Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Truthiness is a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. - Stephen Colbert
Real life imitates art. "Truthiness" is the business model for the fact-free world of FAUX News Fraudcasting and its "FAUX Nation."
Steve Benen writs today, Abandoning the pretense of caring about facts:
Nearly three weeks ago, Mitt Romney suggested attack ads rejected by "the various fact-checkers" shouldn't be on the air. Candidates exposed by the fact-checkers should feel "embarrassed" and pull the falsehoods from the air.
Last week, Romney switched gears. Told that "the various fact-checkers" consider his ridiculous welfare smear to be a blatant lie, the Republican said fact-checkers are fine, so long as they agree with him. If not, they must be biased.
Today, Team Romney abandoned the pretense of caring about honesty altogether.
Mitt Romney's aides explained with unusual political bluntness today why they are spending heavily -- and ignoring media criticism -- to air an add accusing President Barack Obama of "gutting" the work requirement for welfare, a marginal political issue since the mid-1990s that Romney pushed back to center stage.
"Our most effective ad is our welfare ad," a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O'Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. "It's new information."
The claims are "new," of course, because the Romney campaign made them up. Sure, it's "new information," in the same way it would be "new information" if Obama said Mitt Romney sold heroin to children -- when one invents a lie, its "newness" is self-evident.
Romney pollster Neil Newhouse added, "[W]e're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."
Right. So, in early August, Team Romney believed "the various fact-checkers" should be the arbiters of rhetorical propriety, but in late August, Team Romney believes they're irrelevant.
It's important to realize there is no modern precedent for a presidential candidate rejecting the premise that facts matter. Mitt Romney is trying something no one has ever seen -- he's deemed the truth to be an inconvenient nuisance, which Romney will ignore, without shame, to advance his ambitions for vast power.
If you don't find this outrageously offensive and frightening, there is something seriously wrong with you. This is what Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communist China, and every other totalitarian regime has done. This is America, Americans do not do this.
Greg Sargent adds at the Plum Line today, Fact checking for thee, but not for me, makes a criticial point for the media villagers reporting on this campaign:
In this sense, the Romney campaign continues to pose a test to the news media and our political system. What happens when one campaign has decided there is literally no set of boundaries that it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of its assertions? The Romney campaign is betting that the press simply won't be able to keep voters informed about the disputes that are central to the campaign, in the face of the sheer scope and volume of dishonesty it uncorks daily.
Paul Krugman’s question continues to remain relevant: “Has there ever been a candidacy this cynical?”
The media villagers and Beltway bloviators have a duty and to call this out for what it is, Big Lie GOPropoganda, and to condemn it in the harshest terms imaginable (get out your "Big Book of Adjectives"). You have an obligation to shut this campaign down, in the way that Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Welch shut down the red-baiting witch-hunt by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Have you all been lobotomized by the "Foxification" of news reporting? Are there no serious journalists left who believe in factual reporting and who will make a stand to demand the truth? Do none of you have a sense of duty to your fellow American citizens and your country? You are supposed to be the "watch dogs of democracy." Well, goddamnit, do your duty!
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