The Virus of GOP Ignorance: Why Don't Media Protect Us From the Lies Spewed in the Republican Primary?

Reporters representing reliable media outlets are supposed to defend the discourse from the virus of this ignorance.
November 23, 2011

The following article first appeared on the Web site of the Nation. For more great content from the Nation, sign up for its email newsletters.

It is a symbol of our current political predicament that anytime anyone tells the truth about anything in the contest for the Republican nomination, a new scandal erupts. Newt Gingrich was briefly drummed out of the Republican Party for accurately terming Paul Ryan’s destructive Medicare plan a “radical” step toward “right-wing social engineering.” Jon Huntsman caused virtually the only stir of his all-but-invisible campaign when he admitted to what the Salt Lake Tribune straight-facedly called the “politically dicey belief that climate change is human-caused and needs to be addressed.” And most recently, CBS’s John Dickerson caused a contretemps when a stray e-mail revealed that Michele Bachmann was “not going to get many questions” in the debate the network was sponsoring because “she’s nearly off the charts.”
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