I.R.S. Targeting of Conservatives Wrong, Most Say in Poll Regardless of their party affiliation, Americans think the Internal Revenue Service was wrong to target conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, and that it was done for political reasons and not because officials felt it was the right policy to pursue, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. But the public is divided along party lines when assigning the blame for the scrutiny of the Tea Party and other conservative groups. Over all, 4 in 10 (including two-thirds of Democrats) think the I.R.S. acted on its own in investigating the conservative groups while slightly more (including 7 in 10 Republicans) say the Obama administration was involved. Those following the scandal closely and Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than those who were not to say that the scrutiny was politically motivated. One Tea Party supporter following the situation closely, Linda Sinnott, 63, a Republican from Salem, Ore., said "that it came down from the president." In a follow-up interview, Ms. Sinnott tied this to the fact that the groups targeted "are the people that don't agree with him." But Colin Felder, 35, a Democrat from Providence, R.I., doubts that President Obama "would actually greenlight something underhanded like that since the people that don't like him are looking for any little thing for him to mess up on." Three-fifths of the public think the I.R.S. actions were wrong, but they are evenly divided over whether the targeted inquiries rose to the level of illegality or were just unethical. And one-quarter think the I.R.S. did nothing wrong. Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to think the I.R.S. acted appropriately. One such poll respondent, Dick Howland, 73, a Democrat from Amherst, Mass., who has personal experience applying for tax-exempt status for organizations said: "Everyone gets scrutinized. Churches get scrutinized. Mr. Howland said it made sense to him that "if all of a sudden a whole bunch of political organizations were trying to get tax-exempt status, of course you'd look into it." And some Americans seem just to be growing weary with the way things are going in Washington. Nick Karras, 77, a Republican from Las Vegas and a Tea Party supporter, said: "I am just tired of the lies. The cover-ups are what really bother me. This thing doesn't touch me personally, but I'm tired of the lies. The nationwide telephone survey was conducted on both landlines and cellphones with 1,022 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. More results will be released at 6:30 p.m. tonight on nytimes.com.