Lies and Liars

Why is it that the right always seems to lie more than the left in big elections? Or really just in general. I know I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure that we don't publish crap like the new Corsi book and then do massive buys so that it gets put at the top of the bestseller list. Perhaps we might stretch the truth a little, but McCain's Olympics ad has an outright falsehood about Obama's tax plans. Not to mention his hypocrisy in creating ads that make McCain appear to be a champion of renewable energy when he's missed every vote on the subject this year, and is promoting more drilling above all else as the solution to our energy problems.

What ticks me off the most about all of this is that I believe it is the media's job to expose this kind of dishonesty for what it is, and in this election cycle, the media has not performed that job at all. It is unthinkable that the media gives anything like a chance for Corsi and his ilk to peddle his lies as something that even deserves debate. It is even worse that when McCain started passing out tire gauges labeled "Obama's Energy Plan" the press laughed about it. Every article about that should have said that not only was that a complete mischaracterization of what Obama said, but that McCain was in every way wrong to suggest that Obama's solution would not in fact save more gas than McCain's drilling plan would provide. Not to mention that the media has done a horrible job of explaining the fact that this off-shore drilling idea would solve absolutely none of our problems for at least 7 years, and then would still probably only take a couple of cents off the price of gas, at perhaps horrendous environmental costs. I can accept that other people have different views about things like how much we should pay in taxes and what services the government ought to provide, but what I can't take is when people have different views about what the facts are. It is dishonorable for politicians or crazy propagandists like Corsi to spew these lies, but it is worse that journalists do not expose these lies and do their duty to the American public. Presenting both sides is not unbiased reporting when one side is flat out lying.