When in doubt, lie

The right lies. You know that; I know that. But we never cease to be outraged by the most recent examples.

Example 1: Jive F. Turkey. This is from John Conyers' wonderful piece on the GOP movement for "voter identification" (which is just another term for keeping poor people out of the polling place):

6: The number of days the American Center for Voting Rights, a new, "non-partisan," "voting rights" organization, had been in existence before it was called to testify by Republican members of Congress before a House Administration Committee hearing on March 22. The American Center for Voting Rights was formed by a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney campaign and the notoriously anti-voting rights Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who described the group as a non-partisan, voting rights advocacy group. He testified and submitted a report on Ohio election irregularities, which highlighted the Mary Poppins Conspiracy in this country. If you haven't heard about it, the Mary Poppins Conspiracy consists of many, many ineligible voters -- using the names Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive F. Turkey -- fraudulently voting in elections.

Unfortunately for advocates of this conspiracy theory, a precinct has yet to report that a citizen by the name of Mary Poppins showed up on Election Day and voted. Searches for Dick Tracy votes and Jive F. Turkey votes have also come up empty.

If the Republicans are not trying to disenfranchise the poor (who often lack two forms of identification), then why do they make up these lies?

Example 2: The Koran in the toilet. Rush Limbaugh and the dittohead legions insist, in the loudest possible tones, that Newsweek concocted this story because the powers-that-be at said magazine hate America. Conservative propagandists insist that Newsweek admitted the story to be fraudulent, and that the story sparked riots.

But, according to the Columbia Journalism Review:

Consider the central question of the story about the story: What exactly has the magazine retracted? Most reporters, particularly on television, are reporting that Newsweek has retracted the allegation that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. But that's wrong: The magazine has said only that it no longer stands by its claim that allegations of Koran desecration appear in a forthcoming report from U.S. Southern Command. That's a very different point. There have been numerous other reports -- mostly from detainees -- suggesting that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo did abuse the Koran. We don't know exactly what happened, but we do know that there's a significant difference between what Newsweek said -- that its source can no longer be sure that the allegations appear in an upcoming military report -- and what the press is reporting the magazine said -- that no desecration of the Koran ever took place.

But since the press has largely ceded control of the story to the White House, administration spinners have been able to twist it. Consider another central issue: whether Newsweek's premature report actually spurred the riots. Thanks to the White House spin, and the media's lazy reporting, the conventional wisdom is now that it did. But the reality is that it probably did not, at least in any significant sense. According to a statement last Thursday by General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, after hearing from commanders on the scene in Afghanistan, the "rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."

Molly Ivins lists a number of stories about abuse of the Koran -- stories which preceded Newsweek's.