Conservative politicians and pundits have been unrelentingly negative about the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) from the outset. There have been some 50 attempts by Republicans in congress to repeal, defund, or rollback the law. And Fox News has devoted thousands of hours of airtime trying to scare people away from signing up.

Given that determination to throw obstacles in the way of the law’s implementation, it is curious that these same people are so infuriated when elements of the law are delayed by the administration. That is, after all, a goal that ObamaCare’s critics have been trying to achieve themselves. Apparently they only want delays that are are imposed by their own hand. If Obama does it, it’s an outrage.

Case in point: The administration just announced that people who have had problems signing up for insurance through the new exchanges will have until mid-April to complete the enrollment process. This is a delay of only two weeks, but it gives those who have started the process a little extra time to finish it in the event that they have had technical or other impediments to completion. That modest modification has caused an uproar in conservative circles generally. But in the case of Fox Nation, the lie-riddled website run by Fox News, they have gone a step further and brazenly misreported the news to say that the “WH Eliminates ObamaCare Sign Up Deadline. Will Use ‘Honor System’ Instead”

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There is absolutely no reasonable way to interpret the facts that would result in an assertion that the deadline has been eliminated. This extension is only available to people who have begun the process prior to the deadline. No one else will get an extension. Just like shoppers who are generally permitted to finish their shopping and checkout past closing time, even though no new shoppers are allowed into the store. What’s more, those who receive the extension would then have only two weeks to finish up or they, too, will be regarded as having exceeded the deadline and be subjected to penalties.

Adding to the absurdity of Fox’s distortions is their blatant hypocrisy. Despite being downright apoplectic over the falsely reported ObamaCare deadline extension, Fox was never even slightly irked when George W. Bush delayed the deadline for signing up for the Medicare prescription drug benefits that his administration passed. And in that case the delay was from May until December 31, of 2006. So Bush delaying a program’s deadline for seven months is perfectly fine, but Obama giving a two week extension to a narrowly defined group of people is tyranny – even if the conservative critics favor an extension.

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Why does Fox even bother to pretend to report the news? If they would invent a headline that says a two week extension is an elimination, then why don’t they just let loose and say that Obama has ordered everyone without insurance to be rounded up and incarcerated in those FEMA camps we’ve heard so much about? It would make just as much sense and have the same disconnect from reality. Plus they could throw in that the camps would be staffed by gay, Muslim, abortion doctors who would be the only Americans permitted to own guns. I mean, if you’re gonna lie, you might as well have some fun with it.