The Xing of a Vice President

I suppose by now you all know the story of the X'ing of Cheney at CNN. The Bush bloggers jumped over it like wolves on raw meat but it was pretty immediately debunked, as I posted this morning at the Detroit News blog. But that doesn't stop the most rabid apologists from trying to make it an issue. I saw this on Newswire and I was embarassed for them. I don't know how they could have posted it really. It's so ridiculous, I thought at first it was a joke. Here's my favorite quote.

...Callers were repeatedly told by CNN, "Tell the President and Vice-President Dick Cheney to stop lying." Team Hollywood's conversation with the newsdesk was recorded. When the tape is played back, amongst political statements being made by the network were the words that the "X" was intentional, as an act of free speech by CNN.

Give me a break. When's the last time you called to complain to a cable company, or any corporate HQ and were engaged in any conversation? For Pete's sake, the first thing they do is put you on hold. When and if a human finally talks to you, they transfer you to voice mail.

Unsurprisingly, Cookie Jill at Skippy's place discovers Team Hollywood, the PR firm that issued the release, is just another Republican funded slime machine.

It speaks volumes I think, about how acceptable outright falsehoods are among the far right noise machine. I suspect their tactical manual reads something like, "When cornered with the facts, distract - distract - distract. In other words, lie your ass off and start an obtuse argument.