The New York Times publishes over 600 words on Joe Wilson’s “you lie” outburst, without ONCE pointing out that Obama was telling the truth.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell spent an entire segment on the incident and never got around to telling her viewers who was right.

This is how conservatives dominate the media. They can make any claim they want, and it’s basis in fact will never be questioned or countered. The press will simply go to the Democrats, ask for a comment, and report it without actually informing their readers/audience who is telling the truth.

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“[L]et’s be honest, you all, the media, tend to cover ‘X said this, Y said this,’ but some of you, but not everyone, does an investigation about whether what X said is actually true.” – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

Damn straight. Take, for example, this “death panel” nonsense. A couple of wingnuts (including Sarah Palin and Pat Buchanan) says Obama’s health plan includes death panels to decide who gets care and who doesn’t. Rather than reporting that Obama’s health plan has no such provision whatsoever, the media merely report that the Democrats say there’s no such provision.

If I had gone on national television last year and said that Dick Cheney eats babies, one would expect the media to say “Dick Cheney obviously does not eat babies” rather than calling the Office of the Vice President for comment. Do you see the difference?

They turn a simple matter of true/false into he-said/she-said. This is how journalism suffers in the name of “balance.” It happens all the time and it’s absolutely infuriating.

Sanford is now 100% qualified to be the next democRAT [sic] presidential nominee. He may even win the election. Remember, only republicans kick adulterers out of the party.

Apparently, this genius forgot about David Vitter.

And Newt Gingrich.

And Rudy Giuliani.

And John McCain.

And…you get the idea.

And so…

Why did Fox News label him with a “(D)” after his name? Perhaps because he disappeared for several days and announced that he had an affair?

Apparently Fox corrected the “mistake” in subsequent reports, but they have a history of this kind of foolishness and it only ever seems to happen when a Republican screws up. This makes it impossible for me to think it’s a simple error.

Media Matters

Wow.

“HOUSE DEMS VOTE TO PROTECT PEDOPHILES, BUT NOT VETERANS.”

That’s a pretty shocking assertion for the “fair and balanced” network to make. One would think there was solid journalism and irrefutable proof behind such an outrageous claim. Alas, no.

The short version:

Fox News says House Democrats who passed the hate crimes bill voted to protect pedophilia, since, by the wingnuts’ interpretation, the phrase “sexual orientation” could be interpreted to cover all kinds of ground including pedophilia. However, “sexual orientation” is already defined by federal statute as applying only to “consensual homosexuality or heterosexuality.” Thus, a specific exemption for pedophilia in the hate crimes bill (which Republicans are trying to add) has one purpose and one purpose only: to associate pedophilia with homosexuality. Dems were right to reject such language.

But, oh, the stupidity from Sean Hannity and jackass House Rep. Steve King (R-IA):

Hannity asked King, “Is it safe to say that Democrats were willing to protect pedophiles?” King replied: “Sean, it is a matter of congressional record. Absolutely true — beyond any doubt whatsoever.”

Ah…not even close, asshole.

Michael Moore has never had any influence on the Democratic Party. Sure, he’s made a few salient points about the Right, some of which our Democratic leadership might agree with. But he hardly commands a majority audience with the base. As a commenter on Balloon Juice points out:

Democrats didn’t need to [defend Moore], because the right-wing attempt to make Moore the grand poo-bah of the Dem Party was on its face laughable…

Democrats defended Moore where defense was warranted, but they didn’t engage in the “Michael! Michael!” idolatry that we saw at CPAC (“Rush! Rush!”).

And now we have this alleged conspiracy involving the White House attempting to “silence” Rush Limbaugh by…uhh…saying his name at a press conference? I dunno, I’m still trying to figure out what the wingnuts’ complaint is here. Tim speculates that it loosely follows this pattern:

Step 1: Publicly suggest that Republicans agree with Rush Limbaugh.
Step 2: ??
Step 3: Clear Channel replaces Rush’s show with Randi Rhodes and CounterSpin.

In Step 1, we have committed the Right’s most unpardonable sin – we have said something true! (Nothing flips out the GOP more than having their foibles pointed out to the public.) Obviously, Step 3 is never going to happen. And, frankly, no one has been able to fill in Step 2.

I’ll give it a shot.

Step 2: A few Republicans step out of line and oh-so-mildly criticize das Limbaugh, only to see the error of their ways and immediately go groveling to the Great One for forgiveness in order to make the yelling stop. This same group includes the fucking leader of the RNC, supposedly the TOP Republican in the country, who later lies about what he said and tries to play it off as a “misunderstanding.” Meanwhile, Limbaugh reaps huge ratings and manages to keep his name in the papers, thanks to our corporate media who just love a dust-up.

A few other Republicans play damage-control by going on TV and claiming “no, no, it’s actually the White House that started this whole thing” which, of course, is contrary to every bit of evidence we’ve seen over the last week or so. Ari Fleischer was talking to Schuster the other day and actually tried to pin the whole thing on Obama specifically, concern-trolling and tsk-tsk-ing the President for not living up to his “post-partisan ideals” (which really only exist in Fleischer’s head; the GOP likes to project these things on Obama when it is convenient to do so.)

(Watch the Fleischer/Schuster video by the way. Schuster eviscerates Fleischer for his rank hypocrisy in accusing anyone of being “childish” and “distracting” with a record of his own childish and distracting rhetoric and name-calling. Fleischer does a pretty good job of staying on-message, I’ll give him that. But his message is horseshit and is itself a ridiculous distraction. Schuster pretty well nails him for it.)

So now we’ve got Republican media personalities accusing the White House of being “childish” and “distracting the nation with this Limbaugh nonsense when there are more important issues at stake.” (This is the wingnut talking-point du jour, by the way. Meritless on its face, of course.)

Yeah…it’s all Obama’s fault.

Never mind the Chairman of the Republican National Committee crawling to beg forgiveness for daring to criticize Limbaugh. Ignore the fact that no Republican has been willing to say that Limbaugh was wrong for not only hoping that President Obama fails, but for claiming that every Republican feels the same way but is too afraid to say so. It’s all the White House’s fault.

Basically, as Tim says in closing:

Republicans could have kept their yap shut and let the country think that a drug-addled ignoramus pulls their strings. Instead they opened their mouth and proved it.

[Bill O'Reilly,] I can only assume that if you’re upset with the Democratic Party for starting a “diversionary culture war,” your problem with them is copyright infringement!

- Jon Stewart

Combined, the top Republican earmarkers (those in the top 10) total over $454-million, compared to about $313-million for the Democratic earmarks.

Silly me, I thought all Republicans thought earmarks were bad.

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GraphJam

But seriously:

the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future…

Bring it. Please, please, please bring it.

I wholeheartedly support this idea.

As I’ve said before (here and here), the quickest way to ensure a permanent Democratic majority is for the GOP to anoint a complete fucking sack of hammers like Palin as their champion.

Also…”too moderate?” Are you kidding me? How fucking far to the right do you have to be to think the George W. Bush administration is “too moderate?”

Rasmussen via Balloon Juice