The mainstream media–fearing it will be labeled “partisan” and “leftist”–generally refuses to call the Right on its lies and slanders.

Meanwhile, Rightist organs–such as The Washington Times–continue spewing a McCarthyist brew of fear and smears.

Consider the July 22, 2012 editorial that appeared in The Washington Times: “President’s Socialist Takeover Must Be Stopped.”

Written by its columnist, Jeffrey T. Kuhner, it called for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.

Among his allged “high crimes and misdemeanors”:

The state is intervening in every aspect of American life–beyond its constitutionally delegated bounds. Under Mr. Obama, the Constitution has become a meaningless scrap of paper.

Kuhner didn’t object when the administration of George W. Bush:

• Gave us an unprovoked war against Iraq founded on lies;
• Authorized the use of torture;
• Drafted laws that allegedly protected consumers and the environment–laws written by lobbyists for drug and oil companies; and
• Gave us a “co-Presidency where Vice President Dick Cheney ruled as “power-behind-the-throne.”

[Obama conspired] to cause chaos for the Mexican citizens by letting…guns go into the drug cartels’ hands and terrorize the Mexican citizens. Forcing them to flee north across the border. Which would create a need for a refugee program for the fleeing Mexicans.

President Obama doesn’t need to create chaos in Mexico, which has always been a failed nation-state.  Nor does he have to encourage Mexicans to illegally enter the United States. 

The Mexican Government has long used its American border to free itself of those who might otherwise demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions. 

If Republicans win back Congress in November, they should–and likely will–launch formal investigations into this criminal, scandal-ridden administration….

Mr. Obama has betrayed the American people.  Impeachment is the only answer.  This usurper must fall.

Of course he’s a usurper: He defeated a Republican candidate for President in 2008!  Everyone on the Right believes the United States should be a one-party country–with Republicans’ being the only ones allowed to hold office. 

Of course Republicans should dominate the House of Representatives; the Senate; the White House; the Justice Department; the courts; the Pentagon. 

After all, if holding total power was good enough for the fascists running Adolf Hitler’s Germany, it’s certainly good enough for the fascists who burn to command America today.

Finally: It’s helpful to remember that the Washington Times is owned by the Unification Church of the late Sun Myung Moon (1920 – 2012).  Moon, in his role of self-styled “messiah,” lived well off the labors of his underpaid and brainwashed followers. 

Sun Myung Moon

In 1982, Moon was convicted of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy to subvert American tax laws.  It’s only natural that those who share Moon’s Rightist beliefs should consider themselves above the laws they intend to vigorously apply against everyone else.

* * * * *

The First Amendment of the United State Constitution specifically establishes a protection of “freedom of the press.”

Political reporters are empowered by their employers to learn–and report–all they can about the actual workings of the American political system.

And they are often given privileged access to those workings by influential men and women running for office or holding it.

This is no mere textbook exercise in high-school civics but a matter of deadly importance.

Democracy is founded on the belief that voters can effectively govern themselves.

But that belief works only when voters can learn the truth about the institutions that govern their lives–and about those who run those institutions.

Allowing members of one political party–in this case, the Republicans–to blatantly lie about their opponents and stir unwarranted fears in voters stands as a betrayal of the trust given those reporters.

Portraying the ruthless pursuit of absolute power by one political party–the Republicans–as merely “politics as usual” amounts to a similar betrayal of the public trust.

“Fascism,” warned Ernest Hemingway shortly before the outbreak of World War II, “is a lie told by bullies.”

Seventy-one years ago, the United States declared war on the lies and aggression of global Fascism.  Twelve million Americans served in uniform until Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were dead, and their legions utterly defeated.

Too many Americans believe that Fascism died in 1945 with Hitler and Mussolini.  It didn’t. 

The struggle against those who make a profession of lying and aggression continues.  It is the duty of the press to see that struggle for what it is–and to report it accurately and courageously.

To describe the efforts of a ruthless political party to gain absolute power as merely “politics s usual” is to mock the truth and abdicate the most important duty of a journalist.

“The duty of journalists is to tell the truth,” wrote historian and political criitic Noam Chomsky, “Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way.”

That is a philosophy of journalistic integrity that too many reporters have forgotten.

On the December 12, 2012 edition of “Hardball,” MSNBC’s veteran political analyst Chris Matthews tackled a subject that few reporters have dared to confront:

How much of the mainstream press has allowed itself to be co-opted by the Right.

His guests that night were David Corn, of Mother Jones, and Joan Walsh, political analyst for Salon.

JOAN WALSH, POLITICAL ANALYST FOR SALON.COM: Right. The false equivalence.

Well, yes. I mean, there’s this constant false equivalence that we’re always trying to fight here, Chris. And I think you do a good job of it, but it’s really ingrained in the Beltway culture…

…To say that they’re [Republicans and Democrats] both as radical, they’re both–you know, even in the debt ceiling debate or in the fiscal cliff negotiations, that neither side will give and they’re both being unreasonable, and really not drilling down.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yes. I agree.

….Who can forget back in August, not a million years ago, when the Romney pollster, Neil Newhouse, said the following. “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: Yes.  I thought this…just showed their whole attitude towards reality, towards being vetted. It was sort of an arrogance that, We can say whatever we want to say.

And I think in years past–this is what’s changed–campaigns would not be so brazen. If they’re caught in a lie, they try to wiggle around it. They maybe feel some shame. But here was Neil Newhouse telling reporters–he said this at a breakfast meeting at the convention to a group of reporters…

CORN: … that, We don’t care what you say about our facts. We’re going to use them anywhere. Good example was what they said about Barack Obama changing welfare rules…so that people don’t have to work. And that’s what he was referring to…

MATTHEWS: You’ve got people like Michele Bachmann, who would say just casually that we should begin an investigation of members of Congress for their anti-American attitudes. That was followed up by Adam–Allen West, who’s just been defeated, Allen West saying there are 79 to 81 communists…

But nobody–you know, you would think that “The Nightly News” would come on….[or] The New York Times [would]–say,”Wait a minute. This is so frickin’ far out. This kind of claim goes back at least to Joe McCarthy.”

* * * * *

A major house organ of the Rightist press–The Washington Times–clearly has no intention of backing away from “frickin’ far out” charges against Democrats generally–and President Obama in particular.

On July 22, 2012, one of its columnists, Jeffrey T. Kuhner, authored a piece entitled: “President’s Socialist Takeover Must Be Stopped.”

From that editorial:

President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors.  The Democratic majority in Congress in in peril as Americans reject his agenda.  yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.

COMMENTARY:  Of course!  Sending U.S. Navy SEALS to take out Osama bin Laden was certainly worthy of impeachment.  And so was taking out a traitorous American Al Qaeda recruiter–Anwar al-Awlaki–with a Predator drone.

Then there’s “Obamacare”: Ensuring that people other than millionaires get medical care is undoubtedly the most impeachable offense of all.

He is….assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism.

COMMENTARY: And what are these pillars? 

• Greed and selfishness: “I’ve got mine and the hell with you, Jack.” 
• Corporations shipping millions of jobs overseas, paying their foreign workers “coolie wages” and pocketing the profits themselves. 
• CEOs cheat their country out of the taxes they owe and–through their lobbyists in Congress–force the poor and middle class to take up the slack in taxes. 
• Meanwhile, millions of their formerly employed Americans struggle to survive. 

So it’s understandable why those CEOs should object to Obama’s demanding they live up to their legal and moral obligations to their country.

Obamacare’s most pernicious aspect is its federal funding of abortion.  Pro-lifers are now compelled to have their tax dollars used to subsidize insurance plans that allow for the murder of unborn children. This is more than state-sanctioned infanticide. It violates the conscience rights of religious citizens.

COMMENTARY: During the Vietnam war, millions of war-hating protesters objected to paying taxes which would finance the bombing and ravishing of a country that hadn’t attacked us.  But the IRS made no exceptions for them.

As for violating “the conscience rights of religious citizens”: When George W. Bush ordered the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, millions of Americans felt their consciences to be violated.  But the war continued. 

And for all of Kuhner’s rantings on the “murder of unborn children”: Right-wingers are notorious for caring about fetuses–until they come out of the womb.  But if the mother of that newborn baby can’t afford healthcare, food or shelter for her new arrival, that’s her tough luck.

Apparently, only Rightist Presidents are allowed to offend the consciences of others with impunity.

The “liberal” press continues to allow itself to be co-opted by the Right.

Consider the following from the December 12, 2012 episode of “Hardball With Chris Matthews”:

Chris Matthews

CHRIS MATTHEWS:  “Let Me Start” with this tonight. Did you get the impression during the presidential campaign that the press was trying too hard to be even- handed?

Did you think the people delivering the news were pushing what we call balance at the expense of the obvious facts?

…. That the Democrats in this election were like Democrats going back to Jack Kennedy, but the Republicans were far to the right of anything we’ve seen from that party ever?

….So tonight we’re going to nail it. We go to the truth, and why was it the truth that dared not be reported in the mainstream media. Joining me now for a brutal autopsy is Joan Walsh of Salon and David Corn of Mother Jones, neither of whom can be charged with hiding what’s wrong with the right.

Here’s what Norm Ornstein, I guy I really respect, of AEI, the American Enterprise Institute, told the HuffingtonPost about the broadcast networks.

Quote, “I can’t recall a campaign where I’ve seen more lying going on, and it wasn’t symmetric, but it seemed pretty clear to me that the Republican campaign was just far more over the top. It’s the great unreported big story of American politics. If voters are going to be able to hold accountable political figures, they’ve got to know what’s going on.

“And if the story that you’re telling repeatedly is that they’re all to blame–they’re all equally to blame, then you’re really doing a disservice to voters and not doing what journalism is supposed to do.”

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM: Right.

MATTHEWS: And never caught that in the main news stories. Your thoughts about coverage. I hate to be a media critic, but we’re into it right now.