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Facing questions for the first time about why Internal Revenue Service personnel singled out some conservative groups for inappropriate scrutiny while he was head of the agency, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress on Tuesday that "I was dismayed and I was saddened" to learn about what had happened under his watch.

Both the former IRS commissioner who was in charge when the agency singled out some conservative groups for extra scrutiny and the man who replaced him will be appearing at a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday morning.

The Internal Revenue Service is under fire for improperly singling out some conservative groups for extra scrutiny -- putting them through months (or longer) of questions that delayed or derailed the organizations' requests for tax-exempt status.

The IRS was in the hot seat Friday, with its outgoing acting commissioner testifying before a House committee. A Senate panel is scheduled for Tuesday. Congress is prodding to find out why the agency singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny.

Of all the controversies swirling around the Obama White House, the Internal Revenue Service scandal seems likeliest to have the longest shelf life.

President Obama's first term was free from the kind of scandal that consumes every ounce of political oxygen in Washington. Now, in light of a trio of controversies, his supporters find themselves in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of having to defend some hard-to-defend events.

Steven Miller, who until this week was acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, is due at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Friday morning at which he'll be questioned about the agency's targeting of conservative groups during the 2012 campaign cycle.

On the same day House Republicans scheduled for their latest symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare, as part of their full-court press against the law they also took to Twitter to say, in three words, why they oppose the legislation.

Tea Party leaders and lawmakers in the House Republicans' Tea Party Caucus rallied Thursday on Capitol Hill, expressing alarm over the IRS's targeting of conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., invoked the axiom, "The power to tax is the power to destroy."

Asked if he can assure the nation that no one in the White House knew before last week that some IRS personnel had singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny during the 2012 campaign cycle, President Obama said Thursday afternoon that, "I certainly did not know."