The lesson the Barack Obama presidency should teach Democrats is the Republican Party has only a glancing relationship to the truth and they will continue to lie on camera as often as possible until their lies become conventional wisdom. That's why so many conservatives believe that President Obama has raised taxes, wants to take away their guns (by pretending he doesn't) and initiated the bank bailout.

It works incredibly well. But you have to know your audience.

If you spout off factually untrue slams against Obama on Fox News, no one will argue with you. In fact, it conforms with their agenda of misinforming their audience.

But you don't want to try that on a show like Real Time with Bill Maher, because the audience and sometimes the other panel guests will call you out. Case in point: Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who chuckles like it's common knowledge that Obama wants to "gut" the military. But fellow guests Kennedy (no liberal, she, although she's clearly not grown out of her annoying MTV schtick), Martin Bashir and host Bill Maher quickly demanded some badly needed fact-checking. Not that it made an impact on Rohrabacher:

Maher, co-panelests Kennedy from Reason TV, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir and even the audience joined in to collectively chastise the California Republican for his blatantly false claim. “That’s absolutely not true,” Kennedy said, later adding, “I love the military. I like my SEALs groomed and ready to go but you have to tell the truth.” “Can I give you the facts?” Maher asked Rohrabacher. “So far every budget Obama has had has increased military spending,” he said. “This year they’re asking a reduction from $531 billion to $525 billion, 1.6 percent. You mean our freedom is in trouble because of that 1.6 percent?” Maher later added, “How paranoid do you have to be to say that this guy is gutting our military?”

Does it surprise you to know that the truth (which is clearly kryptonite to the conservative mind) is that military spending has increased every year of the Obama presidency and all they've done is ask to reduce the rate of growth of spending? And to put not too fine a point on it, but those mandated cuts to defense that allegedly will happen because of the failure of the super committee to put together a deal, which in and of itself was a cowardly avoidance of the larger Congress (of which Rohrabacher is a member) to DO THEIR JOBS.

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Bill Maher excels at giving a real-life view of the insanity that is the GOP field. One of his best is this one, where he just completely eviscerates Rick Perry.

BooMan's post on Thursday sums it up nicely:

One things troubles me, however. If God ordains the president, then we have no reason to worry. Why exercise our reasoning thingies and let our stress hormones fly when we are assured that whomever is elected president is God's choice?I don't have to knock doors or make phone calls or donate money. I don't even need to have a preference.

...Paul makes clear in v. 1, “[T]here is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Every politician, whether he knows it or not, is using delegated power, delegated authority, authority delegated to him by God himself.

Nothing can go wrong.

Of course not.

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It's an apt analogy: like the addict who will destroy everything and everyone around them in pursuit of the oblivion they seek, so too are the GOP in governing this country. Sadly, the analogy falls down when you consider that the roommate of the paranoid-fantasizing meth head is the enabling Democratic Party, who never quite pulls it together to straighten the addict out.

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You know you are scraping the bottom of the faux outrage barrel when you can get yourself in a lather over First Lady Michelle Obama urging healthy eating habits. Not mandating. Not demanding. Just suggesting, people.

Of course, these are the same people who like to discuss the size of Michelle Obama's rear end (can you imagine the outcry if someone did that to Laura Bush?) while simultaneously looking like they rarely push themselves away from the table.

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Alan Grayson takes P.J. O'Rourke to school on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

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I have to give Bill Maher credit. Months before the OWS protests and before the rest of the media caught up, Maher was talking income disparity, as this post by Heather in April shows. Maher smacks the media for trying to paint a happy face on how bad things are getting for the vast majority of us, much to the chagrin of guest Dana Loesch. Of course, I'm more chagrined that Loesch is given yet another platform to spew her ignorance.

Dear Bill,
You're a smart guy, no question. I don't always agree with you, but it's clear that you're no dummy.

That's why I was so surprised to see you fall right into Darrell Issa's "means testing" trap. He says we should mean-test people on unemployment.

First of all, there are many, many people who were making $100,000 or so who, yes, really do need that unemployment check. You must not be reading much about the long-term unemployed, because this same question comes up a lot: It's making it possible for those people to pay the bills.

More to the point, Bill, people pay into their state's unemployment insurance fund. "Insurance," Bill. Get it? They pay for it, and they get to collect. Only extended unemployment benefits go beyond what people paid for. That's why they're only enacted in a bona fide economic emergency.

I'm surprised that you continue to let Issa get away with talking about the "Social Security and Medicare crisis" as if they're the same thing. They're not, and you shouldn't fall into that "bipartisan" mindset about how we all need to work together to fix what isn't broken. Social Security is fine, and it's funded under pay as you go.
Medicare is the problem.

But Social Security is what corporate politicians of both parties want, and the fact that they're both supporting these "reform" proposals should be enough to make you suspicious. The fact is, Wall Street is dying to get their hands on that money, and the recipients of their campaign cash are eager to help them. After the events of the past two years, do you really think that's a good idea?

As to the suggestion to means-test Social Security: It's a well-known ploy, one that FDR figured out early on. There's a very good reason why Social Security isn't means-tested -- because if everyone's not invested in it, it becomes just another entitlement for the poor, and we all know what happens to the programs for poor people. FDR knew that, that's why it didn't happen.

Put down the spliff, Bill. Pay attention. Your words influence people, and you have a responsibility to educate yourself before you speak.

Sincerely,
A Fan

It was disappointing to hear Bill Maher refer to Andrew Breitbart as a "journalist" last night. He isn't one, and calling him that is an insult to every journalist everywhere. Journalism requires the kind of integrity Breitbart utterly lacks:

Andrew Breitbart is a known news fabricator. Any material originating through his websites should be considered suspect at best, and subjected to thorough fact-checking before it can be reported on by anyone in any case.

Legitimate bloggers should avoid linking to his websites. Bloggers and other new media content creators who work for Breitbart, or who post to his sites, should be considered fruit of a poisonous tree.

Breitbart himself should be considered unfit for news. If it is absolutely necessary to report on him, Breitbart should be identified primarily as “known fabricator” — not a ‘journalist,’ ‘entertainer,’ ‘website mogul,’ or any other such title.

What Breitbart and his cohort of right-wing "new media" voices do is propaganda. They make nontroversy into outrage, or make crap up when they lack nontroversy. It is media pollution. It is poisonous to democracy.

Maher has diminished himself in elevating Breitbart, who returned the favor by telling his host "you're not libertarian, you're socialist." The fabricator's entire web empire is characterized by this sort of Overton Window-yanking insanity. You cannot find a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan contracting scandals on his sites, for example, but you can find the latest ginned-up outrage over White House Christmas ornaments or an NEA conference call in between the Victoria Jackson posts.

If Breitbart published such ravings behind a tabloid cover of Batboy or Elvis sightings or world's fattest couple to wed, we would be able to laugh. Instead, Breitbart presents fiction as truth, which isn't funny or thrilling. There is no laughing at how Breitbart, Hannah Giles, and James O'Keefe III smeared ACORN, taking down the largest and most-successful anti-poverty organization in America at the height of a recession even though no one at any ACORN office did anything illegal. Major media swallowed the hoaxers' narrative whole although the hoax videos themselves disprove it.

Those ACORN workers might have been anyone; when Breitbart escaped serious repercussions from the media, he went on to slime Shirley Sherrod. Maher's friendly treatment only encourages him to commit further acts of character assassination from which no one is safe.

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There is an old saying that it is better to stay silent and thought the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I suspect that there are many on TV who would be wise to take that advice.

Take for example, Meghan McCain. I actually kind of like her, because she's shown a rare independence, refusing to simply spew the same talking points of other Republicans and some sass when dealing with the hackiest of the right wing hacks who take cheap pot shots at her. But there's no doubt that she is very young and perhaps needs a little more historical perspective before opining on national television.

It all got started during a discussion of George Bush, who McCain acknowledged was a less than perfect president. But McCain also pointed a finger at the Obama administration in Bush's defense, saying she felt that the Obama administration "has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor." When Maher asked McCain if she really thought this is what Obama is doing, McCain said "I do to a degree." A clearly annoyed Begala immediately shook his head and said "not to enough of a degree, I'm sorry not nearly enough." He then began to explain how President Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, to which McCain responded blithely "you know I wasn't born yet so I wouldn't know." Going in for the kill, Begala fired back "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it."

McCain then reverts to the tried and true Republican tactic of playing the victim:

You clearly know everything and I'm just the blond sitting here.

Meghan, Meghan, Meghan...you can stand up to Laura Ingraham and yet you just wilt in front of Paul Begala and play victim? Is it having facts and an actual historical perspective instead of just making crap up to play to the lowest common denominator that intimidates you?

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Bill Maher asks Bob Woodward if "our best days are ahead of us" and Woodward replies with a Presidential anecdote.

Shorter Woodward: "The times ahead will be tough, but at least we won't have George Bush as President."