Look, I know that my hatred of Charles Lane is almost as unhealthy as my hatred of Bobo, but this is fucking ridiculous. Lane suggests that rather than fact check Paul Ryan’s speech last night, the media should go back and fact check a speech Obama gave in February 2008. The idea is that not everything that Obama predicted in February 2008 came to pass, so therefore Glenn Kessler should give him a gazillion Pinnochios.
I am not making this up. He is saying that a speech that the media should drop what they’re doing with speeches given in the last few days and focus on a speech given more than four years ago. Even though the whole idea with this fact-checking thang, whatever its merits, is that it should slap down claims that are verifiably false in the present tense, not attempt to predict the future.
The Kaplan Daily has one blogger, Jen Rubin, who cuts and pastes Romney campaign emails into her posts. Now there’s another out-and-out Romney surrogate.
The whole operation is going under in the next few years. Pride goeth before the fall, I guess.
pragmatism
You mean Bobo for one of those Charles Lane’s?
Gravenstone
So unhealthy an obsession, you appear to hate on Herr Lane twice as much as the next punditwit.
Villago Delenda Est
Lane is a pretty good example of a total waste of skin.
Hill Dweller
Once Wall Street nearly destroyed the global economy in October of ’08, all bets were off. I’m sure the buffoon realizes that.
Jeff Spender
I think we should come up with out own rating system. Perhaps One miliLane for any infraction like that.
Zifnab
FTFY
Richard
That’s about the most egregious example of false equivalence that I’ve ever seen from a “journalist”/GOP dick sucker.
Ben Franklin
Let the fact-checking begin!
When the WaPo opinion page is abbreviated WP, I say FYWP.
muddy
I just had the displeasure of seeing Scott Pelley and Bob Scheiffer gushing like schoolgirls, while waving a lace hanky embroidered with the words “tough journalism”.
And then ET came on and they started out with a group interview with The Romney Boys, apparently some superannuated boy band. I despair. Where is the remote, damn dog..
Sly
In defense of Charles Lane, I did like the character better when he was played by Peter Sarsgaard. But this new guy plays him like a smarmy douche who thinks he’s more clever than he actually is, and it adds nothing to the plot or direction of the movie. I hope whoever made that casting decision has learned from their mistake.
MattF
At this point, anyone working for the Post is simply too scared to quit and look for a job that might have a future. Unfortunately, that goes for the libruls on the staff as well as the wingers. Sad, but that’s what’s really happening.
jl
No, DougJ is wrong. Lane is really trying to destroy the wingnut theory that Obama can use time travel to manipulate reality, rendering humanity vulnerable to a Dalek attack.
If you look at it correctly, and counter-intuitively, Lane is really trying to do Obama a solid.
Kan I haz Slate pundit kontrak now?
taylormattd
Nicki Minaj wrote a terrible song about him.
Mike E
Now, if I had a time-machine, I wouldn’t waste it on nullifying criticism of some douchey candidates. Seriously, it’s as if Back To The Future never happened…
ETA jl jumped into his/her DeLorean and beat me to it
General Stuck
Not only is the obviousness and blantency of the lying by Romney and boy wonder Ryan. It has become in your face to not only the country, but the media itself. That has been and was going to march on with a cheery smile at a level of misguidance they were comfortable with, and felt as though they were in control of the distortions by the right wing.
Brazenly telling the ‘fact checkers’ to basically go to hell, was a gauntlet thrown down in hubris, not only to the country, Obama, and dems. It was directed as well to their media cohorts in the managed horse race department.
Now, I don’t know if this is purely a Romney inside the bubble play, or some more involved plan from pan GOP and it’s power brokers. Such as Rove, et al. Done out of internal polling that they were losing badly and had to fly into the liars zone without plausible deniability, or any of the other messaging cloaking devices. But they have misjudged the msm core gatekeepers, that have not lost their power to punish when they see fit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So now retroactive fact-checking is going to be applied to predictions? Does it apply to anything Chuckie Lane wrote about the Iraq War? Or the Bush tax cuts?
Downpuppy
Kaplan’s business model of truckling to Pure Evil to cover their student loan grifting is as good as any other in the era where Greyhound is too good for the proles.
Turgidson
Wow, so now Obama is a liar if he’s not clairvoyant. The guy just can’t catch a break.
I predicted that the Chicago Bulls would make it to the Eastern Conference Finals this season. Then Derrick Rose got injured and they lost in the first round. Guess that makes me a brazen liar. Oops.
El Cid
How is “fact checking” now some sort of specialized, identifiable activity?
If at root one isn’t doing basic work to determine the difference between truth and falsehood, between reliable reports and unverifiable claims, between basic coherence and illogical nonsense, then there’s no journalism being done.
If you’re not distinguishing between the truthful and the untruthful, the verifiable and the disconfirmed, the plausible and the silly, it’s not journalism.
And therefore you’re not a journalist, you’re not working for a “news” paper or “news” channel, none of it.
If you want to ‘write stuff down’ and ‘say things on the air’, call it whatever you like, but don’t claim to be doing journalism or reporting or publishing a newspaper and so forth.
rikyrah
I love you calling out clowns like this.
The Other Bob
I cannot help but expect that the MSM wil now feel obligated to find fault with everything at the DNC and call Obama/Biden equal liars no mater how truthful they are.
You know, both sides do it and shit.
jl
If WaPo is going down, maybe Lane is trying some schtick for a future in stand up?
Stand up comedy entails a lot of hard work and grueling travel. Lane should aim for something more in line with his work habits, IMHO.
The wicked servant cannot dig and is ashamed to beg, so what can he do but go to the debtors and reduce the sums they owe, to the truth in this case.
We are watching the sheep and the goats in journalism separating themselves. And looks like even poor old Blitz is willing to take a shot at actual journalism. And then look at Lane.
@The Other Bob: Great point. Thanks. Will be interesting to watch what they do at the DNC.
danimal
Does that mean we can look in the archives and factcheck Romneytron 2008, Romneytron 2004 and Moderate Governor Romneytron releases as well?
Cuz that might get a little fun.
Warren Terra
I admit that I only skimmed this thread – but I didn’t notice anyone pointing out one key thing: Chuck Lane is in almost an uniquely bad position to discount the importance of fact-checking.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Bob:
Well, the Dems need to be very specific about what they claim.
For example, they can’t say “Mitt Romney won’t release his tax returns” because, in fact, Mitt Romney has released partial tax returns from 2010 and 2011.
Just not the KILLER tax return from 2009, where he admits to a felony.
So unless the Dems are really specific about their claims about Romney or Ryan, the’ll fall into the facile “both sides do it” net of the disgusting vermin of the Village.
jl
@danimal: Would be interesting, but assumes that some kind of Romneality exists. That is challenging gigabuck advanced research topic. I’m not even sure adequate measurement techniques exist yet.
A Ghost To Most
I think we should rate these liars in Eddies, as in Munster. The bigger the lie, the farther his widow’s peak goes down his face
Mnemosyne
@Warren Terra:
In retrospect, it seems the problem with Glass was that he was making up stories about conservatives and Republicans. If he’d only stuck to making up stories about liberals and Democrats, Lane would have never bothered to investigate and Glass would probably be editor-in-chief by now.
Tom Q
@Sly: I wonder if Sarsgaard regrets playing him (and making him look like such an upstanding figure). It’s funny: the two editors who represented the factions in Shattered Glass — Lane and Michael Kelly — both turned out to be schmucks in real life. (I know, Kelly’s gone, RIP, but he was just as much a lying jerk about Clinton as Lane is about Obama)
Paul Gottlieb
Lane is just another example–albeit one of the worst–of the journalistic scum spawned by the late and highly unlamented Michael Kelly, who created a generation of hyper-partisan but incompetent hacks while he was helping to destroy the New Republic.
General Stuck
@The Other Bob:
It is going to be interesting how the media deals with the DNC convention. I know there is little reason to think they won’t do the ‘both sides do it’ scam, but they are a funny bunch, not haha funny, when they think they’ve been snookered or snubbed. And I don’t think in essence, dems are even capable of following the extreme path the nutters have taken on weaving webs of unadulterated fiction. Even for nutters of the past that have always taken whatever liberties with the truth they could get away with, but always some wary of going too far. Ryan went too far, imo, and Romney is just an ambitious clown that has been flying by the seat of his pants on fire all along.
jze
@jl: Obama has yet to chop off his hand to prove that he is not an cyborg created by the Daleks. What is he hiding?
jl
@A Ghost To Most:
” I think we should rate these liars in Eddies, as in Munster. The bigger the lie, the farther his widow’s peak goes down his face ”
A NSFW and family unfriendly convergence in the offing. Let’s at least hope for an airstrip as the thing heads towards the butt parts.
Kay
Well, Newt’s already pulling out the welfare lie. Again. So much for our brief foray toward rigorous truth-telling and journalistic angst and ethical dilemmas.
Litlebritdifrnt
Jeb Bush’s speech is promoting Jeb Bush, not Romney, it is now clear that all of the Republican heavy hitters are lining themselves up for 2016.
Turgidson
@The Other Bob:
They will probably try to pin some pinnochios on the Democratic speeches. But I am wondering if Stuck et al are right that the Romney’s constant poking their finger in the media’s eye and daring them to call the lies out has finally actually turned them. The Obama campaign has a cool relationship with the media, but nothing like this.
I bet the people drafting the Democratic speeches are being a little bit extra-thorough in anticipation that the rightwing nutbars will be running around with their hair on fire calling everything a lie, and that the media will take an extra-close look to see what they can find so they can keep their bothsidesdoitism alive.
RSA
Notice the title of Lane’s piece?
I haven’t kept track, but I can’t remember a single Washington Post article or opinion piece that called out a statement of Romney’s or Ryan’s as a “lie” in the headline. So statements from Presidential candidates are fair game—as long as they’re four years ago and by a Democrat. Nice.
Paul
Somebody should inform Mr Lane how our system works. Every election presidential candidates make promises that the electorate knows full well only be passed if Congress approves. Well, part of the electorate knows this. Apparently Mr Lane doesn’t.
Furthermore, if Mr Lane was consistent, he would take his dwarfed logic and criticize Bush’s all promises that he didn’t keep. How about Reagan’s promises? Or are we only going after the black guy?
Shawn in ShowMe
@General Stuck:
Of course they’ll pay lip service to both sides do it but their hearts won’t be in it. The MSM will be too busy doing People magazine articles comparing young Julian Castro to 2004 Obama. They’ll do that because it’s low-hanging fruit and they’re fuggin lazy.
Bruce S
Wow – Callista Gingrich is on my TeeVee, proving that if you are willing to swallow enough of Newt Gingrich’s ejaculations, you can get your 15 minutes of notoriety, thanks to the GOP.
ploeg
Well let’s fact-check that speech shall we?
If you read that speech, it’s clear that Obama was not talking about propping up the plant so that it would continue to produce SUVs:
It takes some amount of bad faith to read that as a promise to keep the plant open continuously, no matter what.
Maude
@General Stuck:
The way Romney treated the press in London is going to come back and bite him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul:
Yes.
SATSQ.
Villago Delenda Est
@ploeg:
“Bad faith” is at the center of the shitstain that is Charles Lane.
The Other Bob
Actually Janesville is not permanently closed. Like the Saturn plant in Spring Hill Tenn, it is mothballed. the Spring Hill plant is reopening next year to produce small crossovers. Janesville would likely be next if sales continue to grow for GM.
Cacti
You’re misquoting the proverb DougJ.
It’s pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.