Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It had to happen. Ezra Klein (now supervising 3 others) is beginning to note false claims of facts in Washington Post news stories.

...Lori Montgomery reports that “counting money not spent on wars that the nation is already planning to end is widely viewed as a budget gimmick, and House GOP leaders have been reluctant to include it as savings.”

There’s some truth to this argument, as I’ll explain in a minute. But the GOP is trying to have it both ways. Boehner uses the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit estimates. He doesn’t subtract trillions because he doesn’t believe the agency’s war-spending estimates are faulty. Nor do I remember him calling the savings from Paul Ryan’s budget — which Boehner voted for — fake.But the Congressional Budget Office counts trillions in war spending in its budget baseline, and Ryan’s budget cut a trillion dollars from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.


Montgomery's claim is false. Republicans are not reluctant to count such savings when it is convenient for them. Their current refusal to count them shows that they have no respect for the truth and are psychopathic liars.

Also Montgomery has no respect for the truth and is willing to report lies without mentioning that they are lies.

I'd say the struggle is joined. I expect Klein to end up fired like Froomkin, but he was just promoted.

I might add that Montgomery made an editorial comment in a news story. She did not source her claim that "counting money not spent on wars that the nation is already planning to end is widely viewed as a budget gimmick." I think she has chosen to state her own opinion as news. Notably she did no such thing when Republicans counted such savings.

I don't know about her. She could be a smart unscrupulous partisan Republican. It is more likely that she is ignorant and determined to achieve Ballance. Either way her conduct is outrageous.

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