We have a dynamic where the Romney campaign is based entirely on lies, and all reporters know that. The list is endless.
The question is, why doesn't that matter? Most people, media included, assume all politicians lie all the time anyway so it is no big deal.
But if it is put forward that Mitt's lies rise to the level of some sort of moral dysfunction, to some core personal unreliability, then the 1,000 well documented lies take on a different character. Rather than individual lies about medicare, or whether he ran Bain, or whether he inherited money from his father, or whether Obama cut the welfare work requirement they are all arguments for the larger proposition of moral dysfunction.
Now, I certainly agree with you that Republicans will say Obama also lies. (And they will say that Clinton lied.)
But so what? "Everybody does it" is already the baseline assumption so that doesn't move the needle any. On that case, the usual aggressive claim that Obama lies becomes a defensive claim. Obama's "lies" are suddenly merely elements of Mitt Romney's defense to the charge of being too unreliable and morally bankrupt to be President.
So it's no win for Romney. First, to say "both sides do it" requires admitting that he does it. Second, can any case be made that Obama's "lies" rise to the level of disqualifying moral dysfunction while Mitt's do not?
Obama is likable. Mitt is not. Mitt will lose any argument that requires that people believe that Obama is a bad man.
And Mitt will lose any test of who lies more. He gets away with this because each lie is an isolated whack-a-mole incident.
But the Obama campaign has the power to tie them all together into an over-arching thesis.
And once that happens, every time a lie has to be fact-checked it is an argument for a thesis.
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