I just came upon a really good example of what is wrong with the right-wing media. Actually, it is the second one I saw today, but I left the other one because although it was a complete mess reported as a great conservative victory, it was too complicated to describe. This one is clear and simple.

Newt Gingrich and Robert Reich were both on This Week With George Stephanopoulos. They were discussing the war on poverty and Reich was arguing that things worked well at the beginning but that it has been basically killed by the Republicans.

Gingrich responded, “This is baloney… Every major city which is a center of poverty is run by Democrats. Every major city.”

As far as the right-wing publication Down Trend was concerned, that was the end of the conversation, Gingrich Destroys Reich: “Every Major City Which Is a Center of Poverty Is Run by Democrats.” All the article added was, “Ouch!” (Italics in the original.)

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the debate. For one thing, anyone who knows Robert Reich knows he is too much a fighter to let that stand. For another, what are we to believe? That Reich crawled away to lick his wounds? Even the lamest of debaters would have some counter argument.

You had to read The Raw Story or another liberal or mainstream publication to get the whole story. In Robert Reich Hammers Newt Gingrich After He Blames Democrats for Increasing Poverty, we get Reich’s response:

First of all, [former New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg is not a Democrat,” Reich shot back. “What’s happening in America is happening all over America. And it is happening in a way that has to do with the fact that wages, median wages, are going nowhere and rents are going up. And there’s absolutely no response in Washington or elsewhere.”

“Newt, I’m surprised you are not taking responsibility here,” he concluded.

The conservative publication presented the video, cutting it at exactly the point to make it look like Gingrich had made his great rebuttal — Ouch! The Raw Story showed the segment to its end.

It did give Reich the last word, but that’s just because of where things end. I don’t doubt that Gingrich has a response. But Reich has already shown him to be spewing lies. I suspect that we would get more of that if he continued. [Note: both the videos have be removed. -FM]

This is a big part of what is wrong with American politics. The right is given “news” that is intentionally deceptive.

There is no doubt that Brian Carey who wrote the Down Trend article knows that he’s deceiving. To him, it is just propaganda for the cause. There is a place for that. But it should not be presented as journalism. In this way, liberals are far more ethical. As a result, we get a citizenry who are especially ignorant on the right. That’s a recipe for disaster.

I really don’t know how these right-wing hacks live with themselves. My job is very easy. Most liberal policies really are the best in a practical sense. They are also generally popular (at least until the conservative PR campaigns begin). So I have no trouble calling out bad liberal policy.

Liberalism is overflowing with good ideas, so we don’t have to push every idea that comes along the way that conservatives do. It must be really hard to be a conservative political analyst. I feel for them, but what they do is evil.

If our culture were working properly (and it is in as bad a shape as our politics), such people would be ostracized. And that would go a long way toward fixing the problem.