Odin's B-Log

Lies from Republicans generally and standard bearer Mitt Romney in particular weren’t limited to the occasional TV ads, either; the party’s most central campaign principles — that federal spending doesn’t create jobs, that reducing taxes on the rich could create jobs and lower the deficit — willfully disregarded the truth.

“It’s the great unreported big story of American politics,” Ornstein said.

“If voters are going to be able to hold accountable political figures, they’ve got to know what’s going on,” Ornstein said. “And if the story that you’re telling repeatedly is that they’re all to blame — they’re all equally to blame — then you’re really doing a disservice to voters, and not doing what journalism is supposed to do.”

Ornstein said the media’s failure led him to conclude: “If you want to use a strategy of ‘I’m just going to lie all the time’, when you have the false equivalence meme adopted by a mainstream press and the other side lies a quarter of the time, you get away with it.”

[…]

“Their editors and producers, who felt they were looking out for the economic wellbeing of their news organizations, were also concerned about their professional standing and vulnerability to charges of partisan bias,” Mann said.

So most reporters just kept on with business as usual.

“They’re so timid,” Mann said.

[…]

“The fact is that one of the parties stopped being a conventional conservative party,” Mann said. “My own view is that what needed to happen is somehow the public had to take a two-by-four to the Republicans’ heads, knock them back to their senses, and allow conservative pragmatic voices to emerge,” he said.

Democrats won soundly in 2012 of course, so the two-by-four was administered. But because the media obfuscated what was going on, the message was not entirely clear — and certainly not to the Republican leadership.

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Remember, this guy is still the big-thinker, the intellectual, the “rock star” of the GOP:

“I don’t think we lost it on those budget issues, especially on Medicare, we clearly didn’t lose it on those issues. I think the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.” — Paul Ryan: I Didn’t Lose Because Of The Issues, I Lost Because Of The ‘Urban’ Vote

Steve Benen breaks down Ryan’s (typically Republican) argument: “[If] his ticket had won, it’d be proof that he’s right on the issues, and even after defeat, it’s still proof he’s right on the issues.”

Let’s not forget what those budget issues were, which Ryan claims his ticket didn’t lose on: “Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) infamous budget proposal would have cut taxes on those making more than $1 million, while ending tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes…”

And the conservative entertainment apparatus churns on…

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