Pop Up Politics
(Getty Images/Jamie Rector)
In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday.Even though it’s strident and partisan, Krugman has a point. How many people know about Fred Thompson’s inconsistent views about abortion, against the number of people who know he has a wife who may or not “Work the pole.” Quick show of hands: Anybody out there who doesn’t know which candidate has a costly coif?
Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night?”
Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit … Back to the debate coverage: as far as I can tell, no major news organization did any fact-checking of either debate. And post-debate analyses tended to be horse-race stuff mingled with theater criticism: assessments not of what the candidates said, but of how they “came across.”
