In a startling new first, Major Garrett called Republicans liars -- on the teevee. Never would have expected Major to be the one to break that taboo.
Kevin Drum, who lately has dropped his old squishy style in a favor of a refreshingly bold persona, sums up the details of the GOP's ratfuckery:
So here's what happened. Republicans in Congress saw copies of these emails two months ago and did nothing with them. It was obvious that they showed little more than routine interagency haggling. Then, riding high after last week's Benghazi hearings, someone got the bright idea of leaking two isolated tidbits and mischaracterizing them in an effort to make the State Department look bad. Apparently they figured it was a twofer: they could stick a shiv into the belly of the White House and they could then badger them to release the entire email chain, knowing they never would.Except the White House did release them, proving that the GOPers lied their faces off and burned Jon Karl. Not that Jon will pay a price for pushing it without confirming, but can't have everything. What should happen next is obvious, but since he got there first, over to you, Charlie Pierce:
The right thing to do here is for ABC to reveal the source that fed it bogus information. This is what should happen for two reasons: 1) it should happen to demonstrate the consequences of feeding bogus information to ABC, and 2) it should happen to demonstrate that there is something of a campaign among Republican congressional staffers to wound an elected president with bogus information, because (as I think we would all agree) that's a helluva news story, too. (Those of us who remember ABC's performance during Whitewater are not optimistic, by the way.) Ball's in your court, folks. Who do you really serve? The country, or the liars in your BlackBerries?I'm not optimistic names will be named, but I'll take what we can get. Seeing generic Republicans called out by BigMedia for their mendacity is a damn good start. [graphic via]
