A new front has been established in the political war zone that reveals the unique character of the American conservative movement. Not satisfied with bashing everything about the media (despite the fact that their own Fox News is a huge part of it), the wackoids on the right have declared war against … Fact-checkers!
This may seem wildly deranged, but upon reflection it makes perfect sense. If your entire movement is built on a foundation of lies, then fact-checkers are your mortal enemy. This became clear a few days ago when a Mitt Romney adviser publicly declared that “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”
That comment was hailed by John Nolte, editor of Breitbart News, as evidence that Romney’s campaign had decided to tell fact-checkers to “Drop Dead!” It’s astonishing that a political operative would admit something so absurdly anti-fact and to frame his remarks in the context of factuality being a dictatorship. He plainly believes that being forced to adhere to only statements that are true is too large a burden for the Romney campaign. Of course, that has been apparent for the past several years to anyone who has observed Romney in action.
Now the mental deficients at Breitbart News are piling on with more articles blasting fact-checkers as if it were a dishonorable profession on a par with crack dealers. BreitBrat Nolte veritably glows with excitement as he declares that the “Era of Media Fact Checkers Intimidating Republicans Is Over.” Where he gets that from is a mystery, but then he doesn’t require any facts to support his assertions so he can say whatever the hell he wants – which he often does, such as when he advocated the murder of a child actress’ mother.
The source of Nolte’s glee came from reports following Paul Ryan’s fib-filled speech at the Republican National Kvetch-a-Sketch. Ryan was found to have slipped off of the truth tracks on numerous occasions that were well documented by a broad and diverse cross-section of the press, including Fox News. Nolte’s paranoid, conspiratorial dementia drove him to assert that the flurry of fact-checking that found fault with Ryan’s speech was…
“…undoubtedly pre-planned and organized between Team Obama and his Media Palace Guards. […] My guess is that Obama and the media set up this plan weeks ago.”
Of course they did. And Ryan must have been in on it as well because he dutifully spewed the lies that the media had pre-planned to expose in their fact-checking. The scheme would have failed without Ryan’s cooperation. Apparently, in Nolte’s diseased brain, Ryan is a double agent working to sabotage Romney’s campaign. And the plot was only uncovered because, as Nolte revealed, “Breitbart is everywhere.” Somehow the zombie spirit of Andrew Breitbart is still haunting the material world and communicating with Nolte to expose liberal media shenanigans. Scary, isn’t it?
In another article, Nolte bashed a columnist for the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler, for daring to venture into what sane political analysts call “speculation.” Nolte seems to think that when an opinion columnist attempts to anticipate events in the political world, which is what opinion columnists are paid to do, he has broken some sort of commandment. Nolte goes even further, accusing Kessler of extortion (while engaging in some childish insults):
“This feckless, impotent little fact-checker is bullying Romney; putting him on notice and threatening him. Kessler’s firing a warning show (sic) across Romney’s bow.”
Nolte virtually froths with revulsion over Kessler having the audacity to presume that Romney’s speech will contain some of the ideas Romney has been talking about on the campaign trail for several months. He may have a point. With Romney’s proclivity for flip-flopping on almost every position he takes, it may be risky to expect that he’ll be consistent in his speech tonight. So once again, Romney would have to be complicit in his own downfall in order for this plot to succeed. It’s downright insidious.
After celebrating the demise of fact-checking, Nolte feverishly condemns the practice of anticipating a future event in politics. But that doesn’t stop him from making his own wholly unsupported prediction:
“Day after day, before our very eyes, we are witnessing the media Kamikazee their integrity against the truth for a guy who’s going to lose.”
So Nolte thinks that Kessler is feckless and impotent for correctly noting the themes of Romney’s campaign and suggesting that they might be included in his big speech. But Nolte has no problem with stating as a fact that Obama is going to lose an election that is still two months away, despite the fact that the electoral college map is swinging heavily in his favor. However, that’s no problem for Nolte since he has already cast off facts as annoyances that are only important to liberals. How convenient.
OK…Get ready. I am about to diminish myself.
This means that the Fox News audience made a deliberate choice to avoid any exposure to the party they regard as their enemy. They refused to listen to views that Fox has convinced them are dangerous and representative of foreign, Muslim, communist, and godless pagans. They voluntarily separated themselves from the heresy that might have infected their pious souls.
