California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa was asked on Fox News whether his House oversight committee would be investigating News Corp. over the phone-hacking scandal. No, came the response. “We don’t start picking on media whether they’re the left or the right just because we can.”

“Roar,” went Washington’s lefty irony-noting machine. Here’s ThinkProgress on the matter:

Issa says he would not want to investigate the many criminal accusations against News Corp because the company consists of media outlets, and Congress should never be “picking” on media. In reality, Issa has used his taxpayer-funded media team to harass the New York Times with largely empty charges of inaccuracy. News Corp has aided in the campaign, airing segments attacking the Times for criticizing Issa.

“Largely empty charges of inaccuracy,” huh? That’s not so accurate. As the Erik Wemple Blogger noted in this non-blog post, Issa had some very legitimate gripes with the New York Times’s Aug. 14 investigative piece alleging that he mixed his business interests with his political work. Sure, they weren’t all for real and, yes, Issa’s office went overboard in trashing the reputation of the story’s author, Eric Licthblau. But there can be no facile and blanket dismissal of Issa’s objections to the story.

That’s not to say that Issa hasn’t picked on the media just because he can. He did pretty much exactly that way back in 2008, when he used a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee to blast the New York Times and Lichtblau without provocation.

So there’s that.

Perhaps Issa would have taken a more aggressive stance toward News Corp. if he’d had more exposure to its phone-hacking paper, News of the World. A review of News of the World’s archives, however, doesn’t turn up any Lichtblau-style investigations by the now-defunct London tab. There’s a mention of Libyan soccer coach Adel bin Issa, clothes designer Issa, and Confederation of African Football President Issa Hayatou. But not much in the way of the brash Southern California congressman Issa.

Given what Issa did after he was the subject of an aggressive investigative story, imagine how he would have responded to having his phone hacked!