Given Palin's inability, during an interview with CBS' Katie Couric, to name a single newspaper she reads, the fact that she is now a published author does have a certain man-bites-dog quality to it, so you had to figure it would get some media attention. But the past week's media Palin-palooza has been more than a little over the top, even for a news corps that devotes wall-to-wall coverage to a helium balloon that isn't carrying a small child.

Newsweek put Palin on the cover (with a poorly considered photo). The Washington Post ran four articles (and two columns) about her in Tuesday's paper alone and dedicated nine -- nine! -- online Q&A sessions to her from Friday to Wednesday. The Post was so desperate to squeeze a fourth article into Tuesday's paper, it gave Ana Marie Cox only four hours to read the book and write and submit a review. And at times on Wednesday, MSNBC seemed to be running an all-day infomercial for Palin's book.

Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports -- broadcast on location from a bookstore in Michigan where Palin was scheduled to appear many hours later -- began with Mitchell breathlessly announcing that she and her crew had gotten to the mall at the crack of dawn:

MITCHELL: Sarah Palin is kicking off her book tour right here with a signing later tonight, but the action is already here today. We've seen more than 1,500 people. When we got here early this morning, they were here overnight, camped out; they brought their blankets; they brought their chairs -- and the scene has been incredible, as they were waiting to get wristbands that would then enable them to get back in line and to come here for the signing, which will be between 6 and 9, we are told.

She's going to come here a little bit earlier. She may talk to an overflow crowd. We don't know exactly what she'll do when she gets here. But there's a lot of action here. And she's actually going to be up in the Mystery section of the bookstore, Barnes & Noble.

A little later, Mitchell took a stroll past a display of Palin books, explaining:

MITCHELL: We're actually in the Woodland Mall, in the Barnes & Noble, and in this curtained-off area to take you behind the scenes. This is the area where Sarah Palin is going to be signing books when she shows up here in a couple of hours.

While talking, Mitchell walked slowly in front of a big blue curtain, holding a copy of Palin's book. All that was missing was a flashing 800-number and an offer to get a second book for just $1 if you call now. Then Mitchell got to what appeared to be a folding table with a chair and a blow-up of the cover of Palin's book. Fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff! MSNBC viewers got to see the curtain in front of which Palin was going to sit in, like, six hours! And not just that: The chair she's going to sit in, too! We're talking really top-notch journalism here, folks.

Mitchell continued:

MITCHELL: There were people already lined up, some overnight, some at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning outside. The doors to the mall opened at 5. They could come in and warm up, those who could get in line that far. And then at 7, they were given wristbands to be able to come back, and then get in line again, for when Palin will be here later this evening.

The way Mitchell went on, you'd think she were covering a Beatles reunion tour featuring Michael Jordan and the Pope filling in for George and John. And this is where Paul is going to stand!

And not just Mitchell: MSNBC went all-in on its coverage of a shopping mall in which Palin was scheduled to appear hours later. Immediately after Mitchell finished, Contessa Brewer took over, announcing: "Massive lines to meet The Maverick herself, Sarah Palin."

Talk about a Palin-friendly framing. Politicians -- other than Sen. John McCain, of course -- aren't usually introduced by reporters using their self-selected nicknames. But that was nothing compared to this Hardball exchange from last Friday:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the Sarah Palin phenomenon. We can only judge these things fairly like a month at a time. This book's big-time. This promotion -- I've never seen anything like it, David.

DAVID GREGORY: It's extraordinary, and, I mean, she's extraordinary from that point of view of not just the book. I mean, all this year, it's as if she's like a senator or something. I mean, she issues statements and posts things on Facebook as if she's an incumbent or if she's a candidate for something.

MATTHEWS: She's got a position on the health care bill.

Got that? Palin "posts things on Facebook" and it's "as if she's like a senator or something." Yeah, "or something": There are about 300 million people who post things on Facebook. Posting things on Facebook doesn't mean you're behaving like a senator; it means you're behaving like someone who has a pulse and an Internet connection. But David Gregory finds it extraordinary and senatorial that Sarah Palin does so. And Chris Matthews is blown away that Palin has a position on health care reform.

But for real soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations, you have to look to Palin's fellow conservatives, who apparently thought her book would be written in crayon paper placemat. How else can you explain how impressed they were with the actual book? Rush Limbaugh, for example, called it "one of the most substantive policy books I've read." And an apparently serious John Ziegler wrote: "I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime."

That is not a view shared by many, of course. What everyone did seem to agree on is that Sarah Palin is, as Chris Matthews said last Friday, a "phenomenon." Bill O'Reilly, Eugene Robinson, and writers for the LA Times, US News, and Reuters -- among others -- all used the same word.

But as political phenomenons go, Sarah Palin is a remarkably unpopular one. Not that you'd know it from much of the week's media coverage, but the American public as a whole really doesn't care for her:

• A CBS poll conducted this month found that only 23 percent have a favorable opinion of Palin; 38 percent have an unfavorable view. Only one in four Americans wants her to run for president; two out of three don't. One in four thinks she has the ability to be an effective president; more than 60 percent disagree. Only 43 percent of Republicans think she could be effective.

• An ABC poll, also conducted this month, found similar results: 43 percent have a favorable impression of Palin, 52 percent unfavorable. A whopping 53 percent of Americans would not even consider voting for her for president, and 60 percent don't think she's qualified for the job.

• A CNN poll conducted last month found that even more Americans -- 71 percent -- think Palin is not qualified to be president.

There is, in short, something very close to a national consensus that Sarah Palin should not be president and would not be effective in the job.

That's the "political phenomenon" that is Sarah Palin: She has pulled off the difficult task of uniting 60 to 70 percent of Americans behind a single political position. That position happens to be that Palin shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office, but it's still an impressively large coalition.

That's a fact that tended to get lost in the media's efforts to hype the Palin "phenomenon." To the contrary: Much of the Palin coverage has suggested exactly the opposite. Like Andrea Mitchell's declaration from the Michigan mall: "Here, in the heartland, this is Sarah Palin territory."

No, it probably isn't.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The controversy stems from conservative claims that proposed health care reforms would undermine or circumvent the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits direct federal payments for abortion services (with exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest, and for those that are necessary to save a woman's life). Those claims are incorrect: The proposed legislation would have maintained the status quo.

It is important to keep in mind that the status quo -- the Hyde Amendment -- already constitutes a compromise by supporters of abortion rights. Abortion is a legal medical procedure; a ban on federal funding for it is a substantial concession by abortion-rights advocates. (You might be tempted to think of Hyde as a similarly substantial concession by abortion-rights opponents, as they want the procedure to be illegal. But it isn't really a legislative concession, as the preferred outcome of abortion-rights opponents -- an outright ban on abortion -- is unconstitutional, and thus off the table.)

So, that's the background: Proposed health care reform would maintain the status quo when it comes to federal payments for abortion services -- a status quo that already represents a significant concession by abortion-rights advocates.

But those basic facts haven't been reflected in Chris Matthews' coverage. (Matthews' comments about abortion and health care reform have by no means been unique; I focus on him here because he has addressed the subject regularly over the past several months, and because it serves as yet another reminder that, despite conventional wisdom, neither Matthews nor MSNBC is really "liberal.")

To begin with, Matthews portrays progressives who oppose a change in the status quo as rigidly insisting upon "a clear statement supporting a woman's right to choose" and describing them as people who "don't want any fudging" and refuse to compromise. This ignores the reality that maintaining the status quo is already a significant concession. It makes the compromise position seem like the far left and a conservative position seem like a middle, compromise position.

(This may remind you of the broader health care debate, in which many in the media have portrayed the public option as the far-left position, when, in fact, it represents a massive concession on the part of liberals who support single-payer and other, more fundamental, reforms.)

Matthews' comments about abortion are premised on the idea that abortion should be treated differently from other medical procedures. He doesn't explain, or even ask, why that should be -- why we should ban federal funding for a perfectly legal medical procedure. He doesn't explain, or even ask, how that is consistent with the concept of insurance. (Answer: It isn't. If we can all veto coverage for procedures we don't want covered, insurance doesn't work.)

There is no great controversy over whether government health care funds should be spent treating lung cancer or broken arms or influenza or sprained ankles or erectile dysfunction. And Matthews doesn't explain why abortion should be treated any differently. Doesn't even ask his guests to explain -- he just assumes, and argues, that it is. That's the very definition of adopting right-wing framing.

Matthews finally acknowledged this problem this week:

MATTHEWS: People say, well, it's just like any other health care procedure. Well, it isn't just like any other health care procedure. [...] [W]e wouldn't be debating it. We don't have national debates over kidney removal or anything else like that. This is unique in our culture, in our value system.

In other words, we should treat abortion differently because it's different, and it's different because some people want it treated differently. Obviously, that is completely circular reasoning and can't be taken seriously. It doesn't even occur to Matthews that the fact that we don't have these debates over other medical procedures doesn't mean there is anything unique about abortion; it means that abortion-rights opponents are demanding -- and receiving -- special treatment for no reason other than that they want it.

Nor do other obvious problems occur to Matthews. For instance: The death penalty is inconsistent with my value system, and with that of millions of others. Yet we pay for it with our tax money. Millions of people find wars of choice morally abhorrent, but are forced to pay for them anyway. Why should abortion be treated differently? You can spend an awfully long time looking for a news report that addresses that question, and you'll come up empty.

Again: The fact that these inconsistencies don't even occur to Matthews is a clear demonstration of how thoroughly he has internalized conservative framing.

Next: Matthews has adopted the phony right-wing spin that it would constitute a departure for health care reform legislation to allow federal subsidies to go to health insurance plans that offer abortion coverage to unsubsidized consumers. Here's Matthews:

MATTHEWS: The problem with that is it looks like an accounting trick. It looks like you're saying, OK, some of the money that goes into an insurance plan will go to abortion, some won't. Everybody knows that money's fungible and that this is basically an accounting trick. And I don't think it'll work with people who have a moral problem with abortion funding by the federal government.

Now, here's why that's baloney: Government funding currently works that way, under the Hyde Amendment. Federal funds go to Medicaid, and in 17 states, Medicaid covers "all or most medically necessary abortions" -- not just abortions in cases of rape and incest, or where the life of the woman is at stake. Under Matthews' "money's fungible ... this is basically an accounting trick" reasoning, such federal funding for Medicaid should not be allowed and shouldn't "work with people who have a moral problem with abortion funding by the federal government." But that's how current law works.

Matthews, however, is apparently unaware of this:

In our health care system, poor women get Medicaid. Medicaid has never allowed women to get abortion paid for by the government. This is current law and has been law for 30-some years now, 32 years.

That simply isn't true. Not under Matthews' own definitions of what constitutes funding and of the fungibility of money. You'd have to play what Matthews derides as an "accounting trick" to defend his claims about Medicaid.

Even after a Hardball guest, Politico reporter Jonathan Allen, explained the "intellectually dishonest" nature of claims like those Matthews is making about the government subsidizing abortion, Matthews misses the point. Here's Allen:

ALLEN: You know, when you talk about subsidies, what's interesting -- and I haven't heard anybody bring this up -- is, we already subsidize insurance companies that have abortion plans -- have plans that cover abortions. [...] We do it through the Medicare prescription drug law, through tax breaks. Insurance companies are subsidized by the American taxpayer in all forms of way. And, so, it's a little intellectually dishonest for some of these Republicans and Democrats who are against abortion rights to say now, we don't want to subsidize.

Matthews steadfastly refused to understand, telling Allen he's "missing the point" that some people don't want the government to pay for abortion and continuing to suggest that health care reform would move away from current law by allowing federal subsidies for insurance companies that cover abortion, leading Allen to try again: "[W]hat I'm saying is that you already have insurance companies that have plans that cover abortions ... that are subsidized by the American taxpayer in a lot of ways." Matthews still didn't get it, though, apparently not understanding that if money is fungible under health care reform, money is fungible already, and so we already -- by his definition -- subsidize abortion with federal funds.

Matthews also gets the concept of government intervention in abortion decisions wrong. He says that if government funds can be used to pay for abortion, that constitutes the government meddling in individual decisions about reproductive health:

MATTHEWS: [I]sn't there some way to separate out, so that people who are taxpayers can support a health care plan without getting involved in the individual decision which is a guaranteed right under this Constitution to choose an abortion? You don't get involved in that decision.

It's totally that woman's choice, that you're not subsidizing it or taxing it or anything -- it's a neutral choice as far as you're concerned, which is what most Americans, I believe, are comfortable with, if they support abortion rights. Even those people say, let the person pay for it.

This is completely backward. If the government refuses to cover a medical procedure, that is precisely a case of the government "get[ting] involved in that decision." Banning federal funding is inserting the government into the "individual decision"; allowing it is keeping the government out of the decision. Unless, of course, you think the fact that Medicaid covers treatment for your broken leg to be an example of the government getting involved in your medical decisions.

But because Matthews has adopted the conservatives' illogical premise that the government refusing to fund a medical procedure constitutes the government staying out of private medical decisions, he never asks conservatives to explain the tension between their oft-stated warnings of a government bureaucrat getting between you and your doctor and their opposition to federal funds being used for abortion.

Matthews not only adopts factually inaccurate and conceptually flawed right-wing framing on the substance of the debate, he does so when it comes to the politics, too. He repeatedly claims that there are 40 House Democrats who will oppose health care reform if it does not contain the Stupak amendment's broad restrictions on abortion coverage:

• CECILE RICHARDS (president of Planned Parenthood): [T]here were a handful of folks who were holding the health care reform bill hostage Friday night who said they would keep the bill from actually passing out of the House unless they got this amendment in.
  
  [...]
  
  MATTHEWS: You called them a handful of, but it was 40 Democrats. [Hardball, 11/9/09]

• MATTHEWS: Anyway, how do you solve the problem of 40 people saying this bill's going down if it's not pro-choice, and 40 people saying it's going down if it's not pro-life, and you're Nancy Pelosi, you've got to solve the problem? How do you do it? [Hardball, 11/9/09]

• MATTHEWS: Forty people have said they will -- they will not vote for this bill if it's not pro-choice. Forty people have said they will not vote for the bill if it funds -- or uses taxpayer money to subsidize abortion coverage. It sounds like a real no -- no -- no deal to me. [Hardball, 11/10/09]

So, are there actually 40 House Democrats who won't vote for health care reform if it does not include the Stupak language, but will if the Stupak language remains? House Democratic whip James Clyburn suggests it's more like 10, not 40. But Matthews keeps using the higher number.

Finally, Matthews doesn't question the sincerity of abortion-rights opponents, though there are ample reasons to do so. A spokesman for House Republican whip Eric Cantor admitted this week that his party sees the inclusion of the Stupak amendment as the best way to derail health care reform:

"If defeating Stupak wouldn't [have changed] the outcome on Saturday," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), "then it is clearly evident that having it in and sparking a civil war amongst the Democrats is the best way to stop the overall bill."

And, according to The Washington Independent's David Weigel, groups like the National Right to Life Committee reportedly will oppose health care reform even if it contains the Stupak amendment, which they lobbied for, and which would constitute a significant limitation on the ability of women to exercise their freedom of choice. Yet Matthews portrays anti-abortion rights activists as principled fighters for their moral values, even as they admit to cynically using the issue to torpedo reform, and even as they refuse to support health care reform even if it contains the anti-choice provisions they say are so important.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Alexander concluded his passage about Kurtz's conflicts by rhetorically asking: "[W]ould The Post allow a reporter who covers energy to be paid on the side by a big oil company?" Presumably, the answer is clear -- but that just raises another question: Why doesn't Kurtz have to follow the rules his Post colleagues are bound by?

The biggest problem with Kurtz's conflict of interest is not simply that it exists as a theoretical matter; it is that it clearly affects his actual reporting, despite his assertions to the contrary. Alexander quoted Kurtz defending himself: "My track record makes clear that I've been as aggressive toward CNN -- and The Washington Post, for that matter -- as I would be if I didn't host a weekly program there." Alexander added that Kurtz "discloses his CNN affiliation at the end of his columns and relevant news stories for The Post. And he's identified with The Post on 'Reliable Sources.' "

It's a shame Alexander didn't have more space to address Kurtz's conflict, because that defense is laugh-out-loud funny.

Kurtz spent a good chunk of the summer writing about media coverage of the right-wing birther conspiracy theories, of which he was critical. The most prominent media figure who regularly hyped those conspiracy theories was CNN's Lou Dobbs. To his credit, Kurtz occasionally criticized Dobbs. And when CNN president Jonathan Klein appeared to rebuke Dobbs, sending out a memo to CNN staff saying the story was dead, Kurtz mentioned that on his CNN program. But when Klein changed his mind and defended Dobbs' coverage as "legitimate" and slammed Dobbs' critics as "partisans," Kurtz kept quiet.

Kurtz, remember, was one of those Dobbs critics; but he never said a word about Klein's flip. He didn't even report Klein's comments. For several weeks over the summer, the birther conspiracy theories were the biggest media story out there. And the president of the nation's oldest cable news channel was defending a star anchor's relentless hyping of those conspiracy theories. And Howard Kurtz thought that anchor's coverage was "ludicrous."

But Kurtz kept his mouth shut about Klein. Didn't say anything, didn't write anything. Klein, of course, signs Kurtz's CNN paychecks.

Even more incredibly, Kurtz slammed CNN competitors like MSNBC for supposedly keeping the story alive. The MSNBC reporters to whom Kurtz was referring were debunking the birther nonsense. Kurtz's boss at CNN was defending Lou Dobbs' promotion of those theories as "legitimate." And yet Kurtz criticized CNN rival MSNBC, while giving Klein a pass. (More here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Is it even possible not to think that the fact Klein is Kurtz's boss had a little something to do with that?

Howard Kurtz, by the way, refuses to answer questions about this. I've submitted questions about Kurtz's kid-glove treatment of Klein to more than a half-dozen of Kurtz's weekly online Q&A sessions. He's never taken a single one.

Note, by the way, that Kurtz went out of his way to tell Alexander that he's as tough on the Post as he would be if he didn't work there.

Oh, really?

Just a couple of weeks ago, news broke that Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli apparently misled The New York Times over the summer about his knowledge of the Post's marketing of controversial (and since abandoned) dinner parties at which corporations would pay for access to Post reporters. In his defense, Brauchli claimed he hadn't misled the Times; the Times reporter had misunderstood him.

But then, the Politico's Michael Calderone revealed that Brauchli had told him the same thing he told the Times, and that Calderone had interpreted it the same way the Times had. That's quite a blow to Brauchli's defense -- it seems improbable that two different reporters at two different news organizations misinterpreted two different Brauchli statements in precisely the same way.

Calderone tried to reach Brauchli for comment, but Brauchli wouldn't talk to him. Brauchli did, however, give Kurtz an interview. In the article Kurtz wrote for the Post, he noted Brauchli's assertion that the Times had misunderstood him. But Kurtz didn't mention Calderone's revelation that Brauchli had told him the same thing the Times said Brauchli told them.

That's a key fact, and one that does a great deal to undermine Brauchli's defense. But Kurtz left it out of his article. Brauchli, of course, decides whether Kurtz continues to stay on the Post's payroll. And now Kurtz insists that he doesn't pull his punches when it comes to the Post. Yeah, right.

Incidentally, Kurtz won't answer questions about his treatment of Brauchli, either. And Brauchli won't answer questions about Calderone, or about why he would only talk to Kurtz.

Finally, Alexander noted that Kurtz "discloses his CNN affiliation at the end of his columns and relevant news stories for The Post."

But Kurtz's disclosure is intermittent at best. In June, Alexander wrote on his washingtonpost.com blog that Kurtz had failed to disclose his relationship with CNN during an online chat in which he defended the cable channel, and that he should have done so. Kurtz "readily agreed," according to Alexander, who quoted Kurtz saying: "That was an oversight and won't be repeated."

But Kurtz repeated the oversight almost immediately, as I noted in an August blog post:

When Kurtz has written about Dobbs and CNN in recent weeks, he has failed to disclose his ties to CNN.

In a July 22 Media Notes column, Kurtz mentioned Dobbs in a section on Birthers -- but Kurtz didn't disclose his financial relationship with CNN.

In an August 3 Media Notes column, Kurtz mentioned Dobbs in a section on Birthers -- but Kurtz didn't disclose his financial relationship with CNN.

In an August 3 "Media Backtalk" online discussion, Kurtz answered two questions that referenced CNN and three that referenced Dobbs. But Kurtz never disclosed his financial relationship with CNN.

Remember: On June 17, Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander wrote that Kurtz should have disclosed his CNN connection when writing about the cable channel. He quoted Kurtz agreeing, and assuring him the "oversight" would not be repeated.

And then Kurtz went right out and did it again. And again. And again. It's almost as though he's thumbing his nose at Alexander.

[...]

Kurtz devotes nearly all of today's "Media Notes" column to a profile of AOL's Politics Daily site. AOL is owned by Time Warner, which also owns CNN, which employs Howard Kurtz. Did Kurtz disclose his financial relationship with AOL's parent company? No, he did not.

That's Howard Kurtz in a nutshell: Glaring financial conflicts of interest that clearly affect his reporting, which he regularly fails to disclose.

(By the way: Even if Kurtz was consistent in doing so, disclosure is inadequate. The way Kurtz's conflict with regard to Klein's defense of Dobbs manifested itself was in Kurtz's failure to cover Klein. When, exactly, is Kurtz going to disclose the conflict when the issue is that he isn't writing about Klein? And even if he did somehow disclose his employment by CNN in such a situation, how would Post readers know from that fig-leaf disclosure that Kurtz was ignoring a story that made his CNN bosses look bad?)

Apparently, when Kurtz says he's as tough on CNN and The Washington Post as he would be if he didn't work there, he means he's as tough on rank-and-file reporters at CNN and the Post as he would be otherwise. But the executives at CNN and the Post who play key roles in deciding whether and how much Howard Kurtz gets paid -- they're another story entirely. Kurtz treats them like fine china: very carefully.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The obvious part of the answer is that there are personal relationships involved. The simple fact is that many reporters at, say, ABC or CNN or the New York Times are friends with people who work at Fox. And nobody likes to see their friends get criticized.

But I think when many journalists defend Fox, they're really defending themselves -- they're acting out of fear that they, too, will one day be branded illegitimate. (Given the right-wing's much more aggressive criticism of the media over the past several decades, this is, of course, a perfectly reasonable fear -- and it isn't surprising that reporters feel safer lashing out at media criticism from progressives than from conservatives.)

Ironically, in defending Fox in order to defend themselves, many journalists are actually undermining their own credibility. Not (only) because they side with partisans who have clearly stated their intent to destroy a presidency, but because of the way they do so: They don't rely on evidence and fact and reason; they base their arguments on assumptions and spin and name-calling. They don't behave like journalists.

Last week, I Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The Obama administration's purportedly "Nixonian" sin is its public criticism of Fox News, a cable channel that has repeatedly tied Obama to terrorists and compared him to Adolf Hitler. Having had enough, White House communications director Anita Dunn, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and others have said that Fox is less a news organization than a partisan political operation.*

Even if we stipulate for the sake of discussion that Fox is a news organization, that's tame stuff by the standards of previous White Houses. You'd be hard-pressed to find an administration that hasn't at times taken a more aggressive approach toward journalists. If you're thinking "Lincoln," think again. Faced with complaints about his administration's censorship of the press in 1863, Lincoln responded, "I think when an office in any department finds that a newspaper is pursuing a course calculated to embarrass his operations and stir up sedition and tumult, he has the right to lay hands upon it and suppress it, but in no other case."

And yet the Obama administration's criticism of Fox News -- criticism, not censorship or suppression of Fox's "reporting" -- was greeted with immediate howls of protest and allegations of Nixonian behavior.

Fox foot soldiers like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck and right-wing bloggers like Instapundit led the way, of course, but that's to be expected. People who don't hesitate to compare Obama to Hitler and Mao Zedong cannot be expected to hesitate before comparing him to Nixon -- unless it is to consider whether such a comparison will be seen as a compliment, considering the source.

But Beck and O'Reilly were quickly joined by people who should know better. The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus wrote that the criticism of Fox "has a distinct Nixonian -- Agnewesque? -- aroma." NPR's Ken Rudin said the criticism is "almost Nixonesque" -- and this was no throwaway comment; Rudin drew out the comparison for a full paragraph. (To his credit, Rudin apologized for the comments the next day, calling them "boneheaded.") CNN's Anderson Cooper asked, "[D]oes the Obama White House have an enemies list?" and, "[D]o you see shades of Nixon here?" (Even Cooper's Republican guest, Kevin Madden, was unwilling to sign on to that premise.) Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik wrote, "I have compared the current administration to the White House of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, and believe me, I did not do that lightly."

The comparison is preposterous, as Salon's Joe Conason, Media Matters' Eric Boehlert, Washington Monthly's Steve Benen, and others have explained.

In short: The Nixon administration wiretapped journalists' phones and audited their taxes. G. Gordon Liddy and another Nixon henchman even plotted to murder Jack Anderson.** That's "murder" as in "kill." And "kill" as in "dead."

Meanwhile, Obama aides have publicly criticized Fox News for lying about their boss.

It is rather obvious that these are not the same things.

You know who would really be outraged by the comparison? Richard Nixon. If a Nixon aide had proposed dealing with a hostile entity like Fox News with a sternly worded public statement rather than a (literal) firebombing, he'd likely have been axed (with luck, figuratively) on the spot.

What makes the comparison of Obama and Nixon really astounding, however, is that the comparison wasn't made with President George W. Bush, whose administration engaged in warrantless domestic spying and other tactics that actually were reminiscent of Nixonian tactics.

In addition to spying on domestic environmental and poverty-relief organizations, Bush's FBI dug into reporters' phone records. Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice revealed that the NSA monitored the communications of "U.S. news organizations and reporters and journalists." James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the warrantless wiretapping story, has said, "What I know for a fact is that the Bush administration got my phone records." The statements from Tice and Risen went all but ignored by the media, as Eric Alterman explained earlier this year.

As far as I can tell, The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus has never compared the Bush administration's surveillance of journalists to the Nixon administration's surveillance of journalists -- she has never described anything Bush did as "Nixonian." Neither has the Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik, who has repeatedly compared Obama to Nixon. Or NPR's Ken Rudin.

The Bush administration spied on journalists and who knows who else, and Marcus, Zurawik, and Rudin never once thought to note the similarities to Richard Nixon's surveillance of journalists and who knows who else. But Anita Dunn criticizes Fox News for lying, and all of a sudden, they think they're seeing the second coming of Chuck Colson and Gordon Liddy. The double standard and the lack of perspective are simply staggering.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

*A brief response to the question some have raised about whether it is appropriate for the White House to decide what is or is not a news organization: Of course it is. The only question is whether it has drawn the line in the right place. Nobody would expect the White House to grant the Weekly World News or the Halliburton corporate newsletter or the author of the Republican National Committee's mass emails the same access they grant ABC and The New York Times. The question isn't whether the White House should make a determination about which news outlets to treat as a legitimate, it's whether it makes the right determinations.

**During last year's presidential campaign, the news media, which were so obsessed with Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, were unconcerned by John McCain's palling-around with Liddy. Then again, Liddy had merely plotted to murder a journalist; he didn't appear on CNN to criticize Fox News.

It may seem odd that much of the news media would simultaneously pronounce itself guilty of liberal bias and spend the year after a presidential election won convincingly by the more progressive candidate talking about the importance and influence of a conservative cable channel whose viewership consists of about 1 percent of the nation. But both of those somewhat inconsistent media memes can be explained by journalists' frequent inability to see where the center of the country really is. That inability makes journalists think they are further left of center than they actually are (even assuming they are at all to the left of center). And it makes them inflate the importance of right-wing operatives masquerading as media figures -- people who would have far less influence if actual reporters stopped buying their nonsense.

Their hateful views and adversarial relationship with the truth place the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh on the far-right fringe of a party and movement that have lost the popular vote in four of the past five presidential elections and that holds only 40 percent of the seats in Congress. They are on the far-right edge of a party that is far to the right of the rest of the country.

And, it must be said, they do not tell the truth. They lie about things large and small. They lie to smear their adversaries, and they lie for no real reason at all. Their lies should disqualify them from ever being taken seriously. But instead, the media have decided that if anything they say turns out to contain a sliver of truth, everything they say must be paid immediate attention.

That's what happened when, after years of making absurd claims about ACORN -- remember the lie that ACORN was going to get billions of stimulus dollars? -- some conservative activists induced a statistically insignificant number of the organization's low-level employees to behave badly. The rest of the media rushed to cover the "scandal" -- and to beat themselves up for not having taken their cues from Beck & Co. sooner. The ombudsmen for the The Washington Post and The New York Times, for example, scolded their papers for being too slow to report on Beck-generated controversies and gave credence to conservative claims that the delay was the result of liberal bias.

What few journalists seem to understand is that once you accept someone like Glenn Beck as a legitimate media figure, it skews your view of the rest of the media. This is not a new phenomenon -- not by any means. More than two years ago, I argued that once you accept Ann Coulter, who calls John Edwards a "faggot," as a legitimate guest on shows like NBC's Today, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd -- who merely calls Edwards a "girl" -- seems positively reasonable. Thus the entire media discourse is shoved in the direction of its least legitimate participants.

That's how reporters -- and not just those on Rupert Murdoch's payroll -- come to see the non-Beck, non-Hannity "reporters" at Fox News as fair and balanced. The "news" division at Fox spreads falsehoods and right-wing nonsense round the clock, but many journalists have bought into the idea that while Fox's "opinion" hosts may be conservatives, the rest of the channel plays it down the middle. After all, compared to a crazy liar like Glenn Beck, Fox's "news" programs seem perfectly legitimate and impartial. But judged by any reasonable standard, they are nothing of the kind.

And, of course, if you believe that the rest of Fox News is, as Washington Post reporter Ed O'Keefe put it this week, "straight news shows," that affects how you view other news organizations. Just as America's Newsroom on Fox appears to play things down the middle in comparison to a dishonest demagogue like Glenn Beck, other news organizations appear liberal in comparison with America's Newsroom.

And that's how MSNBC -- which gives three hours of airtime each day to conservative former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough and another hour to Clinton-hating, liberal-bashing misogynist Chris Matthews, employs Pat Buchanan, whose very name has been synonymous with bigotry for decades, and regularly traffics in conservative misinformation and right-wing framing -- comes to be described as "liberal": simply because it also employs the only overtly left-of-center hosts in all of television news.

And that's how you end up with the perverse situation in which newspapers like The Washington Post are described by reporters at the Post and elsewhere as "liberal" despite hounding the Clintons for years over a phony real estate "scandal," harassing Al Gore for lies he didn't tell, handing the 2000 election to George W. Bush on a platter, and trading in their press passes for pom-poms during Bush's march to war with a nation that didn't attack us.

And so we have a poisonous media environment in which the "conservative media" consist of lying conspiracy theorists who are out to destroy President Obama and any other liberal they come across, and the "mainstream press" is considered "liberal" even as it "leans over so far backward to avoid the charge of left bias that it ends up either neutered or leaning to the right."

That's some range, isn't it? From right-wing liars who purposefully traffic in conservative misinformation all the way across the spectrum to frightened liberals who accidentally traffic in conservative misinformation.

That's the real problem with Glenn Beck and Fox News. It isn't that they misinform the 1 percent of Americans who watch their nonsense (the vast majority of whom already agree with them). It's that the rest of the media run to the right in response to Fox -- even while becoming more and more convinced that they are guilty of liberal bias.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web, as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

When The Boston Globe found out Patricia Smith had fabricated columns for the newspaper, it asked the American Society of Newspaper Editors to rescind the Distinguished Writing Award it had recently given Smith, withdrew her columns from Pulitzer consideration, and asked her to resign.

That's how news organizations should behave when they find out they have published fraudulent work: swiftly and thoroughly apologize, and return any awards won as a result of the bogus work.

And then there's The New Republic, and its publication of Betsy McCaughey's infamous hatchet job on the Clintons' health care reform efforts. Long after it became clear that McCaughey's 1994 health care horror story "No Exit" was fraudulent, The New Republic still holds onto the National Magazine Award it won for the article. Andrew Sullivan, TNR's editor at the time, still boasts in his official biography of the article's influence and brags about the award.

Oh, sure, TNR has often tried to appear to distance itself from the article. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find another 15-year-old journalism scandal for which those responsible (most of them, anyway) remain more superficially apologetic than TNR's publication of "No Exit." From virtually the moment McCaughey's apocalyptic take on the Clintons' efforts to enact universal health care arrived on the scene, through the present day, New Republic reporters and editors have been debunking and apologizing for it -- or, at least, trying very hard to appear to be apologizing for it.

The truth, however, is a little more complicated.

We begin with Andrew Sullivan, who as editor of The New Republic commissioned, edited, and ran McCaughey's fraudulent hit job. Since doing so, Sullivan has been boastful of the article's impact and awards won, expressed regret that such a lie-filled screed made it into his magazine, claimed to have been unaware of its flaws, admitted having been aware of its flaws, defiantly stood by his decision to publish it, and implied that the decision wasn't his at all. And he has frequently taken several of those positions at once.

In response to criticism from Ezra Klein in 2007, Sullivan dashed off an all-over-the-map screed. In a span of about 300 words, Sullivan declared himself "proud" of his role in helping to defeat the Clinton health care plan; referred to the publication of "No Exit" as a "sin"; said he was "aware of the piece's flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it"; bragged about the award it won; called Hillary Clinton an "arrogant, paranoid self-righteous prick" (no, Andrew, Clinton has not conceded she behaved that way, any more than you have conceded being a dishonest jackass more interested in touting your own ill-gotten awards than in the truth); claimed he and TNR were trying to "rescue" universal health care; and insisted Clinton was "not a victim."

Earlier this week, Sullivan again addressed "No Exit":

I do not think it's professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece. I accepted an award for it. I stood behind it. In my view, it had many interesting points and as an intellectual exercize in contemplating the full possible consequences of Hillary Clinton's proposal, it was provocative and well worth running. But its premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried. One key paragraph -- critical to framing the piece so it was not a declaration of fact but an assertion of what might happen if worst came to worst -- became a battlefield with her for days; and all I can say is, I lost. I guess I could have quit. Maybe I should have.

[...]

I was the editor; I threatened to quit on another occasion; it was my call; and I took credit for its impact; and did not criticize her (and praised her tenacity) subsequently. No one else is responsible. In retrospect, it was not my finest hour. I think there was a fascinating and provocative piece in there.

Let's stop there for a second. So far, in a single blog post, Sullivan has said he takes "full responsibility" for the piece, said "no one else is responsible," and implied that he did not actually have control over what was and was not in the article. He said it was "well worth running," and that he knew its premise was "simply wrong." He said he "accepted an award" for the piece and "stood behind it" and "took credit for its impact" and "did not criticize" McCaughey -- and even praised her -- then admitted it was not his "finest hour," but did not actually say he no longer stands behind it, did not say he regrets its impact, and did not say he will give back the award. After acknowledging the "premise" of the piece was "simply wrong," he again defends the article as "fascinating and provocative."

Sullivan concludes:

But look: it was one piece in a magazine. It's being treated as if it were a turning point in history. Please. There's one reason the Clinton healthcare bill failed and it isn't Betsy McCaughey. It's Hillary Clinton.

Just one paragraph earlier, Sullivan acknowledged he "took credit for its impact." Now he suggests it had none. But, as Atrios first noted, if you glance over to the right side of the page and click on "Andrew's Bio," you'll see Sullivan describe "No Exit" as an "essay that was widely credited with helping to torpedo the Clinton administration's plans for universal health coverage."

Maybe that's where people got the idea the article was a "turning point in history."

So, in a nutshell: Andrew Sullivan takes full responsibility; he knew McCaughey's article was "simply wrong" in its premise; he tried to fix it but was unable to do so; maybe he should have quit, but "no one else is responsible"; and he has taken and continues to take credit for its impact, but people shouldn't say it had an impact.

One thing -- and only one thing -- is certain: Sullivan has never clearly apologized for running the article or said he was wrong to do so -- and, indeed, he continues to brag about having won awards for it.

At first glance, current New Republic editor Franklin Foer seems somewhat more consistent and apologetic. The Summer 2007 issue of Columbia University's alumni magazine quotes Foer saying of McCaughey's article, "We recanted that story in the first issue [of his tenure] and apologized for it." Earlier this month, Foer said, "To me, it's an original sin that I hope we can expunge."

After reading through Sullivan's occasionally defiant and always contradictory statements about "No Exit," Foer's comments appear refreshingly straightforward.

But what do they really mean? What does he mean by "recanted" and "apologized" and "expunge"? That should be pretty clear, but if you look at what the magazine has actually done under his stewardship, you'll find TNR and Foer spend more time claiming to have apologized than apologizing.

Take the word "expunge." To this day, "No Exit" is sitting right there on The New Republic's website, with no editor's note attached, no factual errors noted -- not even a link to the rebuttal by Mickey Kaus TNR published in 1995. That doesn't sound very "expunged" to me.

How about Foer's claim to have "recanted" and "apologized for" the article in the first issue of his tenure? If TNR actually did so, they're not eager for you to read that apology. There is no apology available on Nexis, unlike much of the magazine. Nor does it seem to be available on TNR's website. If you hunt and dig long enough, you'll find this June 2007 entry which links to "last year's editorial advocating universal coverage, in which the Editors apologized for TNR's role in its defeat." Maybe that's the recantation and apology to which Foer referred? We'll never know: The link doesn't work.

Unless this is what Foer was referring to: a March 27, 2006, editorial headlined, "Moral Imperative," that begins:

Over the last 25 years, liberalism has lost both its good name and its sway over politics. But it is liberalism's loss of imagination that is most disheartening. Since President Clinton's health care plan unraveled in 1994 -- a debacle that this magazine, regrettably, abetted -- liberals have grown chastened and confused, afraid to think big ideas.

The editorial continued for 1,751 more words -- not one of them having anything to do with Betsy McCaughey, "No Exit," or The New Republic's role in the unraveling of the Clinton health care plan.

Pretty weak stuff, as far as recantations and apologies go. It doesn't even specifically mention the article or the author. The mea culpa is a mere seven words: "a debacle that this magazine, regrettably, abetted."

It's such an insignificant little non-apology that TNR's Michelle Cottle didn't bother to mention it in her recent evisceration of McCaughey. And why would she? It didn't even mention McCaughey or her article.

Can that possibly be what Foer refers to as a recantation and an apology? If so, it's almost enough to make Sullivan's schizophrenic comments about "No Exit" look clear and forceful.

Then there's Martin Peretz. Sullivan claims to have tried unsuccessfully to remove the falsehoods from McCaughey's piece -- a task that is a little like removing the water from the ocean: It's a tremendous amount of work, and if you somehow succeed, there's nothing left. But if Sullivan lost fights over the content of "No Exit," to whom did he lose? Surely McCaughey didn't overrule him; Sullivan was TNR's editor. Presumably, Peretz, the magazine's owner and editor-in-chief, interceded on her behalf.

Like Sullivan, McCaughey, and TNR itself, Peretz was a named recipient of the National Magazine Award. Like Foer, Peretz is currently on the magazine's masthead, as editor-in-chief. And like McCaughey, Peretz has been unapologetic.

In January 2008, Peretz recalled "No Exit," without expressing a trace of remorse, by way of explaining what he imagines is Hillary Clinton's snub of him at a Rose Garden event:

I don't have an explanation. Except that The New Republic was not especially enamored of her health plan which, in retrospect, has impeded health reform for a decade and a half. As it happens, we had published a devastating analysis of the proposal by Elizabeth McCaughey; and somehow, in the mysteries of Washington, this became the vivid center of the debate. The White House actually put out what I recall as a nine page rebuttal to the TNR critique, another tactical mistake in the genius presidency. Anyway, it is to this article that her snub to me may be attributed. But it could be something even more petty.

Earlier this week, Peretz weighed in on McCaughey's behalf:

"I do not think Betsy is an intellectual fraud. Not at all," Peretz wrote in an email.

"I have not read the Cottle piece and I do look forward to doing that," he continued. "But the issue that McCaughey went after was one of the most intricate and economically challenging ones that America has faced, as we can see from the present debate."

Needless to say, Peretz has not recanted or apologized for "No Exit."

For all of Foer's talk about expunging and recanting and apologizing, it seems TNR has never actually done anything of the kind. It has tried to distance itself from the stink of "No Exit" without actually disowning it. And, it must be added, without renouncing the awards and honors the article illegitimately brought TNR. Sullivan boasts to this day of the National Magazine Award.

Salon's Joe Conason argues that Sullivan and Peretz should "return the National Magazine Award, for the sake of the journalists and editors who have honestly earned that prize. That gesture might restore a semblance of sanity to the debate over healthcare."

Conason's last line is key. TNR, Sullivan, Peretz -- everyone involved -- should fully renounce McCaughey's article and the awards it brought in the most dramatic way possible for the simple reason that it is the right thing to do. It is what other news organizations have done when they have been honored for fraudulent work. It is what decency demands. But they should also do so because McCaughey continues to be granted a position of authority and influence by their fellow journalists, and TNR alone is in a position to take a dramatic step to make her dishonesty clear. An article eviscerating McCaughey -- no matter how well written -- is not sufficient. Not from the magazine that unleashed her lies in the first place. TNR can show it is serious by taking the serious step of apologizing for and returning the award.

Inexplicably, McCaughey is trotted out on television shows and in newspapers to provide "expert" analysis of current health care reform proposals. Incredibly, McCaughey is cast in precisely the role she performed so fraudulently last time around: as the just-the-facts Ph.D. who has, unlike the advocates of reform, actually read every page of the bill. Once again, she brings with her -- and dramatically waves around -- an almost unbelievably thick three-ring binder, which she incredulously announces is only half of the bill. She peppers her alarmist (and clearly false) claims about health care reform with footnotes and page numbers. Those page numbers happen to be the only things she says that actually appear in the bill. But never mind all that. She's an "expert."

It's exactly the same role she has played in the past. She doesn't even have enough respect for her audience to come up with a new way to lie about health care. And why should she, when the news media keep showing that they'll fall for the same old tricks again and again?

And when I say "the media," let me be clear: I am not referring to Fox News. They are not "the media"; they are propagandists and partisan operatives. Were McCaughey's lies spread only by Fox News, the damage would be contained. They would barely be notable amidst the crazy-talk about indoctrination and Hitler Youth and FEMA camps.

But McCaughey's lies are not contained to Fox News. Earlier this year, for example, CNN built a segment that purported to "fact check" health care provisions in the proposed stimulus package around McCaughey's objections. (CNN apparently didn't think viewers should know that McCaughey's entire claim to fame -- and to health care expertise -- is having written a dishonest and fraudulent takedown of health care reform 15 years ago.)

Turning to McCaughey for a "fact check" on health care would be hilarious if it wasn't so destructive. Facts just aren't her expertise -- faking facts is. It's like asking Milli Vanilli to serve as judges on American Idol.

And yet McCaughey's fake facts form the basis of CNN reports, she is invited to appear on MSNBC, her columns run in newspapers, her lies spark a media-wide frenzy about "death panels"; again and again, directly and indirectly, the media allow someone best known for lying about health care to drive the health care debate by lying about health care.

If Foer and TNR really regret inflicting McCaughey on an unsuspecting world, and if Sullivan really takes responsibility for publishing her, they'll do the only appropriate thing: clearly and forcefully apologize, and return the award. That's what news organizations do when they win awards for fraudulent articles. That's what people who are really sorry and really want to make amends do.

Everything else is just talk.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

That probably sounds sarcastic, but this really is an important story. And it dovetails nicely with themes the media have long stressed: The importance of transparency and accountability, and the idea that 60 votes are needed to pass legislation in the Senate.

So, here goes: Some news organization struggling to stay relevant in an ever-changing world (and, really, aren't they all?) should ask all the members of the Senate whether they would vote to sustain a filibuster on health care reform legislation that includes a strong public option. They should report the results and keep a running tally. Their coverage of the health care debate going forward should reflect the premise that the cloture vote is what really matters -- a premise the media have been insisting upon all year. That means not making a big deal of a senator's stated opposition to reform (or to the public option) unless the senator indicates an intention to filibuster reform.

So far this year, news reports about the legislative prospects for health care reform have routinely stressed the need for 60 votes. That's reasonable enough, if Democrats choose not to pursue reform through the reconciliation process. (Though it does introduce a subtle anti-reform skew into the public discourse: by treating the filibuster as routine rather than the extraordinary measure it has historically been, the media make life easier for those trying to thwart reform.)

But when it comes to actually assessing the likelihood of getting those 60 votes, news reports have gone off the rails. They've treated opposition to a specific aspect of reform (the public option) as though it is synonymous with a willingness to not only vote against reform that contains that provision, but also with an intent to actually filibuster such legislation.

Take, for example, this Washington Post article from Wednesday:

A key Senate panel twice beat back efforts Tuesday to create a government-run insurance plan, dealing a crippling blow to the hopes of liberals seeking to expand the federal role in health coverage as a cornerstone of reform."

[...]

Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.) was one of three Democrats who voted no on both proposals. Baucus, who has emerged as the central player in shaping the bill, which is likely to be the main vehicle for debate on the Senate floor, said he supports the principle of a public option as an alternative to private insurance. But he warned that including it could doom the bill to a Republican filibuster.

"No one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option," Baucus said. "I want a bill that can become law."

The Post article didn't mention a single senator who has so much as hinted at a willingness to filibuster health care reform that includes a public option. Not one. The paper portrayed the opposition of some senators to a public option as a "crippling blow" -- as though opposing a public option on a standalone vote is the same thing as intending to filibuster an entire reform package that contains the provision.

The two are quite obviously not the same thing. For one thing, senators vote for legislation containing specific provisions they oppose all the time. It's pretty much unavoidable, actually. That's quite obvious, so let's not dwell on it here.

The other reason they are not the same thing is that it is harder to vote against cloture than against passage. That is, in fact, implicit in the respective vote totals required. If weren't more difficult for a senator to vote to sustain a filibuster than to vote against passage, there would be no reason to have a cloture/filibuster process -- Senate rules would simply require 60 votes for passage.

All year, the media have focused on how much more difficult it is to invoke cloture than to muster a simple majority. And, in a way, it clearly is: You need 60 votes, not 50. But the other side of the coin has gone unnoticed. A bill's advocates may need to reach a higher number to invoke cloture, as opposed to passage, but the bill's opponents must convince senators to take extreme action in order to prevent cloture. That second point is particularly significant when -- as is currently the case -- one party's caucus contains at least 60 members.

In order to filibuster health care reform that includes a public option, the Republicans have to convince at least one member of the Democratic caucus to filibuster his or her own party's highest legislative priority. They have to convince at least one member of the Democratic caucus to filibuster legislation that enjoys strong and broad public support -- over a provision that would reduce the cost of the bill, something the most conservative Democratic senators say is a priority. They have to convince at least one member of the Democratic caucus to hand a Democratic president, and the Democratic Party, a significant political defeat heading into an election year.

And that assumes they can convince Republican senators like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to filibuster health care reform. If they can't, they need to offset any losses with additional Democrats.

Can they do it? Sure, it's possible. But it isn't as simple as it looks from news reports that treat any public option skeptic as someone who will filibuster. That's why Sen. Tom Harkin says there will be 60 votes for cloture even though some of the most conservative Democrats and least conservative Republicans have indicated opposition to a public plan -- he knows it's harder to filibuster something than to vote against it.

Now, is Harkin right that there will be 60 votes, or is Baucus right when he says there won't be? We don't know -- nobody is publicly saying how they'll vote on cloture.

Which brings us to transparency ... and to accountability.

The way the news media have been covering the health care debate -- assuming opposition is synonymous with an intent to filibuster and, as a result, not actually asking anyone if they'll filibuster -- creates the perception that Baucus is right, that such legislation could never get cloture. And so health care reform containing a public option may never come to a vote, not even a cloture vote.

If that happens, a few senators will have killed the very popular public option not by announcing their intent to filibuster it, but by creating the perception that it would be successfully filibustered -- perhaps by others. (Remember: Baucus says he voted against the public option in committee not because he opposes it, but because unnamed other senators will filibuster it.) The public will never know who really killed it. They'll never know who would have filibustered it -- or even who was willing to say they would filibuster it.

Strong health care reform that enjoys widespread public support will, in that scenario, essentially die in a smoke-filled back room. There will be no transparency and no accountability. That, it seems obvious, is just the way some politicians want it. After all, if they were willing to face the consequences for killing reform, they could just come forward right now and announce their intent to filibuster. The fact that they haven't done so is de facto proof that they either aren't willing to filibuster or that they want to avoid accountability if at all possible. That's an understandable desire on their end -- but there's no reason journalists or the public should defer to it.

The good news is that fate is easily avoided. All it requires is one news organization to behave as though it believes what the media have been reporting all year -- that cloture is the vote that matters. If they do, they'll start working to get senators on the record about whether they'll filibuster. Their reporting going forward will focus not on whether senators say they agree or disagree with the public option, but on whether they will filibuster reform that includes such an option. That will go a long way toward showing who is right -- Max Baucus or Tom Harkin.

It may not make a difference in whether health care reform passes, or what it looks like if it does -- but that isn't the media's job. The media's job is to show the public what is happening. To hold politicians accountable rather than allowing them to kill popular reforms silently and secretly, without casting a vote or even making their intentions clear. To demand straight answers rather than making assumptions about how senators will vote.

That's something large news organizations -- like, say, The Washington Post or NBC News -- are perfectly situated to do. They have the resources to ask 100 senators how they'll vote on cloture -- and to regularly report the answers (including which senators won't answer) to large audiences. And to focus public attention on what they've said matters all along -- how many senators will filibuster, and which ones.

That's something the Post or NBC or CNN can do better than any blogger, any independent or ideological media outlet. They have the resources, the reach, and the stature. It's a chance for them to prove they really do still have something to offer that can't be easily replaced by smaller, cheaper, more nimble competitors.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The study makes a number of important points and is worth reading all the way through. Among them:

• "[O]pinion entrepreneurs (primarily business and conservative groups and individuals) set the story in motion as early as 2006, the conservative echo chamber orchestrated its anti-ACORN campaign in 2008, the McCain-Palin campaign picked it up, and the mainstream media reported its allegations without investigating their truth or falsity."

• "Although ACORN is involved in many community activities around the country, including efforts to improve housing, wages, access to credit, and public education, the dominant story frame about ACORN was 'voter fraud.' ... The news media stories about ACORN were overwhelmingly negative, reporting allegations by Republicans and conservatives. ... The mainstream news media failed to fact-check persistent allegations of "voter fraud" despite the existence of easily available countervailing evidence. The media also failed to distinguish allegations of voter registration problems from allegations of actual voting irregularities. They also failed to distinguish between allegations of wrongdoing and actual wrongdoing."

• "The attacks on ACORN originated with business groups and political groups that opposed ACORN's organizing work around living wages, predatory lending, and registration of low-income and minority voters. ... Most of the news media coverage about ACORN carried one-sided frames, repeating the conservative and Republican criticisms of the group without seeking to verify them or provide ACORN or its supporters with a reasonable opportunity to respond to the allegations." 

• "Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that -- despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas -- the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story. In the instance of the 2008 presidential election, the conservative echo chamber's allegations about ACORN, mostly unfounded, became one of the news media's major stories of the campaign."

As the study notes, the media firestorm surrounding ACORN had an effect: "82% of the respondents in an October 2008 national survey reported they had heard about ACORN."

Not that it stopped when the presidential campaign ended. This spring, news reports were filled with ludicrous claims that Democrats were steering billions of dollars in stimulus money to ACORN.

That's just flat-out crazy (or -- take your pick -- a dishonorable lie), and yet it still didn't dampen the media's enthusiasm for the right's assault on ACORN.

From September 14-20, ACORN was the sixth-biggest news story in the country. Why? Because some conservatives circulated videos of a handful of low-level ACORN employees behaving badly. (A "shocking" number, according to Slate's Jack Shafer. How many? He doesn't say. Out of how many total employees? He doesn't say. But it's shocking!)

And it isn't just ACORN. The media have been taking their cues from the far right all year. When conservatives talked about "death panels," the mainstream media talked about "death panels." (Sure, they occasionally tried to debunk the false claim, but they did an embarrassingly poor job of it.) When conservatives wanted to talk about "tea parties" protesting ... well, something ... the media talked about tea parties. (And gave them far more prominent play than they gave larger anti-war protests.) When conservatives wanted to talk about President Obama's birth certificate, that's what the media talked about. Don't even get me started on the "czar" nonsense or the media's desperate efforts to draw Obama into the Rod Blagojovech scandal.

And those are just the sideshow stories. When they've covered more substantive issues, they've often adopted conservative framing. A government-run health insurance option, for example, is routinely portrayed as "expensive" -- with no mention of the fact that according to the Congressional Budget Office, inclusion of such a plan makes health reform less expensive. Tax cuts are portrayed as stimulative, even though -- according to economist Mark Zandi, a former adviser to John McCain -- they are less stimulative than government spending.

Now, it isn't exactly breaking news that the media amplify right-wing propaganda, or that major news organizations -- which are, after all, owned by massive corporations -- tend to adopt conservative framing.

But what is stunning is that even as they run chasing after every story conservatives hype, the media apologize for not doing so more quickly. That's just what they've done the past week.

On Sunday, Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander devoted his column to conservative complaints that the paper had been too slow to cover ACORN. Alexander agreed with the complaints and suggested the "tardiness" was a result of liberal bias.

Alexander quoted Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism saying, "Complaints by conservatives are slower to be picked up by non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms. ... They just don't see the resonance of these issues. They don't hear about them as fast [and] they're not naturally watching as much." And Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli worrying "that we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It's particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view." And a Heritage Foundation vice president saying the media can no longer kill stories like ACORN. And, of course, Glenn Beck yelling about the media.

So whom did Alexander quote or paraphrase arguing that the media don't exhibit a liberal bias or that they have devoted too much attention to ACORN, or that -- as the new study released this month makes clear -- that they haven't bothered to fact-check the sensational right-wing claims about ACORN that they report? Nobody.

Alexander didn't offer so much as a hint that any other point of view about the media even exists. He treated it as a foregone conclusion that the Post and the rest of the media are a bunch of liberals and that the media need to do a better job of listening to conservatives.

That day, I posted a response to Alexander -- actually, more to the quotes from Rosenstiel and Brauchli -- on Media Matters' blog. I noted that the media's coverage of the Clintons, Al Gore, the 2000 presidential campaign, the run-up to the Iraq war -- the Post's coverage of which has been eviscerated by the paper's former ombudsman -- all undermine the myth of the liberal media.

The next day, Alexander posted a follow-up to his column on his blog. In it, Alexander again quoted Rosenstiel, this time speculating that increased mistrust of the media among Democrats is a result of them not wanting Obama to be criticized. (No mention of the possibility that Democrats increasingly distrust the media because the media gave us President Bush, the Iraq war, Whitewater, "Al Gore said he invented the Internet," and assorted other stupidity.) And he quoted a former Knight-Ridder executive calling for journalists to be more responsive to claims of bias -- "especially from conservatives." And a couple more people arguing that the media attract "social reformers" who tend to be liberal.

Alexander's conclusion reflected his headline ("Newsroom Diversity Should Include Ideology"):

News organizations, once led exclusively by white men, long ago embraced gender and race diversity. It was a matter of equality, of course. But it also was a matter of accuracy. With diversity, newsrooms became more attuned to the perspectives of women and the multicultural dimensions of the communities they served.

It's the same with ideology. News organizations like The Post are more accurate when they are exposed to the range of perspectives among their readers, both print and online.

Coming, as it does, at the end of a column and a blog post that combine to include not a single word reflecting a progressive media critique -- not so much as a hint that the media are not biased in favor of liberals -- that call for ideological diversity seems more like a punch line than a reasoned conclusion.

What else is missing? Content. Alexander spent a column and a blog post talking about the fact that conservatives say their views are neglected, speculating about the ideology of reporters, and quoting others likewise speculating. But there weren't really any actual examples of that bias playing out in news reports, aside from his agreement with Beck that the Post was slow to cover ACORN and Van Jones. And, there, Alexander ignores the seemingly essential question of whether conservative claims about ACORN have been reliable. (No. No, they have not.)

How can you write a full column and a long blog post about so-called "liberal bias" in the media without actually talking about the content of news reports? Without even addressing the media's coverage of the 2000 campaign, or the Bush administration's Iraq claims (pre- and post-invasion)? You can't -- not in any way that is even remotely meaningful. 

But reporters have been kicked so hard by conservatives, and for so long, they tend to reflexively agree with whatever the right says about them. 

And so, amazingly, they parrot the conservatives' claims of liberal bias, even while they disprove those claims by completely ignoring substantive media critiques from progressives -- and by skewing their coverage ever more to the right.

The idea that, regardless of what anyone thinks about the personal ideological leanings of reporters, the actual content of news reports tends to favor conservatives (in part because reporters over-respond to criticism from the right) isn't some new, obscure fringe theory I've concocted to respond to Beck's whining or the most recent round of the media beating themselves up for not getting Rush Limbaugh to like them. It's a widely held assessment of the news media. Books have been written about it. Likewise, the examples I've given, particularly coverage of the 2000 election and the Bush administration's Iraq claims, are widely recognized examples of media failures.

In fact, even if you limit yourself to current and former employees of The Washington Post, you can pretty easily find support for those positions:

Former Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser:

The press responds to critics on the right by bending over backward not to look liberal. ... The cumulative effect is the opposite: They're tougher on Democrats.

Former Washington Post reporter Tom Edsall:

The conservative movement has been very effective attacking the media (broadcast and print) for its liberal biases. The refusal of the media to disclose and discuss the ideological leanings of reporters and editors, and the broader claim of objectivity, has made the press overly anxious, and inclined to lean over backwards not to offend critics from the right. In many respects, the campaign against the media has been more than a victory: it has turned the press into an unwilling, and often unknowing, ally of the right. [emphasis added]

Former Washington Post ombudsman E.R. Shipp on the 2000 campaign:

There is something not quite satisfying about The Post's coverage of the quests of Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, Al Gore and John McCain to become our next president. ... readers react ... to roles that The Post seems to have assigned to the actors in this unfolding political drama. Gore is the guy in search of an identity; Bradley is the Zen-like intellectual in search of a political strategy; McCain is the war hero who speaks off the cuff and is, thus, a "maverick"; and Bush is a lightweight with a famous name, and has the blessings of the party establishment and lots of money in his war chest. As a result of this approach, some candidates are whipping boys; others seem to get a free pass. [emphasis added]

Former Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler on the Post's Iraq coverage:

The [Washington] Post ... displayed a pattern of missing or downplaying events that unfolded in public-events that might have played a role in public opinion during the run-up to the war. 

Some examples: In the summer and fall of 2002, the paper failed to record promptly the doubts of then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey. When Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, wrote a cautionary op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, it apparently didn't strike anyone at the Post as news.

[...]

The testimony of three retired four-star generals warning against an attack before the Senate Armed Services Committee was not covered at all. Speeches by Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Robert Byrd that seem prescient today were not covered.

[...]

Here's a brief sampling of additional Post headlines that, rather stunningly, failed to make the front of the newspaper: "Observers: Evidence for War Lacking," "U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program," "Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy," "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms," "Legality of War Is a Matter of Debate," and "Bush Clings to Dubious Allegations About Iraq." In short, it wasn't the case that important, challenging reporting wasn't done. It just wasn't highlighted. [emphasis added]

Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs on the media's coverage of Iraq:

[W]hat of [former Bush White House Press secretary Scott McClellan's] criticism of the so-called "liberal media" which you can read in greater detail here? Were we "complicit enablers" for the Bush administration in its march to war?

As a reporter who was part of the Washington Post's foreign policy team during the period 2002-2003, I have thought about this question a lot over the last five years. Many of my colleagues have dismissed McClellan's criticisms, insisting that they asked "all the right questions" during the run-up to the war, and it was hardly our fault if the administration failed to answer them honestly. I disagree. I think the American media -- and that includes me, personally -- failed to do its job properly during the run-up to the war.

[...]

As I saw it here at The Post, the media's failure went from top to bottom. Editors were reluctant to give front-page prominence to stories that challenged the administration's rationale for war, including one by Walter Pincus questioning the evidence about weapons of mass destruction that ended up on page A17. But reporters (including myself) often failed to display sufficient skepticism about the administration's claims. We should have pressed our editors harder to find a way of addressing the most important questions, even if it was very difficult to find dissenters within the administration.

I should make clear that I am not singling out The Post for special criticism. With a very few exceptions (the Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder comes to mind), the entire American media failed to aggressively challenge the administration's narrative. [emphasis added]

What more needs to happen before more journalists start taking seriously the possibility that the media do not demonstrate a liberal bias -- and that, instead, news reports frequently adopt conservative framing and assumptions?

Now, it's Glenn Beck's turn.

In its new issue, Time features a cover profile of the Fox demagogue, written by David Von Drehle -- a profile that downplays or ignores Beck's defining qualities, draws false equivalencies between liberals and conservatives, portrays obvious lies as simple differences of perspective, and omits Beck's most shocking and outrageous statements.

In the opening paragraph, Time describes last weekend's Beck-organized, right-wing temper tantrum in Washington, in which conservative activists got together to air a disparate array of sometimes contradictory grievances. Here's how it dealt with the size of the crowd, right in the first paragraph:

If you get your information from liberal sources, the crowd numbered about 70,000, many of them greedy racists. If you get your information from conservative sources, the crowd was hundreds of thousands strong, perhaps as many as a million, and the tenor was peaceful and patriotic.

But here's what Time left out: Those conservative sources are flat-out lying.

Progressive media critics often point out that the media too frequently take a "he-said/she-said" approach to politics that boils down to, "Is the Earth flat or spherical? Opinions differ." That may seem like an exaggeration, but Time's handling of the crowd size dispute is virtually indistinguishable from that caricature.

Actually, in some ways, it's less honest than the caricature. See, the 70,000 estimate didn't come from "liberal sources"; it came from sane sources, such as the Washington, D.C., Fire Department. Time portrayed the disparate estimates as equally-likely-to-be-true products of ideological observers. In fact, the large estimates from conservatives were clearly false, and the lower, accurate estimates came from official, nonpartisan observers -- and even from some conservatives like Beck's colleagues at Fox News.

And the estimates of "as many as a million"? True, they came from conservatives (actually, some conservatives put the crowd size at the 2 million mark. Time has downplayed the dishonesty displayed by one of the very conservatives it later references.) But, more accurately, they came from dishonest conservatives who were lying, lying about how many people were there, lying about where the estimates came from. Lying.

Look: The difference between 70,000 people on the National Mall for a protest and 2 million is huge. Seventy thousand people is a good-sized crowd. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's almost as many as the 85,000 people who attended last Saturday's college football game in Lincoln, Nebraska. But 2 million people? There probably weren't 2 million people in the entire state of Nebraska (population: 1.8 million) last Saturday.

Houston, Texas, is the fourth-largest city in America, with just over 2 million residents. Do you know what happens when you drop the population of Houston, Texas, in the middle of Washington, D.C.? Hotels for miles and miles around are booked far in advance. The Metro system is stretched to the breaking point. Thousands of people get trapped in tunnels. It is, in short, unmistakably different from what happens when Missouri plays Bowling Green.

I dwell on this because the difference between 70,000 and 2 million people is simply not something about which reasonable people of honest motives can disagree. It is not something that can be an innocent mistake. Dishonest people who wanted to misinform you told lies in order to exaggerate the crowd size. There really can be no doubt about that.

But Time not only won't make clear that they are lying, it won't even tell you that they were wrong. Thus, the magazine makes clear right up front that this article is not "journalism"; it is a pathetic attempt to pander to malicious liars.

Here, look at Time's next paragraph:

At any rate, what we can say with confidence is that Deanna Frankowski was there. A cheery woman of 49 from Leeds, Ala., Frankowski said she had come to Washington as part of a group of 100 or more protesters. They filled two buses.

Well, no. What we can say with confidence is that nowhere near 2 million, or 1 million, or 500,000 people were there, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or has fallen prey to those who are lying. One of many ways we know this is the case is that if it took two buses to get 100 protesters into the city, it would take 40,000 buses to get 2 million there. Anyone see any evidence of 40,000 buses (or their plane, train, and automobile equivalents) last weekend? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Time continued:

The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called "the paranoid style" - the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country - is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. Between the liberal fantasies about Brownshirts at town halls and the conservative concoctions of brainwashed children goose-stepping to school, you'd think the Palm in Washington had been replaced with a Munich beer hall.

What in the world is Time talking about? This is a grotesque false equivalence. Conservatives have been yelling about President Obama being a secret Kenyan bent on sending granny to the Death Panel, comparing him to Hitler and Mao and Stalin and who-knows-who-else -- and that, apparently, is matched in intensity and paranoia by liberals pointing out this unhinged behavior? Insane.

Eventually, Time got to its point: Glenn Beck. But even there, Time buried the lede. No, that's not quite right. Actually, Time completely omitted the lede.

See, Glenn Beck's defining characteristic is that he's deeply dishonest. He claimed that 1.7 million people stormed the National Mall last week to protest Obama. And that's just one example; Beck tells lies of such size and obviousness, and with such frequency, that to fail to make his dishonesty clear right up front is, itself, dishonest. But Time didn't even hint at it in its introduction of Beck:

Glenn Beck: the pudgy, buzz-cut, weeping phenomenon of radio, TV and books. ... Beck is 45, tireless, funny, self-deprecating, a recovering alcoholic, a convert to Mormonism, a libertarian and living with ADHD.

Indeed, the closest the Time article ever came -- ever -- to indicating that Beck tells lies and spreads falsehoods is this whopper of an understatement: "[H]e also spins yarns of less substance." Oh, snap! That really exposes him for the fraud that he is!

Instead, Time suggested Beck's rants are reality-based [emphasis added]:

Beck mines the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us. This flexible narrative often contains genuinely uncomfortable truths. Some days "they" are the unconfirmed policy "czars" whom Beck fears Obama is using to subvert constitutional government - and he has some radical-sounding sound bites to back it up. Some days "they" are the network of leftist community organizers known as ACORN - and his indictment of the group is looking stronger every day.

Well, not every day. See, on Tuesday, Beck aired a video of an ACORN worker saying she had killed her ex-husband and then went on a prolonged rant about ACORN employing someone who was guilty of "premeditated murder." Turns out that wasn't quite true. She didn't murder her ex-husband. Nobody murdered her ex-husband. Her ex-husbands are quite alive and well.

That's typical Beck: He rushes to make sensational allegations based on the thinnest of evidence, without bothering to check it out. It's behavior that careens from reckless to dishonest, and it's his calling card. But, to Time, Beck's treatment of ACORN is something to be applauded. It's looking stronger every day (as long as you ignore the fact that he just aired a bogus video in order to falsely suggest an ACORN worker is a murderer)!

It isn't just Beck's dishonesty that got left on the cutting-room floor. It's the extent of his offensiveness. Take a look at Time's portrayal of Beck's emotional recollection of the September 11 terrorist attacks:

On the recent anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Beck grew afraid that Americans may no longer be the sort of people who cross mountain ranges in covered wagons and toss hot rivets around in bold bursts of skyscraper-building. Tears came to his eyes (they often do) as he voiced this last fear. But then he remembered that the fiber of ordinary Americans is the one thing Glenn Beck need never fear. So he squared his quivering chin to the camera and held up a snapshot of ground zero, still empty eight long years after the World Trade Center was destroyed.

It goes on like that for a while. But one thing Time didn't mention? This famous Glenn Beck statement: "You know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year."

Seems like if you're going to devote two full paragraphs to Glenn Beck's tearful remembrance of September 11, maybe you should note the contempt -- hatred, even -- he has expressed for the families of the people who died that day. Doesn't it?

Nor did Time mention Beck's 2001 statement that he'd like to "beat" Rep. Charlie Rangel "to death with a shovel"; his comments about poisoning Nancy Pelosi; his comparison of the Holocaust museum shooter to Thomas Jefferson; this little outburst; or his comparisons of Obama to Adolf Hitler. Let's stop there for a second and go back to Time's opening lines:

On Sept. 12, a large crowd gathered in Washington to protest ... what? The goals of Congress and the Obama Administration, mainly - the cost, the scale, the perceived leftist intent. The crowd's agenda was wide-ranging, so it's hard to be more specific. "End the Fed," a sign read. A schoolboy's placard denounced "Obama's Nazi Youth Militia." Another poster declared, "We the People for Capitalism Not Socialism."

Gee, where did that "Obama's Nazi Youth Militia" garbage come from? It came from Glenn Beck. But Time won't tell you that.

After whitewashing Beck's dishonesty and borderline-obscene behavior for a while, the magazine returned to the crowd estimates:

We're in a flood stage, and who's to blame? The answer is like the estimates of the size of the crowd in Washington: Whom do you trust? Either the corrupt, communist-loving traitors on the left are causing this, or it's the racist, greedy warmongers on the right, or maybe the dishonest, incompetent, conniving media, which refuse to tell the truth about whomever you personally happen to despise.

At this point, you have to wonder if the article was some kind of performance art, designed to prove the very skepticism about the media it seems to lament. See, this very Time article was the product of a "dishonest, incompetent, conniving media, which refuse to tell the truth." And not because I happen to despise Glenn Beck, but because there simply were not 1.7 million people at last week's protest. Because Time damn well knows there were not 1.7 million people at last week's protest. And because Time refused to say there were not 1.7 million people there. Not only that -- Time also insisted on pretending that only "liberal sources" say there were 70,000 people there, when, in fact, the D.C. Fire Department said there were 70,000 people. That's a dishonest and incompetent refusal to tell the truth. Actually, it's worse than a refusal to tell the truth: It's a dishonest and incompetent false claim.

At the beginning of his article, Von Drehle referred to a recent poll that found "record-low levels of public trust of the mainstream media." Guess what? Articles like this are why nobody trusts the media. When you pretend that obviously false claims about crowd sizes are valid, people won't trust you. When you pretend that only liberals say 70,000 people actually attended last week's protest, people won't trust you. They shouldn't trust you. You aren't trustworthy. You are doing your job dishonestly and incompetently.

And that dishonesty, that incompetence, is what enables Glenn Beck. When Glenn Beck says 1.7 million people were at the protest, and the Washington, D.C., Fire Department says 70,000, and Time runs an article saying conservatives and liberals disagree about the crowd size, that enables Glenn Beck's lies.

No wonder Beck liked the article so much.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

First is the media's reluctance to "take sides" in factual disputes (which is, in effect, siding with the incorrect claim) and their apparent belief that rudeness is a greater sin than lying. Scores of news reports covered the controversy over Wilson's shouted claim that the president was lying when he said proposed health care reform would not apply to those who are in America illegally -- but they focused on the breach of decorum rather than the question of whether Obama or Wilson was correct. (Independent, nonpartisan observers like PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org have made clear that Wilson was wrong; Obama was not lying.)

Thursday's broadcast of the CBS Evening News, for example, led with a report about Wilson's outburst, during which anchor Katie Couric told viewers, "The congressman apologizes, but insists he's right on the issue." The report did not contain so much as a hint that Wilson is wrong on the issue: no assessment by CBS News, no reference to independent fact-checkers, not even a line about Democrats saying Wilson is wrong.

Likewise, MSNBC spent much of the day obsessing over the rudeness of Wilson's comment -- and relatively little making clear it was false. During one such segment, MSNBC played two minutes of Wilson talking about his comment, including a lengthy defense of the merits of his claim. Then, more a full minute after the end of the clip, anchor Tamron Hall provided the segment's only assessment of who was right: "There's also been a number of fact-checkers who said that Congressman Wilson is wrong, that there was nothing to indicate." That's it -- that's all she said. And it got worse. Andrea Mitchell led off her show with a discussion of Wilson's comments; 28 minutes later, during what was at least the third segment of her show that touched on Wilson's comments, Mitchell finally offered a tepid acknowledgement that Obama was correct.

Print and Internet coverage wasn't much better. The New York Times devoted an entire article to Wilson's comment -- an article that took no position on who was right and referred to no independent sources that did so. One Washington Times article quoted Wilson explaining why -- according to him -- Obama was lying, but omitted not only any of the independent determinations that Wilson was wrong but any comment from Democrats that Wilson was wrong. Then, a little later, the newspaper sent out a fundraising e-mail on behalf of Wilson.

It's obvious how this is going to play out. Before too long, polls will show a large minority -- maybe even a majority -- of Americans believe that Democratic reform proposals will provide subsidized insurance for people who are in the country illegally. And when that happens, Howard Kurtz and MSNBC will be gobsmacked. They'll wonder how this can be, when the media was so aggressive in reporting on Wilson's false comments. It'll never occur to them that the problem is their focus on the rudeness of Wilson's comment rather than the falsity of the comment; that they are to blame for doing a lousy job of fact-checking Wilson's comment while giving it priceless attention.

That is, after all, exactly what happened with things like Sarah Palin's "death panel" lie.

The other counterproductive media tic that surfaced once again this week is the tendency of many reporters to insist that no matter how far over the line a member of one political party goes, there's someone just as prominent in the other party who has done something comparable. This false equivalence serves to justify the worst behavior -- "Oh, everybody does it" -- thus contributing to the downward spiral of our public discourse.

Take, for example, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank. Last seen calling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a "bitch" (and, shortly before that, calling Huffington Post reporter Nico Pitney a "dick"), Milbank took it upon himself to bemoan the loss of civility in American politics. But he didn't stop at Wilson's shouted lie, or the pastor in Arizona who says he's praying for Obama's death, or the Republican members of Congress who waved protest signs during the president's speech to Congress. No, Milbank needed an example of comparable Democratic behavior -- you know, for "balance." So he came up with two: a Democrat who "insisted on making a victory sign with his hand and waving it at Obama," and another who made what Milbank described as "a fascist salute."

"Fascist salute"? I don't even know what that means, and Milbank didn't explain. But that's a grossly inappropriate way to describe what Rep. Al Green did -- and one that conveniently plays into the right-wing memes that Obama is just like Hitler and Mao. Most of all, it demonstrates the problem with the "both sides do it" school of reporting.

But Milbank may have been outdone by the Politico, which ran an article about Republicans behaving badly -- Palin's "death panel" lie, the birther conspiracy theories, claiming Obama seeks to "indoctrinate" schoolchildren by encouraging them to study. But, Politico quickly added, it isn't just Republicans who cross the line:

Nor are Democrats strangers to having their crazy uncles take center stage. During the run-up to the Iraq war, for example, Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and David Bonior (D-Mich.) famously flew to Baghdad, where McDermott asserted that he believed the president would "mislead the American public" to justify the war. The trip made it a cakewalk for critics to describe the Democratic Party as chock-a-block with traitorous radicals.

President Bush, as you may remember, did mislead the American public to justify going to war with Iraq. But to the Politico, saying so is the "crazy" statement of "traitorous radicals" -- and on the level of claiming Obama is a secret Kenyan with a plan to kill your grandmother and indoctrinate your children. According to the Politico, a member of Congress less than 1 percent of the American public could pick out of a lineup correctly saying Bush would mislead the nation about Iraq is comparable to the most recent Republican vice presidential nominee falsely suggesting Obama wants to put your loved ones to death. 

To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: It ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same sport.

Now, what happens when the media refuse to call a lie a lie and insist that, no matter how badly you behave, your political adversaries have done something similar? Right: It encourages politicians to behave badly and lie. The negative consequences are mitigated, and it gets them attention.

Given the way the media covers these things, it isn't surprising that people who oppose health care reform feel comfortable lying and being disruptive. Why wouldn't they?

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

I know, I know. You think I'm kidding. Or exaggerating. That I'm caricaturing the conservatives' position in order to make them look ridiculous.

Wrong. They defy caricature. There's nothing you can imagine that is too crazy for these people to say. They'll claim Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya (his birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers were just one part of an elaborate, decades-long conspiracy involving Kenyans, the media, Hawaii's Republican governor, and the Stonecutters). They'll say he has a diabolical plan to create government "death panels" to kill off the old and the young. They'll claim he is building a secret private army (consisting of -- I swear I am not making this up -- AmeriCorps and Peace Corps volunteers) that is "just as strong" as the U.S. military so that he can "seize power" and create a "thugocracy."

And when President Obama delivers the least-controversial message you could possibly imagine -- "Stay in school" -- they call it "indoctrination" and an attempt to "get 'em while they're young," warning, "They are capturing your kids" and "your republic is under attack."

That's right: "Your republic is under attack," and Barack Obama is "capturing your kids." By urging them to stay in school and ... learn. As Education Secretary Arne Duncan explained in a letter to schools:

In a recent interview with student reporter, Damon Weaver, President Obama announced that on September 8 -- the first day of school for many children across America -- he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

Well, clearly, no red-blooded American would stand idly by as the president of the United States urges children to work hard in school. That's something Adolf Hitler would do! (Oops -- I keep forgetting: Conservatives can't seem to come to a consensus about whether Hitler was bad.)

So Glenn Beck and his fellow tinfoil hat-wearers sprang into action. Beck went off on his "indoctrination" rant, warning of secret private armies (no, he isn't worried about Blackwater -- it's the thought of English majors signing up to help teach people how to read that keeps him up at night).

WorldNetDaily said Obama's planned speech "raises the specter of the Civilian National Security Force" and promoted comparisons to Hitler's youth brigade. Mark Steyn said the speech is part of a "cult of personality," though he did admit it isn't on the scale of Saddam Hussein's.

NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein alerted his followers to the striking similarity between President Obama's plan to encourage students to work hard and Chairman Mao's leadership of China. Because, you know, one day you're urging kids to get good grades, and the next you're ordering mass executions. Duh.

(Incidentally, while I know of no evidence Chairman Mao spoke to China's schoolchildren via television, we know then-President George H. W. Bush did so in 1991. Somehow, Poppy Bush's pep talk didn't result in the rise of a Hitler Youth-style paramilitary organization.)

Some conservative media didn't simply complain about Obama's dastardly efforts to promote hard work and learning among America's schoolchildren. No, they came up with a solution: Children should stay home from school.

Radio host Tammy Bruce asked "TownHall Patriots" to help organize "PASS Day Picnics" -- that's "Parentally Approved Skip School Day," for the uninitiated. In a blog post under a close-up photo her hand holding a gun, Bruce added that "Urkel" -- that's her pet name for Obama; get it? -- is going to "make[] a grab for your kids" and that he is "setting us on fire."

Newsmax writer Pam Geller agreed that the last place kids should be next Tuesday is school, urging parents to keep their kids home lest they be "brainwash[ed]" by the "fascist in chief."

What's the lesson in all of this? That we shouldn't ever take anything the conservative media say seriously? Well, sure. That's a start. But -- and maybe it's just me -- I think there's a real opportunity here. If the conservative media show such knee-jerk opposition to anything Barack Obama says that they'll urge schoolchildren to skip class so they don't have to hear the president poison their minds with a bunch of nonsense about studying and working hard, Obama should use it to his advantage. Just think how vigorously Fox News will promote health care reform -- if President Obama comes out against it.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

All year, the media have told us that passage of health care reform requires not just the 51 Senate votes that would constitute a majority, but the 60 votes required to invoke cloture and shut off debate. It's such a common refrain, the media often employ the shorthand that health care reform needs the support of 60 senators to pass.

It's that any reporter who has been paying the slightest bit of attention is surprised by any of this. It is, after all, the inevitable result of the way the media do their jobs.

Let's start with the 'round-the-bend howling about Obama's place of birth, which reached a fever pitch a few weeks ago. There was no basis for it -- Obama was born in Hawaii, as government documents, the state of Hawaii (including its Republican governor), and contemporaneous newspaper accounts confirm. Because there is no basis for it, many reporters are shocked that right-wing activists, with the help of some in the media, promoted the nutty and false claim that Obama was secretly born in Kenya, and that many Americans fell for the phony conspiracy theory.

Why on earth would anyone be surprised by this? The last time America had a Democratic president, right-wing activists, with the help of some in the media, said he was responsible for the murder of his close friend and aide, Vince Foster -- and dozens of other murders, too. Why would anyone think that people who are willing to baselessly and falsely accuse one president of murder, drug smuggling, and an assortment of other crimes be unwilling to claim that the current president was born in Kenya?

You'd have to be hopelessly naive to think that people who spent years calling President Clinton a murderer wouldn't dare demand that President Obama produce a birth certificate. Or that people who believed one president was a murderer never would believe another was born abroad.

Ah, but maybe reporters are just surprised that the birthers were egged on by some congressional Republicans? They shouldn't be. Dan Burton, the Republican congressman who chaired the Government Reform & Oversight Committee, shot up a melon in his backyard in order to "prove" that Vince Foster was murdered. We're supposed to be surprised that some members of Congress are trying to capitalize on the birther conspiracy theories? Come on. Be serious.

President Clinton's opponents accomplished three things with their nasty and false claims that he was a drug-running murderer: They angered and energized millions of Americans who didn't like Clinton, created doubt and confusion among millions more, and hijacked control of the national dialogue (due in large part to the media's inability to resist shiny objects and their weakness at making clear what is true and what is false.) Why wouldn't they try to do the same to President Obama?

And the barrage of health care lies, and accompanying mass confusion about the most basic facts? MSNBC has spent much of the past week, if not longer, expressing shock at the lies and their effectiveness.

Have these people been asleep, Rip Van Winkle-style, for the past few decades? Conservatives buried the last serious effort at universal health care under an avalanche of (media-abetted) lies. And they won the 2000 election on the strength of (media-abetted ... and sometimes media-invented) lies. And they took us to war in Iraq based on (media-abetted) lies. And ... well, you get the point. When was the last time conservatives approached a big fight without relying heavily, if not exclusively, on misinformation and deception? Why would anyone have thought this time would be different?

Likewise, the increasingly obvious fact that conservatives aren't actually interested in working toward bipartisan reform -- this seems to have taken reporters by surprise. But when was the last time conservatives made significant concessions in order to win bipartisan support for anything?

What makes all this shock really amazing is that so much of political journalism consists of pontification by people who have supposedly been around and understand how things work -- and yet they're constantly stunned when history repeats itself in the most predictable of ways.

And the latest realization that has so many reporters flabbergasted: the misinformation has worked! People believe falsehoods about health care! Many people don't even know basic facts about the current system!

Gee, you don't say? Many people don't know the basic facts about anything. That's one of the basic facts of American democracy. And when people are repeatedly told things that aren't true by people they trust, they tend to believe those things. That's one of the basic facts of ... people.

Surely reporters -- whose jobs, after all, involve communicating with the public -- are aware of these basic facts of life? Surely they've heard the expression about a lie making it halfway around the world before the truth has time to get its boots on? So why are they so surprised? Particularly when they've spent the bulk of the health care debate talking about politics and polls and chattering endlessly about who is "winning the message war" rather than repeatedly and clearly explaining to viewers the facts about health care.

Just look at the way much of the media have reacted to the belated realization that the public is woefully misinformed: By speculating -- sorry, "analyzing" -- why this is the case, and guessing -- sorry, "analyzing" -- whether the White House can develop a "message" that "works." And what aren't they doing in reaction to this realization? Clearly and repeatedly explaining the facts. And they're surprised people don't know the truth. Unbelievable.

In fact, it is the media's behavior that has made this summer's madness inevitable. When they let the loudest yellers and most audacious liars drive the discourse, they guarantee that people who can't win on the merits will yell and lie. When they focus on politics rather than policy, they guarantee the public will remain in the dark about basic facts. When they repeat false claims, or treat them as he-said, she-said situations, they guarantee that those false claims will sway confused citizens. When they continue to give a platform to people who have a history of lying -- and assume those people are telling the truth this time -- they guarantee those people will continue to lie.

As long as the media approach their jobs this way, we're going to see the same thing play out over and over again. And each time, the media will be shocked -- shocked -- that some people lie, and other people believe lies.

Or they could do things differently: They could set aside the punditry and the "analysis" and the polls and the freak show and dedicate themselves to explaining the facts about health care. And explaining the facts means more than calling a lie a lie -- though that is hugely important. It also means proactively telling people how the health care system works, and what the proposed reforms are, how they would work, and what the likely effects would be.

If they won't do that, at least they could stop telling us how shocked they are at the inevitable results of their behavior. It's getting old.

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The next day, The Washington Independent's David Weigel -- whose birther coverage has been indispensable -- pointed out a new poll showing that 8 percent of North Carolinians (and 11 percent of McCain voters in North Carolina) either think Hawaii is not part of the U.S. or are not sure.

Think about that for a minute. One in 10 McCain voters in North Carolina doesn't know that Hawaii is part of the U.S.

Does that surprise you? It shouldn't.

The simple fact is that a heck of a lot of Americans don't know much about their country or the basics of how government works.

In 2007, the Pew Research Center found that 31 percent of Americans could not name the current vice president. Fifty-one percent could not identify Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Twenty-four percent did not know which political party controlled the House of Representatives -- just months after Democrats took control, when the information should have been fresh in people's minds.

My favorite example of the fact that a great many people don't know the basics is the poll that showed that during then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley's unsuccessful 1994 re-election campaign, 30 percent of his constituents thought that if Republican George Nethercutt defeated Foley, Nethercutt would become speaker. Given that Nethercutt eked out a win with 51 percent of the vote, it isn't at all hard to imagine that Foley might have been re-elected had voters understood the clout their district stood to lose by replacing him. (Of course, Foley wouldn't have remained speaker anyway, as Republicans won control of Congress.)

If so many voters are wrong about basics like whether Hawaii is part of the U.S. and whether the representative from Washington's 5th Congressional District is automatically the speaker of the House, imagine how little they must know about complex public policy questions.

To be clear: Much of this ignorance is not the result of stupidity, and it is not the result of lack of interest. The details of public policy are quite complex. The vast majority of Americans simply don't have the time or the resources to develop a clear and thorough understanding of Medicare reimbursement rates, nuclear proliferation policy, the intricacies of the tax code, and the hundreds of other topics that affect their lives. That is, after all, one of the reasons we elect representatives.

Even citizens who make a significant effort to educate themselves about a given topic are unlikely to succeed. Give most people a week to read a 700-page piece of legislation, and they're no more likely to understand it than I am likely to be able to fly the space shuttle after reading an operating manual. And for precisely the same reason: These are highly technical things, requiring a great deal of specialized knowledge to properly understand.

Most people do not possess that specialized knowledge. Most people do not fully understand their own health care plan -- so why on Earth would we think they would know anything about health care policy and proposed insurance reforms, even if they had read some legislation (which, of course, 99.9 percent of them have not)?

Now, this doesn't have to be a problem -- which is great, because it's pretty much unavoidable. We choose a government to represent our interests, and we look to another institution, the media, to help us understand the issues well enough to make decisions about who should represent us.

Obviously, there are a few kinks in that system.

One of those kinks -- one that doesn't get much attention -- is the extent to which the media (and politicians and the people who work for them) overrate the amount of knowledge most voters have about politics and policy. You see it when they use insider jargon and acronyms in their reporting, assuming readers and viewers know what they mean. Do they? Do they really know what FISA is? Pay-Go? "Judicial activism"?

This overestimation of how much knowledge most people possess is one of the causes of the media's failure to clearly and consistently report the facts about health care. They don't understand how necessary it is. They think they can focus on horse-race political coverage of the debate. They think if they report the facts once, that's often enough. They think the fact that people are satisfied with their health insurance tells us something about the quality and reliability of that insurance -- though it clearly doesn't.

So the public, which -- again, understandably -- doesn't know much about a complex policy and lacks the time and resources to find out for itself, is exposed to a nonstop barrage of spin, misinformation, and outright lies about health care. And the media, overestimating how much people actually know, don't think they have to make the facts clear every day, over and over again. Is it really any wonder that people believe things that aren't true? Do we really need to relive the run-up to the Iraq war all over again?

Jamison Foser is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Foser also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.