If this sounds familiar it’s because Obama’s top adviser Dan Pfeiffer called the scandals “phony” on Monday.

Via Washington Times:

White House press secretary Jay Carney, previewing a speech on the economy President Obama is to deliver Wednesday, said that Washington needs to focus on things important to the country and not “phony” or “pretend scandals.”

The focus “shouldn’t be on the skirmishes that cause gridlock; it shouldn’t be on the phony scandals that have consumed so much attention here, all to come to naught,” Mr. Carney said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.

“It should be focused on what we can do to strengthen and grow the middle class, because when the middle class is thriving, when the middle class is growing, our economy is at its best and that’s what we need to do as we move forward in the 21st century,” he said.

Mr. Carney said that the issue with the IRS, which was discovered to have improperly scrutinized mainly conservative groups seeking nonprofit status, is important. But he argued that Republicans have inflated it into something it’s not.

“I think what we’ve seen is inappropriate activity that the president forcefully came out and said he would not tolerate and that he installed somebody at the IRS to take care of,” he said, accusing the GOP of selectively leaking “cherry-picked information” that only tells one side of the story.