Yes political parties have always spun issues to their advantage. I feel there is a line between showing bias in an issue and lying. Historical we had press that were dedicated to getting the facts and called people out when they crossed the line between spin and lies. Unfortunately news agencies dedicated to good reporting are a dying breed. Capitalism and ignorance on the part of the average American has lead to news agencies only showing news that will get ratings in the short term and people can’t be bothered to listen to in depth stories.
That’s what they should do. Instead, it appears that they’d rather engage in tu quoque arguments.
Hell, the Democrats have their crazies. For example, I recall a very few wacky Dems talking about how bush was setting up concentration camps for anyone who disagreed with him. But I don’t recall them having any kind of position of importance, and I sure as hell don’t recall the head of the DNC saying it.
Let’s see:
[ul]
[li]Obama’s not a natural born citizen[/li][li]Obama’s a terrorist[/li][li]Obama has a scary middle name[/li][li]Death panels[/li][li]Mandatory sex changes[/li][li]The death book[/li][li]The public option is actually a plot to deny health care to Republicans[/li][/ul]
I’m sure I’ve missed a few. This stuff isn’t coming from a few nobody crazies. It’s coming from people like Sarah Palin, a former governor and Vice-Presidential candidate. It’s coming from Republican Representatives and Senators. It’s coming from the chairman of the damned party! (And, by the way, it’s also coming from the health insurance companies. They’re just better at hiding it.)
Cynthia McKinney said shit like that, but she lost her seat in Congress shortly afterward.
The breakdown of civility/sanity and the breakdown of media response is the same phenomenon. As the right increasingly loses its shit, it becomes increasingly difficult for media to function, especially the NPR type media, which labors mightily to preserve a non-partisan approach.
But what are they to do? “Republicans today said that Democrats have a plan to roast babies in a shish-kebob to celebrate Ramadan, Democrats disagree…” How do you report madness in a tone and voice of non-partisan sanity, when the sanity itself is under assault? How do you report sheer lunacy, like “death panels” and “Charlie Manson is a leftist” with a straight face, giving equal time and respect to opposing views when one of those views is as crazy as a duck on acid?
True, but she’s the exception and the party didn’t back up her statements.
Your kidding right? I’ve been around here for a long time (hell, just as long as you) and I always thought you were smarter, or at least more honest, than this. Please tell me you are kidding.
My girlfriend just received a Republican poll in the mail for some reason. It is full of scary stuff “this letter is registered in your name, it must not be destroyed”, “this poll must be returned”, and then gives several options for donations including one to “defray the cost of this official mailing by sending 11 dollars”. Now if I were a Republican getting this from the Democrats I’d say that the Republicans have assigned all the voters a registered number and are keeping track of their opinions in a mandatory poll so they can send them to death camps.
It costs $11 to mail a poll?
Well you know the govt run post office is inefficient, they should have sent it FedEx.
True, true. 
Don’t be silly, its $11 to get off the death list! You sent it, right? Right? Good God, man, tell me you sent them the money!
Bills have serial numbers on them for tracking, so I sent them $10.97* in pennies in the pre-paid return envelope.
- That way they’ll have to count it more than once.
You forgot about the microscopic GPS chips embedded in the pennies! :eek:
Any group that relies on push-polling is deliberately sabotaging its own sources of intelligence, and deserves to fail.
Even better, they should come join the Libertarians, and leave the remnant as the Neocons and Nutters party.
As a longtime Independent and skeptic of the current health care program’s implementation details (not against the idea of publicly provided/funded health insurance), I have the exact opposite viewpoint as Scylla. Based on their respective behaviors that members of each party have done in front of me, I do NOT have any fear the Democrats have any intention of denying health care to non-Democrats.
Primarily, I suppose, this is because the Democrats seem to always be more aware of just how slim their majority really is, and so they’re playing compromise to minimize backlash from the Republicans even when they’ve got both houses and the presidency.
And you seriously believed that?
The disinformation is freely, widely, and easily available all over the interwebs. If all they wanted to do was “respond to and debunk the distortions” they didn’t need to ask the public to inform on each other.
Ooohhh yeah, tell your Big Daddy O what your neighbors are thinking, because He wants you to be “safe”.
You guys don’t find it revealing that “everybody does it” turns into you defending your own political leanings by screaming “but are we doing it right now?” and “yeah but you guys are way worse”
This partisanship is what is sinking/has sunk the American populace of today and the future.
Wake the fuck up. Provide some backbone and stop defending whorish behavior (YES EVEN YOUR PARTY DOES IT)
And then lost it again, joined the Green Party, and ran for President.
The two sides are not equal. The Republicans are screaming about death panels and socialism, the Democrats aren’t screaming about anything.
The sad thing is that people who believe this nonsense probably don’t have much of a problem with stuff like warrantless wiretapping.