about what his brother his up to? That Malik’s Foundation got favorable treatment from Lois Lerner isn’t just about favoritism; it’s also about potentially funding a genocidal regime.

Mr. Kimball seems to be showing an undue amount of deference to the president here. How can he state as a matter of fact that Malik and Barack “are not close” and then proceed to report that they both served as the other’s “best man”? Why does he accept the premise that they’re not close? They look pretty close here:

and here…

At minimum, they’re close enough for Barack to know what his brother is up to. By the way, how did Malik get into the White House if he’s working with the IDO?

Kimball rightfully points to Charles Johnson’s work at the Daily Caller and the favorable tax-exempt status Lerner gave to Malik’s Foundation.

What is one of the biggest complaints about Obama from the right? Answer: He doesn’t seem to know anything, especially when he should.

Why would Kimball set Obama up for the same excuse by playing the Billy Carter card?