Chuck Todd apparently still doesn't believe fact checking is part of his job. From this Sunday's Meet the Press, while discussing Carly Fiorina's tale about Planned Parenthood carving up live babies on tables so they can harvest their organs for a profit, Todd did manage to quote from a PolitiFact article, which called her claims "mostly false."

He couldn't be bothered to utter the word "lie" himself when citing the PolitiFact article, or give his own opinion on the matter, and then allowed right-wing hate talker Hugh Hewitt to carry water for Fiorina's claims and to explain to the audience what she supposedly "really meant" to say during the CNN debate. Hewitt also advocated for the Republicans to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding and pretended that it would somehow be good for their party to do so.

TODD: A highly charged issue as abortion always is. Hugh Hewitt, did Carly Fiorina go too far with her description?

HEWITT: No. I want to borrow from Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. Planned Parenthood can't handle the truth and if the President of the United States wants to shut down the government over these videos, I hope they take Cathy McMorris Rogers, who is the chairman of the House Republican conference and have her speak three times a day during the shutdown with those videos rolling in the background. I have watched them. I heard that technician.

I believe Carly Fiorina intended to say that if you hear someone talking about this, because that... they're so terrible and so awful that they get jumbled in your head and you have to avert your eyes, because it's murder. And so if Planned Parenthood wants to occasion the endless roll of those videos, which they are doing, they'll stand on that hill all day. But I hope Cathy McMorris Rogers, if the government shuts down, and the President shuts the government down in order to fund Planned Parenthood trafficking in body parts, that that's how they handle it.

TODD: Alright. Maria, I don't think Planned Parenthood believes this is what they're doing. Go ahead.

I guess it's too much to ask for Todd to just say, "No Hugh. You're lying. This is not what Planned Parenthood is doing." No, instead he equivocated and had to have Maria Shriver take him on instead. Way to go there Chuckles. He also left it to one of their other panel members, David Maraniss, to point out the fact that Hewitt's support for their brilliant plan to shut down the government probably won't work out too well for Republicans.

[ad]