Mister Kurtz Sees Red.

Howard Kurtz writes that the McCain campaign has angered many journalists by lying a lot "News outlets are increasingly challenging false or questionable claims by the McCain campaign,." He even makes a strong claim in his own voice "The lipstick imbroglio is evidence that the Drudge/Fox/New York Post axis can drive just about any story into mainstream land. Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig?"

If McCain has lost Kutz he's lost his base. This is extreme.

As usual I guess (I can't usually stand to read Kurtz) he mostly makes his case while hiding his voice by quoting others. This time, Joe Klein, Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum and John Hinderaker get quoted a lot. I assume readers of this blog have already read Marshall and Drum directly and Klein quoted by others so let's listen to Hinderaker

""I have mixed feelings about it. Watching the video, I think it's plausible for Obama to say that he wasn't talking about Governor Palin. On the other hand ..."

OK look when John Hinderaker admits to mixed feelings about an argument made by a Republican, we can conclude that the Republican has gone too far.

The MSM can't deny that they understand what is going on. McCain has utter contempt for them and assumes that he can lie just as much as he likes without the voters noticing either because journalists won't call him on it or because voters don't care about journalists. If he succeeds he proves that the political press is completely irrelevant. I'm pretty sure that they will try to convince the public that the McCain campaign has been a disgraceful mass of lies. I wonder if they will succeed or are totally irrelevant.

update: Silly me. Of course they might just play along. Did mistah Kurtz's employer just roll over ?

2nd update: Here is the article which temporarily vanished. There is an explanation of the delay, Gosinski, the source, temporarily chickened out (although I still don't see how a source can take statements off the record). The article as printed is no blockbuster -- Cindy McCain abused drugs long ago, but the article doesn't even claim that John McCain abused his office to interfere with the investigation. I'd say nothing to see there. My tinfoil hat says that the Washington Post had something explosive and decided to suppress it, but I don't listen to my tinfoil hat.