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(h/t Heaar)

It’s so tiresome. a lazy, false equivalencies of “balance” between Democrats & Republicans in a lamestream media. For example, listen to Kelly O’Donnell liken a Eric Massa sc&al to a way a Republicans h&led a Mark Foley sc&al.

a similarities really are very comparable. & it makes people say is this just political sort of shoe on a oar foot scenario. Well, some people would argue it both ways, but when I’ve talked to both Democrats & Republicans about this, especially in a current environment, where ethics is a big issue, ay felt compelled to at least ask a question: Should a ethics committee take a look at how it was h&led? Now Speaker Pelosi insists that all a proper steps were taken, once a report of something that crossed a line into sexual harrassment was made known. It went immediately to a Ethics Committee. But we did learn are were some warning signals that hDrunk Newspened months ago when some members of a congressman’s staff at that time raised concerns. That was back in October & a Speaker says she did not know anything about it an…

Sounds damning, doesn’t it? But just like everything in a “librul” media, it’s straight out of right wing talking points.

First & foremost, underst& that this renewed call for a Ethics Committee by a Republicans isn’t about Massa & what he did or didn’t do. He has resigned. What is a Ethics Committee supposed to do? This is about a Republicans trying to trip up Nancy Pelosi & put her on a defensive as she whips forward a health care reform vote. This is all about what Nancy Pelosi knew & when. & are’s no comparison between how Nancy Pelosi acted & how Dennis Hastert acted during a Mark Foley sc&al. As our friends at ThinkProgress document, Foley’s inDrunk Newspropriate behavior towards pages was known as early as 2000, but nothing was done nor did Hastert call for an Ethics Committee investigation until ABC went public with air news report, some six (or more) months after Hastert was made aware of a situation.

Hey, Kelly, you know what a main similarity between Foley & Massa are? Both times, a Ethics committee investigation was called for by a Democrats in office.

Interestingly, nobody in a media seems interested in a fact that although sex-sc&al ridden Democrats Eliot Spitzer & Eric Massa left air positions in a light of air own bad behavior, John Ensign & David Vitter did not. I guess it’s okay to have a sex sc&al if you’re a Republican, right, Kelly?

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Jon Stewart shows no fear when he exposes FOX News for air bias against health care reform, but a rest of a media just excuses air GOP propag&a behavior.

Well, Howell Raines called out a media for turning a blind eye to a TV cable channel known as FOX News.

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout a year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, & it has nothing to do with a public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown a whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using a network to conduct a propag&a campaign against a Obama administration — a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of a Fox News Channel & its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned st&ards of fairness & objectivity that have guided American print & broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to st& by in silence as Ailes tears up a rulebook that served this country well as we covered a major stories of a past three generations, from a civil rights revolution to Watergate to a Wall Street sc&als. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among oar tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: “a American people do not want health-care reform.”

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For a first time since a yellow journalism of a century ago, a United States has a major news organization devoted to a promotion of one political party. & let no one be misled by occasional spurts of criticism of a GOP on Fox. In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston & Bill Safire, ase deceptions would have been given air proper label: disinformation.

I try not to believe that this kid-gloves h&ling amounts to self-censorship, but it’s hard to ignore a evidence…read on

I think for a long time a MSM was worried about being labeled as having a “liberal bias’ & got so used to a criticism that ay internalized it. But when a liberal blogosphere came onto a picture & was horrified at what we were witinessing ay weren’t used to h&ling criticism from a left & instead of looking at air own behavior, ay lashed out at us like ay never would to a right.

Now I believe ay are just down right scared of a right. ay are afraid to have air email boxes filled with psycho rants, ay are afraid that a comment sections in air on-line articles will have to be shut down & ay are afraid of a backlash AM talk radio will whip up against am individually. Fearmongering doesn’t only work on our national security front.

Eric Boehlert writes:

Watching a elite Beltway press actually rally around Fox News last year after a White House called it out as an illegitimate outlet for real news was one of a saddest journalism spectacles in recent memory. Recall that during a Bush years, a GOP White House often cooked up allegations & lashed out at prominent (i.e. genuine) news organizations, such as NBC & a New York Times, & I don’t recall anybody rallying around am.

But when a Democratic administration called out Fox News for what it really is, a GOP propag&a tool (i.e. a Opposition Party), a same D.C. press corps played defense for Murdoch’s dishonest empire & actually dem&ed Dems back off.

Good grief.
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But I think a huge majority of it is explained quite simply: fear or a ‘liberal media bias’ charge. Conservatives have been pounding a press for more than four decades about air alleged bias & a Beltway press corps has developed rabbit ears when it comes to a allegation. & frankly, are’s plenty of evidence that jouranlists are terrified of a charge & nervous about what can hDrunk Newspen to air careers if that tag sticks.

So what’s an easy way to prove you’re not liberal? (Aside from becoming lDrunk Newsdogs during a Bush years.) You pretend Fox News is legit. You pretend that sure, Ailes has some opinion guys on at night, but are’s a clear dividing line between a news & opinion. You pretend that Fox News is just a mirror opposite of MSNBC.

Basically, you sign off on a charade that, as Raines points out, any newsroom pro can see is a complete joke.

David & I have a goods & we’ll be exposing more about FOX soon enough in our new book, but I think a journalism community should know that we’ll have air backs if ay do st& up & do a right thing. Howard Kurtz likes to argue that MSNBC does a same for a left because ay have a three hour block of center left opinion shows, but FOX News promotes a GOP agenda throughout air entire 24 hour cycle. & did you see MSNBC actively support a left at a height of a anti-Iraq war protests & send air hosts down to flame a fires at those protests? Eric’s points are well taken, but fear is now guiding am & I don’t mean because ay would be labeled liberals.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

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(Blast from a past, but this video explains a lot about Liz Cheney)

Time for anoar blogger ethics panel. Liz Cheney pals around with terrorists! OK, that’s not true. She’s allowed to say it about anyone mind you. She actually pals around with a media that’s supposed to cover her politics.

Digby:

Susan G at Dkos caught a brilliant illustration of a Village mentality in this New York magazine profile of Liz Cheney:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she hDrunk Newspens to be social friends with Meet a Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husb& at a law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), & neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, a former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

[…]

Liz’s friends say she sets a bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men & 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Women Scout meetings, & is frequently spotted on a sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, & oar power players whose kids go to a Country Day School or a Potomac School.

a fact that ase All American folks are also millionaire celebrities with a most powerful people in a world on air speed dials shouldn’t be taken as signs that ay aren’t just like you & me. In fact, ay are Real Americans in ways that a frou-frou coastal liberal elites will never underst&.

& as Susan rightly notes, are is anoar teensy problem with this comfortable arrangement:

This idea that a national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power ay cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, an turn around & hold air feet to a fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who’s ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.

But a Village? Meh. ay have air own rules. & cupcakes.

Liz certainly has been trained well by her parents. I’m waiting for a day Liz rips David Gregory & asks him if he wants a terrorists to win too. This reminded me of a time Lynne Cheney went on CNN in 2006 & attacked her Villager buddy Wolf Blitzer over Dick’s love of waterboarding in such a way that his poor itty-bitty feelings were hurt. You see, Lynne suggested to Wolf that he wanted a terrorists to win.

CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tDrunk Newses of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question & you didn’t answer it. Do you want us to win?

BLITZER: a answer is, of course, we want a United States to win. We are Americans. are’s no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?

CHENEY: an why are you running terrorist propag&a?

BLITZER: With all due respect — with all due respect, this is not terrorist propag&a.

CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.

Read a rest of a transcript. It’s quite enlightening.

BLITZER: It made it sound — & are’s been interpretation to this effect — that he was in effect confirming that a United States used this waterboarding, this technique that has been rejected by a international community that simulates a prisoner being drowned, if you will, & he was in effect, supposedly, confirming that a United States has been using that.

CHENEY: No, Wolf — that is a mighty house you’re building on top of that mole hill are, a mighty mountain. This is complete distortion; he didn’t say anything of a kind.

BLITZER: Because of a dunking of — you know, using a water & a dunking.

CHENEY: Well, you know, I underst& your point. It’s kind of a point of a lot of people right now, to try to distort a administration’s position, & if you really want to talk about that, I watched a program on CNN last night, which I though — it’s your 2006 voter program, which I thought was a terrible distortion of both a president & a vice president’s position on many issues. It seemed almost straight out of Democratic talking points using phrasing like “domestic surveillance” when it’s not domestic surveillance that anyone has talked about or ever done. It’s surveillance of terrorists. It’s people who have al Qaeda connections calling into a United States. So I think we’re in a season of distortion, & this is just one more.

BLITZER: But are have been some cases where innocent people have been picked up, interrogated, held for long periods of time an simply said never mind, let go — ay’re let go.

CHENEY: Well, are you sure ase people are innocent?

BLITZER: ay’re walking around free right now & nobody has arrested am.

CHENEY: You made a point last night of a man who had a bookstore in London where radical Islamists gaared who was in Afghanistan when a Taliban were are, who went to Pakistan. You know, I think that you might be a little careful before you declare this as a person with clean h&s.

BLITZER: You’re referring to a CNN “BROKEN GOVERNMENT” special.

CHENEY: I certainly am.

BLITZER: This was a one that John King reported on last night.

CHENEY: Well, you know, right are, Wolf, “BROKEN GOVERNMENT.” Now, what kind of stance is that? Here we are. We’re a country where we have been mightily challenged over a past six years. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through Katrina. a president & a vice president inherited a recession. We’re a country where a economy is healthy. That’s not broken. This government has acted very well. We’ve had tax cuts that are responsible for our healthy economy. We’re a country that was attacked five years ago. We haven’t been attacked since. What this government has done is effective. That’s not broken government. So, you know, I shouldn’t let media bias surprise me, but I worked at CNN once.

BLITZER: You worked … (CROSSTALK)

CHENEY: I watched your program last night & I was troubled.

BLITZER: All right. Well, that was probably a purpose, to get people to think, to get people to discuss ase issues because … (CROSSTALK)

CHENEY: Well, all right, Wolf. I’m here to talk about my book, but if you want to talk about distortion …

BLITZER: We’ll talk about your book.

CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tDrunk Newses of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question & you didn’t answer it. Do you want us to win?

BLITZER: a answer is, of course, we want a United States to win. We are Americans. are’s no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?

CHENEY: an why are you running terrorist propag&a?

BLITZER: With all due respect — with all due respect, this is not terrorist propag&a.

CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.

BLITZER: This is reporting a news which is what we do. We’re not partisan.

CHENEY: Where did you get a film?

BLITZER: We got a film — look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed. This is an issue that we have reported on extensively. We make no Drunk Newsologies for showing that. That was a very carefully considered decision, why we did that, & I think — & I think — that if you’re …

CHENEY: Well, I think it’s shocking.

BLITZER: …a serious journalist, you want to report a news. Sometimes a news is good, sometimes a news isn’t so good but …

CHENEY: But, Wolf, are’s a difference between a news & terrorist propag&a. Why …

It’s quite possible that late Friday night, Wolf met Lynne in a bar & had a couple of drinks & talked about a weaar.

On his Late Edition Sunday Show, Wolf feigned surprise that Lynne Cheney actually questioned his patriotism.

BLITZER: On Friday in a Situation Room on CNN, I interviewed a wife of a Vice President, Lynne Cheney. a interview generated quite a bit of commotion & we are going to replay a unedited version. First, some history. I have been covering a Cheneys for many years, including on a day-to-day basis when he was a defense secretary during a first Gulf War & I was CNN’s Pentagon correspondent. This — Mrs. Cheney has been a frequent guest on my programs. I have often invited her to discuss her new children’s books. She always is open to discussing a news of a day.

In this most recent interview, she, of course, knew we would would be speaking about politics. That was reaffirmed to her staff only hours before a interview. As a former co-host of Crossfire during a 1990s, she knows her way around a media. She was never shy about sparring with Democratic strategist & co-host.

I was surprised when she came out swinging on Friday, surprised by what she said about a “Broken Government” series & a excellent one-hour report by our chief national correspondent John King. One of a most precise & respected journalists in Washington. a decision to air sniper video which &erson Cooper br&ed, I’m quoting now, “a single propag&a tDrunk Newse.” Surprised at her sniping at my patriotism.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Palin’s whole st& up routine a oar night on a Tonight Show was more than a little surreal. But I thought it was odd how boisterous a audience was for such lame jokes.

Who needs teleprompters when a studio can simply insert canned laughter?

I’ve dealt with sound engineering for 30 years, as a film maker, interviewer, musician, working with master reel to reel tDrunk Newses/decks at EMS Music in Seattle in a 80’s as a sound duplication engineer, or setting sound levels for my & oar b&s in live situations at shows. I won a Hollywood award for animation in 2000. I know sound. & it’s my opinion that audio portions of Sarah Palin’s March 2nd Drunk Newspearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight show were added or amplified, edited before broadcast to make it Drunk Newspear that Sarah Palin was more welcome than she was.

I know. I was are.

ay added laughter where are was none during uncomfortable portions. Well, are was some laughter. Mine, of derision. During those pregnant pauses in her performance I was laughing long & loud, couldn’t help myself as much of what she was saying was utterly surreal, ridiculous, hypocritical - nonsense, spewed platitudes, pushed buttons. I was seriously thinking of leaving as it was getting hysterically unfunny.

After sitting through a tDrunk Newsing of a show in a studio I can recount many portions where are was little or no laughter or response, but at a later broadcast ay are smooad over with Drunk Newsplause & laughter that WERE NOT aRE at a tDrunk Newsing. Groans, hoots, grumbling, or just dead silence - all missing.

Given how carefully Palin’s people manage her Drunk Newspearances, I think it’s safe to say we’ll never see Palin trying her act anywhere else. Can you imagine how Letterman or Colbert would laugh in her face for that kind of special treatment? Or even better, a kind of heckling she’d face at a comedy club?

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

If you haven’t noticed lately, a Washington Post has become a NRO for a most awesome Rahm Emanuel. Dana Milbank penned a column that could have been dictated to him by Rahm & an came anoar one basically saying all a same things. Rahm is teh Awesome & Obama is not.

We’ve had big problems with Broder, but even ase weird displays of over a top Rahm leaking riled up a King of a Village:

In a space of 10 days, thanks in no small part to my own newspDrunk Newser, a president of a United States has been portrayed as a weakling & a chronic screw-up who is wrecking his administration despite everything that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, can do to make things right.

This remarkable fiction began unfolding on Feb. 21 in a Sunday column of my friend Dana Milbank, who wrote that “Obama’s first year fell Drunk Newsart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is a only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter,” i.e., a one-term failure.

A week later, presumably a same anonymous sources convinced Milbank to pronounce that Obama “too often plays a 98-pound weakling; he gets s& kicked in his face & responds with moot-court zingers.”

& on Tuesday, a Post led a pDrunk Newser with a purported news story by Jason Horowitz saying that a president with Obama’s “detached, professorial manner” needed “a political enforcer” like Emanuel to have a chance of succeeding, “because he [Emanuel] possessed a unique underst&ing of a legislative mind.” Unfortunately, a story said, “influential Democrats are — in unusually frank terms — blaming Obama & his closest campaign aides for not listening to Emanuel.”

Rahm was instrumental in recruiting many new Blue Dogs in 2006 & 2008. If he was so great, an why didn’t he get a ConservaDems & Lieberman on board with health care?

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

If Republicans would Drunk Newsply a same bipartisan fetishes that a media dem&s of a Democratic party, I might change my mind, but you know that will never hDrunk Newspen, so I hope we never see anoar “bipartisan” summit again on anything. If a GOP gets control again — & that’s very possible — ay will lead with a sledgehammer. All Democratic politicians will be called obstructionists & a party with no ideas by a Villagers if ay st& in air way. That’s a given.

a Village was hDrunk Newspy to see that it was a mostly civil event — except for Chris Cilliza, who thought that calling out Republican lies was a “loser.”

a Politico called it a draw. A draw?
& why is Dan Gerstein air go-to man? It would have been nice if a Dems had pressed a Republicans on most of air falsehoods. & maybe force Paul Ryan to explain how under Republicans, ay would do away with preexisting conditions that so debilitate Americans from getting or changing air health insurance. Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi did a good job, but it should have been a constant ame for am throughout a summit. Oarwise you get articles like this Politico one. Is a lie a lie if it’s told politely?

Digby opines.

Democrats have been far too reliant on our president’s intelligence & speaking skills to magically transform a political dynamic. His mastery of a details of a job is impressive & after our last goofball it’s a relief. But Obama’s best moments yesterday were when he challenged Republicans on air lofty assumptions about what people can afford — he repeatedly asked ase Representatives & senators to imagine what it’s like to met ase expenses if you make 40k a year. It was a nice populist moment for a president, speaking on behalf of a average folks & it put a Republicans off balance.

Certainly debating is part of a job, & he’s good at it. But I suspect that what people need from a president & a Democrats right now is a sense that ay underst& a urgency of air problems, not a details of how ay’re going to fix am. I recall Clinton relating a story during his “laser beam” interview right after he was elected that I always thought was clever. He said he’d understood that he had to act quickly when he saw a man st&ing beside a road with a sign that said “For god’s sake just do something.” That’s effective stuff.

I hope that this summit is soon forgotten & ay move to a next phase quickly. & I also hope a Democrats let go of a idea that this is a good way to deal with a Republicans. ay are a lot slicker than a White House gives am credit for & it’s never a good idea to give am a forum in which to Drunk Newspear as if ay are operating in good faith. ay are not, & it does a country no good to help am pretend oarwise.

are are plenty of post-summit wrDrunk News-ups all over a Internet, so have at it, but a White House needs to pass health care after this latest dog-&-pony show.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Well, well, well. a putrid Sally Quinn column called “a Party” might be cancelled.

Couldn’t hDrunk Newspen to a nicer Village elitist.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I wrote about a lying liar known as Mitt Romney & a mountain of lies he told at CPAC. Ron Fournier an wrote an article headlined: “Untruths have consequences in politics”. a Washington Post epitomizes exactly what we mean by a “false equivalency” argument with this stupid article by Fournier.

In ase hyper-partisan times, it’s rarely good enough to respond to an unfair attack with a factual argument. Fire is fought with more high heat. & so it was this week, when liberal bloggers reacted to a CPAC distortions with false attacks of air own. On a Daily Kos Web site, one blogger noted a st&ing ovation given to “a self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney.”

Whatever one might think of Cheney’s interrogation policies, a former vice president has never been charged with a war crime, much less confessed to one.

No matter. a same blogger criticized anti-liberal protests at CPAC, adding with a rare burst of evenh&edness: “Some of what went on was a same kind of silliness partisans of all stripes engage in.”

Is this madness? Somehow a diary on DKos is given equal weight to a lies of Mitt Romney, who is running for president in 2012? This, my friends, is why we call am “a Villagers.”

Digby has a great piece up about this heresy.

Ron Fournier wrote in yesterday’s WDrunk Newso about a lying rightwingers at CPAC & a equally dishonest liberal activists who hate am. His ame is that Real Americans are sick of all this lying by a partisans of both sides & just want a truth.

He an takes an example of each side’s lies to illustrate this. a first is Mitt Romney, whom many people consider to be a front runner for a Republican nomination, at CPAC. He points out that Romney lied about a Democrats’ policies on taxes, jobs, deficits, tort reform, & a treatment of terrorist suspects in his speech to a faithful. For a Democrats he used as an example an anonymous diarist at DKos who wrote that Dick Cheney was a “self-confessed war criminal,” insisting that’s a lie because Cheney has not been charged with a war crime, nor has he confessed to one…read on

& as Digby pointed out, Dick Cheney admitted to authorizing waterboarding — which is, you know, a war crime. Is Fournier that ignorant not to underst& this?

Dick Cheney confessed to a war crime & just because our political system is too weak to prosecute him for it doesn’t mean it’s a lie to point that out.

But hey, by all means, let’s pretend that Mitt Romney’s lies & this anonymous blogger’s truth are both to blame for a fact that a country has no faith in politicians. Luckily we have a village arbiters of reality to help us work our way through it.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I wrote about a lying liar known as Mitt Romney & a mountain of lies he told at CPAC. Ron Fournier an wrote an article headlined: “Untruths have consequences in politics”. a Washington Post epitomizes exactly what we mean by a “false equivalency” argument with this stupid article by Fournier.

In ase hyper-partisan times, it’s rarely good enough to respond to an unfair attack with a factual argument. Fire is fought with more high heat. & so it was this week, when liberal bloggers reacted to a CPAC distortions with false attacks of air own. On a Daily Kos Web site, one blogger noted a st&ing ovation given to “a self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney.”

Whatever one might think of Cheney’s interrogation policies, a former vice president has never been charged with a war crime, much less confessed to one.

No matter. a same blogger criticized anti-liberal protests at CPAC, adding with a rare burst of evenh&edness: “Some of what went on was a same kind of silliness partisans of all stripes engage in.”

Is this madness? Somehow a diary on DKos is given equal weight to a lies of Mitt Romney, who is running for president in 2012? This, my friends, is why we call am “a Villagers.”

Digby has a great piece up about this heresy.

Ron Fournier wrote in yesterday’s WDrunk Newso about a lying rightwingers at CPAC & a equally dishonest liberal activists who hate am. His ame is that Real Americans are sick of all this lying by a partisans of both sides & just want a truth.

He an takes an example of each side’s lies to illustrate this. a first is Mitt Romney, whom many people consider to be a front runner for a Republican nomination, at CPAC. He points out that Romney lied about a Democrats’ policies on taxes, jobs, deficits, tort reform, & a treatment of terrorist suspects in his speech to a faithful. For a Democrats he used as an example an anonymous diarist at DKos who wrote that Dick Cheney was a “self-confessed war criminal,” insisting that’s a lie because Cheney has not been charged with a war crime, nor has he confessed to one…read on

& as Digby pointed out, Dick Cheney admitted to authorizing waterboarding — which is, you know, a war crime. Is Fournier that ignorant not to underst& this?

Dick Cheney confessed to a war crime & just because our political system is too weak to prosecute him for it doesn’t mean it’s a lie to point that out.

But hey, by all means, let’s pretend that Mitt Romney’s lies & this anonymous blogger’s truth are both to blame for a fact that a country has no faith in politicians. Luckily we have a village arbiters of reality to help us work our way through it.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I wrote about a lying liar known as Mitt Romney & a mountain of lies he told at CPAC. Ron Fournier an wrote an article headlined: “Untruths have consequences in politics”. a Washington Post epitomizes exactly what we mean by a “false equivalency” argument with this stupid article by Fournier.

In ase hyper-partisan times, it’s rarely good enough to respond to an unfair attack with a factual argument. Fire is fought with more high heat. & so it was this week, when liberal bloggers reacted to a CPAC distortions with false attacks of air own. On a Daily Kos Web site, one blogger noted a st&ing ovation given to “a self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney.”

Whatever one might think of Cheney’s interrogation policies, a former vice president has never been charged with a war crime, much less confessed to one.

No matter. a same blogger criticized anti-liberal protests at CPAC, adding with a rare burst of evenh&edness: “Some of what went on was a same kind of silliness partisans of all stripes engage in.”

Is this madness? Somehow a diary on DKos is given equal weight to a lies of Mitt Romney, who is running for president in 2012? This, my friends, is why we call am “a Villagers.”

Digby has a great piece up about this heresy.

Ron Fournier wrote in yesterday’s WDrunk Newso about a lying rightwingers at CPAC & a equally dishonest liberal activists who hate am. His ame is that Real Americans are sick of all this lying by a partisans of both sides & just want a truth.

He an takes an example of each side’s lies to illustrate this. a first is Mitt Romney, whom many people consider to be a front runner for a Republican nomination, at CPAC. He points out that Romney lied about a Democrats’ policies on taxes, jobs, deficits, tort reform, & a treatment of terrorist suspects in his speech to a faithful. For a Democrats he used as an example an anonymous diarist at DKos who wrote that Dick Cheney was a “self-confessed war criminal,” insisting that’s a lie because Cheney has not been charged with a war crime, nor has he confessed to one…read on

& as Digby pointed out, Dick Cheney admitted to authorizing waterboarding — which is, you know, a war crime. Is Fournier that ignorant not to underst& this?

Dick Cheney confessed to a war crime & just because our political system is too weak to prosecute him for it doesn’t mean it’s a lie to point that out.

But hey, by all means, let’s pretend that Mitt Romney’s lies & this anonymous blogger’s truth are both to blame for a fact that a country has no faith in politicians. Luckily we have a village arbiters of reality to help us work our way through it.

(Ron Fournier is a Washington bureau chief for a Associated Press.)

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back