Obama to media: Romney’s whole campaign is based on lies

[Bill USA]

(all emphases my own)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama-to-media-romneys-whole-campaign-is-based-on-lies/2012/08/20/dcd7f1d4-eaed-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_blog.html


In a surprise appearance before reporters at the White House just now, Obama made a striking, if perhaps long overdue, charge: He pushed back on GOP claims he’s running a dirty campaign by arguing that Romney’s entire campaign is based on flat out lies.

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"Now, in contrast, you’ve got Governor Romney creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we’re taking work requirement out of welfare. Which every single person here who’s looked at it says, it’s patently false...

“Everybody who’s looked at this says what Governor Romney is saying is absolutely wrong. Not only are his Super PACs running millions of dollars worth of ads making this claim; Governor Romney himself is approving this and saying it on the stump. So the contrast I think is pretty stark. They can run the campaign that theyw ant; but the truth of the matter is, you can’t just make stuff up. That’s one thing you learn as president of the United States. You get called into account.”

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It’s true that there's serious truth-stretching on both sides. I’ve said that the Priorities USA ad suggesting Bain is to blame for the steelworker’s wife goes too far. I agreed that the Obama ad labeling him as an “outsourcer in chief” was false. (The Obama camp has since tweaked his ads to make the language more defensible, arguing that Romney’s “companies” were called “pioneers in outsourcing.”) I thought it was unfair and misleading to quote Romney out of context this way: “I like being able to fire people.” I dismissed the present relevance of the story about Romney’s prep school bullying, which Dems pushed hard for days.

[font size="+1"]But it remains the case that we are seeing nothing from the Obama side that’s anything like what Romney is attempting. [/font] Romney right now is premising one of the central arguments of his whole campaign on a complete lie. The notion that Obama “gutted” the work requirement in welfare reform has been debunked again and again by independent fact checkers and by the president who signed the law Obama supposedly gutted (see Clinton, Bill).

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[font size="+1"]The folks working at the big news organizations know Romney is lying with abandon. What should they do about it? I’m sympathetic to political journalists — it’s not easy to keep up with all the falsehoods, and at a certain point, the same lie told again and again loses its news value. But perhaps Obama’s comments today will prompt at least a bit of media discussion about what it means that one candidate — yes, far more than the other — is running a campaign of such epic dishonesty.[/font]
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[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Yes ...

But perhaps Obama’s comments today will prompt at least a bit of media discussion about what it means that one candidate — yes, far more than the other — is running a campaign of such epic dishonesty.

But doesn't the media have to be fair and balanced?

I mean, when the ref calls a foul or a penalty on one side, don't they have to invent, then, call a foul or penalty on the other side?