Wednesday, September 14, 2005

There's stupid, and then there's lazy stupid.


(Blogging's going to be a bit sporadic over the next few days but we'll do what we can.)

It's not like anyone needs to point out what sort of lying cretin Rush Limbaugh is, but there are times when he doesn't even try to appear honest. Media Matters has a recent litany of Limbaugh lies, and it's falsehood #6 that I find so amusing, in which Limbaugh claims that Democrat Nancy Pelosi "probably" voted to roll FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security. From the show transcript (emphasis added):

LIMBAUGH: So it [the Red Cross] was there [in New Orleans after the hurricane]. It was ready to go. FEMA is not a first-response agency. FEMA's got 2,500 employees. Nancy Pelosi probably voted to put FEMA in Homeland Security. This is my point. These people get around, ah, get to run around acting like spectators and bystanders. They are the ones that create this red tape. They are the ones that create bureaucracy upon bureaucracy upon bureaucracy.

Now, it's not that Pelosi did no such thing. Rather, it's the sheer dishonesty or laziness on Limbaugh's part that he didn't even check the public voting record to verify this one way or the other. What is the possible value of accusing someone of "probably" doing something when it would have taken no more than about two minutes to confirm it, one way or the other?

Limbaugh's strategy is, of course, painfully obvious. Smear Pelosi without really accusing her of anything (just suggesting it), then be able to back out later by saying, hey, I never really said that, I qualified it, what's your problem?

And thus ends your lesson regarding life in the right-wing echo chamber.

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