Steve Benen reports:
There was a bit of a stir yesterday on some far-right blogs, which claimed that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called conservatives "jack-booted thugs" in a speech.
That's not what happened.
Trouble is, Jackson didn't level the term at Republicans. Instead, she used it to refer to her own employees, jokingly borrowing language that the EPA's critics have used to describe the agency's workers.To be sure, this was a popular lie among Republicans for a while, spread by a sloppy Daily Caller report that turned out to be completely wrong....
According to video of the event Thursday and a transcript of the speech provided by the EPA, Jackson spent part of her speech debunking earlier inaccurate media reports that claimed the agency intended to "triple its budget and add 230,000 new regulators to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sources like -- be prepared -- backyard grills and cows."
Hmmm ... the Daily Caller is wrong? Right-wing blogs are wrong? So?
Yes, but, as Steve notes, there's also this:
Fox Nation, predictably, ran an item on its front page with the headline "EPA Chief Calls Republicans 'Jack-Booted Thugs,'" which directed readers to a RedState post.
Yup -- and guess what? That item is still at Fox Nation, and it's still on Fox Nation's front page, with no correction, as I type this.
The Politico story "Lisa Jackson 'Thugs' Misquote Sparks Uproar" was posted at 6:06 last night. RedState, Fox Nation's source, has added a correction to its post.
But more than fifteen hours later, Fox Nation has posted no correction. The Fox Nation thread now links to the blog Weasel Zippers, which also has not posted a correction.
I don't care that Fox Nation is merely an offshoot of Fox News. It's poison fruit from the same tree.
A major step on the road to healing this country would be the widespread recognition that Fox is not a news organization and, beyond First Amendment protection, deserves none of the privileges we accord to real news organizations (seats in the White House press room, interviews with mainstream political figures, etc.). When all decent people have the sense to shun Fox, we'll be a better country.
