and notice how quickly dancin' dave jumps in to shush maddow when she attempts to correct armey.

Losing his job at lobby firm DLA Piper was a consequence (their drug-company clients didn't appreciate his rocking the boat carrying their White House deal).

We need to circle last week on the calendar -- prolly the first and last time something that appropriate did/will happen in Armey's whole scurvy history.

There *are* consequences, Steve: the collapse of any meaningful healthcare reform this year. Which was the GOP's goal all along. We're watching it happen in slow motion: first the end-of-life counseling provision, now any kind of public option, with more to come -- much more.

But hey, teh incrementalism is awesome!

What linda said! Gregory wouldn't allow Rachel to interject truth to correct that lie that the MSM has built into CW. But wasn't Maddow great yesterday!!

Yes, yes, we know all that.

But 'truth' to us lefty socialists is rumor, innuendo, and partisan spin to the right.

'TRUTH' is that AlGore invented the internet, Clinton killed Vince Foster, and John Kerry was a draft dodging coward who never earned his medals.

Duelling Maddows and Armeys makes for good TeeVee, and will continue. . .

Do you think Armey's followers (the retired) who don't want their medicare messed with know that Armey has a history of trying to abolish social security and medicare?

It is becoming apparent to me that the administration wanted this month of circuses to happen so that they could walk away from their commitment to real health care reform. (Look, we tried but people didn't WANT this reform!)

We should now MOVE ON and see who we can primary in 2010 and who we can get to primary the POTUS in 2012.

Gee, I'm usually pretty pragmatic compared to most commenters here, but the comment from Sebelius over the weekend have just made me fed up with compromising (defined by Obama as giving the other side everything it wants in exchange for NOTHING).

I gave up watching Meet the Press when Gregory showed his obvious bias. I watched it this week because Rachel was on the program. Now I would like to make a suggestion - it is that liberals start a boycott of Meet the Press. Remember folks, ratings are everything. Progressives must fight back any way they can.

"Lie" is a meaningless term. The Left clings to such quaint notions, constantly allowing their opposition to gain the upperhand. Unwillingness to abandon any semblance of a moral code when pushing their agenda will doom their efforts to failure.

Steve:

I hope that your comment was snark! "Unwillingness to abandon any semblance of a moral code when pushing their agenda will doom their efforts to failure."

If we abandon our moral code, what have we won that is worth the abandoning?

Here in Chicago they aired MTP an hour earlier than the normal 10 A.M. start time it usually airs in this area.

I don't know if they have done this permanently but my first thought was "they don't want people to see Maddow!"

I'm getting paranoid, but it was unusual to see infomercials when MTP should have been on.

I'm not always of a big fan of Maddow, but she did perform brilliantly yesterday, dancing circles of facts around Armey who appeared obviously annoyed with being held accountable to reality.

did you notice....

how armey kept rubbing his hands together...

reminded me of pilate washing his hands...

"Five years ago, MoveOn.org invited people to put together homemade television ads for the presidential campaign, and anyone could just post their idea to the group's site."

It's easy for the mouthpieces of the right to resist and ignore the nuanced difference of Move On allowing objectionable content comparing Bush to Hitler to be posted on it's site and only removing it after being called out in the national media and Freedom Works being associated under an umbrella with groups promoting the Obama is Hitler meme. Move on didn't 'air' the ad in the traditional media sense, they 'aired' the ad in the new media sense.

Most people in the fly over states see these kinds of distinctions as talking out of both sides of your mouth and not as finer points of logic and debate.

" ... there are no consequences."
This feeds into your previous posts about the Republican Party's evasion of responsibility & lack of penance. It applies to its representatives as well. Newt Gingrich last week on ABC & Armey this week on NBC lie with impunity the way their party lies. Despite being corrected, they continue the lie. At least Stephanopoulos last week called Gingrich out, something Gregory failed to facilitate when he interrupted Rachel Maddow. Neither of these men have their feet held to the fire for the damage they've done & do. Rather they are treated as elder statesmen & continually given ample opportunity to bloviate by the media. I really think pressure of sort-- maybe concerted & vocal truth squadding --should be brought to bear on the networks to purge these 2 trolls from their rolodexes (I wouldn't be surprised if Rachel devoted some time tonight to doing just that). Somewhat off topic-- did anyone notice how Armey was trembling at certain points ? Tremors were particularly noticeable to me in his hands when he gestured. Looked to me like he needed a bit of the hair of the dog...

I thought the show reflected the beginnings of a shift in coverage. In the first place, there were two liberals confronting two conservatives--a pleasant surprise! And even Gregory forced the debate in a few places--not letting ALL of the lies go unexposed. There is a long way to go, but I wonder if the absolute dishonesty that has been the hallmark of Republican campaigning for the last 20 or so years has finally worn thin the patience of even the tame media.

One thing that I enjoy seeing is the feeble defenses they manage to muster when confronted: "Move-on.Org"? Old news, very old--even if it is false, as it is. What you see over and over again is the way they recite scare words when pressed. "Socialism", "Euthanasia", "Death Panels"--they don't have a single cogent argument that their base can understand(or so they think)and thus they're limited to this sort of performance. There may be a set of solid arguments to counter the push for health care reform, but it's clear from this that either the Republicans can't think what they might be, or they want no part of them. I suspect that it's intellectual laziness; they'd rather use the same tired, feeble slogans that used to work than actually do the work of engaging the Democrats with a real response. Since they've begun to lose their effectiveness, they just say them more often, and louder.

Rachel Maddow did a very good job, but it was nice to see Daschle responding with calm, informed, and well crafted arguments. He ought to be more visible and appear on these panels more often.

"Most people in the fly over states see these kinds of distinctions as talking out of both sides of your mouth and not as finer points of logic and debate."

Posted by: Jeff In Ohio
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff is correct. Why wasn't there a moderator put in place by Move-On tasked with disallowing the most blatantly false, slanderous, inflammatory or otherwise inappropriate content? MoveOn's explanation rang false then as I'm sure it still does today with most on the Right. Evidently their system would have allowed a posting of "Debbie Does Dallas" to be viewed by a few million people before the "mistake" was discovered. Publishers employ people for these situations, what is it they're called? Oh yes, editors. I think there are analogous postions for monitoring the posting of on-line content. Someone should send Move-On the memo.

If the height of the bar were set to only having on NON-LIARS...our airwaves would be EMPTY!!!

Um. David Gregory? Really???

I thought the most interesting exchange came when Armey started railing against the compulsory nature of medicare. He said that seniors should have the choice to purchase a private plan, effectively opting out of medicare. This. he stated. would show true government "generosity" to seniors with regard to health care options. Seconds later, however, he denounced a public option for everyone else claiming that private insurance couldn't compete. How is it that private insurance companies can, in Armey's mind, compete with the government for health care programs for seniors, but not for the country as a whole? Now perhaps I misunderstood what was said, but I don't think I did.

I see TV anchors and interviewers pushing back a little more. Tapper did some of this on "This Week" yesterday, as well.

But there's something else. I happened to catch a panel discussion on the Diane Rehm show over the weekend, and one of the panelists -- a man, and I don't recall the name -- made an assertion that goes to the heart of the problem with our current media culture.

The discussion was whether reporters had the right or ability to call a demonstrable lie a lie. One of the women on the panel, from Newsweek, said not only could they, but that reporters have an affirmative duty to do so.

But this guy, apparently channeling some guru from the 70s, said that truth was a subjective thing, and that meant that reporters could not lay claim to debunking lies.

Truth is subjective.

Hmmmmm.

This attitude is one of the least attractive legacies of the Boomer generation, and is, itself, demonstrably false.

If someone say a loaf of bread costs $1.49 in an ad, and they charge you $1.89 when you get to the store, that's not only a lie, it's illegal.

When a politician or partisan says black is white, or up is down, reporters are -- or should be, and in the old days, usually would -- call a foul.

The moral relativism is fine if you're talking differences in philosophical positions. There is plenty of room for shades of gray. But facts are pesky things, and we've got to disabuse ourselves, and our media of the notion that lying is a minor infraction. A failure to force our so-called "watchdogs" to play their proper role is a Bad Thing. Coupled with the death of newspapers and much local reporting on local government actions, not to mention at the national level, is going to inevitably lead to a public corruption crime wave the likes of which we've not seen in decades.

Wherever we sense, or hear or see, an assertion that "truth is subjective," this should set off alarm bells and the reporter should be made to defend that position.

Like others, I totally stopped watching MTP when NBC handed it over to David Gregory but made an exception yesterday purely because Rachel Maddow was going to participate. She didn't disappoint. (And neither did Gregory - he gave way too much time to Dick Armey!)

I wasn't a big Tim Russert fan but the man did do his homework before every show just as Maddow clearly did hers before yesterday's show. The ratings for MTP have been steadily dropping, partly because David Gregory has the charisma of an ash tray and partly because he's clearly biased and way out of his league. Give MTP to Rachel Maddow!!

Holy crap, Batman, did you just see Benen cut Dick Armey's balls off? Sweet.

Rachel Maddow, the voice of the majority, was characterised as a 'liberal'.

Why wouldn't MTP characterise Dick 'repeal-Medicare' Armey as 'far right'?

(That was rhetorical too.)

I agree with 3reddogs, it's time for NBC to wise up and realize that Rachel Maddow is the female Tim Russert. What were the three big things about Tim? He was smart, a policy wonk and did his homework, plus he was funny at times. Let's see, Rachel is...smart, a policy wonk and she does her research...and is funny at times on her show.

Of course, if Rachel had been selected host instead of pretty boy, then the right would have had a fit, refuse to send their brethren to the slaughter every Sunday and then use their "grass roots" to protest NBC for putting a gay liberal on TV.

It was obvious that David Gregory is intimidated by Rachel as he continually stopped her from talking. At first blush, I thought it was because he was protecting his fellow right winger Armey from an ambush. However, then I realized that she was outshining the host. She had the facts and she was willing to use them. Something that Tim Russert was great at, so he could not let her look good. How could Gregory not even comment on how it was Maddow who due to her work, got Armey "fired" from his lobbying job.

Armey predicted that the Clinton budget, which included a tax increase, would cause the recovery to slam to a halt and the deficit to explode. Instead the recovery continued and the deficit turned into a surplus. In other words, this guy got it completely totally wrong. Why do the media continue to use such discredited ignoramuses?

The problem with this sort of thing is that, even in this one instance, Armey is doing two things: 1) bringing up the MoveOn lie, and 2) using a schoolyard 'they do it too!" defense.
Attack the lie, the argument goes through--attack the argument, the lie goes through.
Rachel made the proper decision, and did it the proper way--not waiting until six or seven more lies had gone by. But the Tu Quoque goes right on by.

jdauria

Tim Russert was a failure.
He was a weak corporate shill.
If you don't believe me, look up his testimony in the Scooter trial.
Timmeh Pumpkinhead was, at best, a naive drooling dolt.

Yeah, I now read MTP on Bobblespeak Translations:

http://www.moonshinepatriot.blogspot.com/

Dashle was great and Maddow was nearly perfect; they won't be invited back.

I'd vote for Rachel to be the MTP moderator, but that would require Olbermann moving to upper management.

Rachel's comments showed Dick Armey for who he really is: an angry old rich white guy and liar. Who hasn't a clue about what regular folks are going through.

Rachel rocks! And even gave Daschle some cover (and backbone) to give out some truth.

"Rachel Maddow interjected, explaining that this never happened. Armey insisted it did, and seemed annoyed that Maddow wanted to include reality in the discussion."

When you drink the Purple Kool-Aid, it makes you paranoid of reality.

Only Rachel Maddow could sit so calmly next to Dick Armey while he repeatedly lies, lies, lies. I don't know how she does it, I think most people would have a very hard time not turning to him and telling him off or at least showing some signs of anger. She is able to keep her cool in ways that I find remarkable and admirable.

More Daschle and Rachel, please.

Lying is what Dick Armey does for a living.

Last week, he lied on PBS Newshour, and nobody called him out on it until Media Matters the next day.

http://bit.ly/nvVxc

Armey's reason for existence is lying.

"...now that it's obvious that Armey said things he knows are untrue on national television, any chance he'll be barred from returning?"

No. But Rachel won't be invited back because she exposed Armey's lie. [How uncivil of her.]

Introducing the relatively simple mechanism of corrections into TV news would go a long way to reining this stuff in. For all their many and well-documented flaws, newspapers at least over the years developed a fairly strong system of owning up to factual errors -- whether made by their own reporters and editors or by someone they quote in a story. TV news never adopted this model. Initially I assume that was because of lack of time -- you don't want to devote a minute of a 22-minute newscast to talking about last night's newscast. But cable news has no such "lack of time" problem, and anyway all broadcast media now have Web sites where they could very easily post corrections.

If people going on a show knew that within hours or days of their appearance, there would be a note posted that they had said something factually untrue, it might give them pause. Especially if producers started noticing who was most guilty of those infractions, and adjusted their bookings accordingly.

I don't expect it to happen, but it would pretty easy to institute. All you need is an ombudsman or some other in-house adjudicator to weigh complaints and issue corrections when called for. And as soon as one network started doing it, it would create expectations for others.

(I think it's interesting and laudable that a lot of blogs almost from the beginning adopted fairly stringent self-correcting guidelines. But TV is its own animal and has never really followed those conventions.)

Beauty and the Beast.

"When Armey said MoveOn "ran those ads," he was lying."

Okay here I actually might disagree. Armey does not strike me as the most technologically savvy. I doubt he really *does* know the difference between "Moveon, ran those ads" and "Moveone allowed people to post submissions for a contest, which people would vote on, but they pulled any offensive submissions."

I suspect he's going off the same short-hand talking points that all older-than-50 conservative pundits get faxed every morning. Plus I doubt he even actually remembers the real history, just sometime, someone told him that Moveon.org ran "Bush=Hitler" ads.

In short I don't think he's lying. I think he literally doesn't know and repeats what he was half-informed about several years ago.

I think it is funny how people defend moveon.org saying that they did not run, just because they did not pay the contributor. The ad when it was on their website. This is the same group who ran the "General Betray Us" ad. Oh, but they think comparing Bush the Hitler is over the top. Give me a break. The fact of the matter is moveon.org is as divisive as Rush Limbaugh or any other person who compares Obama to Hitler.

I noticed that Rachel was told not to interrupt Dick but then when Rachel started to talk, Gregory let Coburn talk for a long long time in interruption.

I would love to see this show studied in colleges and universities across the land!!!

What's not noted here is that Gregory never, ever did anything to correct Armey's lies. If MoveOn "ran those ads," which Armey lied about not once but twice on Gregory's show, then it means he is prsumably accusing NBC themselves, or MSNBC, Gregory's network, of running ads comparing a US President to Hitler. If any such ad had ever run once in US political history, it would be more memorable than the LBJ "Daisy" ad, and part of the collective memory of the nation due to the resulting controversy. Gregory knew just as well as Maddow that Armey was lying, and not only did he do nothing, he facilitated and condoned it, getting in the way of Rachel when she kept pointing out that Armey was perpetuating and extending a lie.

Even better, Dick Armey affirmed David Gregory's premise; FreedomWorks is not only partly, but COMPLETELY responsible for the tone of the debates at health care townhalls.
When MoveOn.org ran a "Make your own Anti-Bush ad" contest, one entrant posted a video comparing Bush to Hitler. In Dick Armey's logic this becomes "MoveOn ran those ads that compared Bush to Hitler." Therefore, using his own logic we could make the following statement: "FreedomWorks displayed signs and made statements comparing Obama to Hitler."
It would have been fun to see somebody make that point Sunday morning.

Rachel is a treasure, and should be MTP host. Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com (freedoglake, according to Andrea Mitchell - don't tell me that wasn't an intentional putdown) ought to host a major political program as well. Think of: 'Hardball with Jane Hamsher' every evening. A girl can dream, can't she?