Holding liars accountable

If you’re anything like me, you probably spend a lot of your time fretting because right wingers have grown incredibly bold about bald-faced lying, and so far it seems there’s literally nothing that can be done about it.  We have extensive freedom of speech protections, which is a good thing of course, but leaves us with few options to stem the ever-growing tide of lies emanating from a right wing that knows that it can’t make an honest argument.  The mainstream media has basically abandoned its mission to correct lies with the truth.  Some publications continue to fact check claims made by pundits, activists, and politicians, but it’s just not enough to counter the endless stream of lies and misinformation coming from the right. That’s why Fox News hates Media Matters so much—they have a machine-like approach to the lies, just debunking them in real time.  Media Matters can’t get ‘em all—that’s a super-human feat—but they’re the only people out there even approaching success with this.

Well, there is one door that is available, but not used especially often: lawsuits.  Part of that is that it’s difficult to show damages with some of the lies that right wingers float, but not always.  Some lies are actionable.  Which is why I’m glad someone fought back against the aneurysm-causing lie that was in non-stop rotation during the health care debate, which is that health care reform somehow meant taxpayer-funded abortions.

Read the rest of this post at Pandagon.