The Media and the Nuclear Option

Ok, lots of us realize that the MSM (mainstream media) has been less than vigilant when it comes to fact-checking in recent years. Often, the excuse is that there's so much pressure to be first with a story that they get things wrong. The most recent examples of this were the premature announcement that the Pope was dead, and the premature announcement of white smoke indicating that a new Pope had been chosen.

However, this "too much pressure to be first" does not apply when an inaccuracy is repeated over and over again. Clearly, despite what the right-wingers rant about the "liberal media" there is active cooperation with the Administration to adopt its spin on events.

The most recent example of this is the use of the term "nuclear option". This term was coined by Republican Trent Lott. That didn't poll well, so now the Republicans are using the term "constitutional option". This change of vocabulary in itself is not that bad, remember "private accounts" to "personal accounts"?

The really bad part of this is that now the term "nuclear option" has been attributed to the Democrats by the Republicans, and the MSM has picked up on this and repeated it, despite the fact that the MSM originally had rightly attributed it to the Republicans.

Media Matters has documented the whole thing.

Liberal media? MY ASS!