The Truth Does Not Matter

Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and other commentators on the left have had a screaming good time pointing to errors Republican politicians have made in criticizing President Obama’s response to the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253 into Detroit.

True, Senator Jim Demint falsely said Obama has downplayed terrorism and doesn’t use the word terrorism any more. Representative Peter Hoekstra, among other things, falsely said the Obama administration used the term “man made disasters” instead of “terrorism;” and Representative Peter King falsely claimed Obama had banned the use of the word “terrorism” and had even failed to mention terrorism during his address to West Point. All of these assertions can, and have been, easily rebutted with numerous video clips showing Obama and Secretary Clinton talking about the threat of terrorism (as an example, here’s his speech at West Point).

And while it is reassuring for Olbermann, Maddow and their ilk to show us the clips that rebut these Republicans buttholes (doe a butthole really need rebutted?), it has no effect on the right-leaning mass of American voters. These Republican minions of the dark sally onto Fox News, as well as onto such real news outlets as ABC and CBS and spew their misinformation over the national consciousness without fear on contradiction. Apparently reporters for even real news shows, like those on ABC and CBS, feel they have done their duty by showing the lies without refuting them. Thus millions of Americans are feed a steady diet of Republican falsehoods without the slightest leavening of truth.

While it might be fine for the mainstream media to report the Republican opinion that President Obama has not been sufficiently focused on terrorism (what is sufficient focus but a matter of opinion?), they damage the public debate by not fact-checking the “facts” upon which these opinions are said to be based. I don’t think this is asking too much of our media, and their failure to do this, is but one indication that assertions about the media having a liberal bias are groundless. (My media fantasy would be a fact-check section at the end of every news section, press conference, or political pronouncement so that neither Republicans nor Democrats could feel safe regurgitating falsehoods. What a national political dialog we could then have!)

However, even if the mainstream media was vigorously rebutting the lies in right and left wing political pronouncements, it would have at best a small effect on the upcoming 2010 elections because, for a large segment of the conservative movement, the truth does not matter. That became evident during this summer’s healthcare debate.

Remember “Death Panels?” “Pulling the plug on Grandma?” “The government having access to your checking account?” “Older patients being denied care?” The mainstream media did a fair job of rebutting these distortions, but if you get right-wing e-mails, you will find they are all still current. And many people would rather believe a chain e-mail forwarded by their Cousin Floyd than Newsweek, because Cousin Floyd is one heck of an analyst—when he’s sober. Besides, these falsehoods, like those about President Obama being soft on terror support and reinforce the pre-exiting biases of those lean to the right.

Social psychology has amply documented the human tendency to listen most attentively to speakers who affirm our basic beliefs and biases and how we are apt to extend acceptance to other opinions held by those same speakers. It takes discipline to form objective judgments about the ideas of those who do not necessarily share our preconceptions, and that disciple is little in evidence on either side of today’s politics.

Thus the 2010 midterm election is going to turn on not on any kind of objective data, but instead on who comes out to vote. The Republicans and Tea Party Patri-nuts are fired up and we can count on their voting. The question is whether or not we can get those whose biases lean toward the Democratic Party to turn out.