Fred Kaplan of Slate debunks the most memorable line from Sen. Zell Miller’s speech (you know, the one about the spitballs):

This myth took hold last February in a press release put out by the RNC. Those who bothered to look up the fine-print footnotes discovered that they referred to votes on two defense appropriations bills, one in 1990, the other in 1995. Kerry voted against both bills, as did 15 other senators, including five Republicans. The RNC took those bills, cherry-picked some of the weapons systems contained therein, and implied that Kerry voted against those weapons. By the same logic, they could have claimed that Kerry voted to disband the entire U.S. armed forces; but that would have raised suspicions and thus compelled more reporters to read the document more closely.

Look, this is basic honesty and truthfulness. If our media is going to sit there and just blindly regurgitate this kind of crap, politics in this country will remain useless, bitter, and ineffective at bringing good people and good solutions to government. This upsets me greatly because it lies at the center of why political discourse in this country sucks so much. If Candidate A can make some unfounded accusation against Candidate B and the media doesn’t call them on it, we end up with a discussion of the accusation for 4 weeks instead of policy discussions that actually matter to people. People get disenchanted with politics and no one goes to vote.

Found on Political Animal at the Washington Monthly.