TPM reacting to CNN.com posting a poll asking whether Obama has “enough patriotism” to be President, a ridiculous push-poll style question if there ever was one:

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Ben Smith, at The Politico, flags that today CNN’s running a ‘online poll’ asking if Barack Obama has enough patriotism to be president. As Ben, with some understatement, put it’s “it’s odd to see the mainstream media drive a largely whispered question that none of his main, named critics — Hillary, McCain, or the RNC — will touch.” Yeah, I’d say so.

That’s how it works. Starts at right-swing smear sites and hoax emails. Then the AP’s Nedra Pickler, who specializes in scooping up this slop and laundering it into the mainstream press, writes it up for the AP that runs across the country. And then picks it up and makes it a regular part of the campaign conversation.

I doubt some top exec at CNN came up with this or any name anchor. It’s some producer in the bowels of the operation. But it amounts to the same thing because it’s part of the culture and there’s no accountability.

Get ready for more.

No, I’d rather not get ready for more. I’d rather do something to fix this, because I’m tired of seeing Nedra Pickler and CNN complete the Matt Drudge cycle. Their job is to vet information and present their opinion to us. Not to repeat anonymous smear emails they see on the Internet.

It’s ridiculous. How can we beat this kind of garbage?