Lying with impunity

One of the reasons the right wing and the GOP have been successful in defining the issues of the day is that they have figured out that in today's sound-bite mentality they can lie and not be called on it.

On Larry King's show former President Bill Clinton said "Some of the right-wing Republicans -- Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the other talk show people -- immediately said he was murdered. It was -- it was a mad time where you could say anything you wanted about the president or anybody that had the misfortune to know me."

So on the CNN media watch show Reliable Sources, how did rightwing talk show host Laura Ingram respond to Clinton's statement?

"I never heard Rush Limbaugh say anything of the like. And I'm certain he didn't say that."

When pushed about it she said "It wasn't Rush Limbaugh. .. No, he didn't say anyone - that the Clintons murdered anyone."

So just what did Limbaugh actually say?

OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon.... What it is is a bit of news which says...there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.

So is Ingraham correct, that Limbaugh didn't actually allege that Foster "was murdered" by just repeating someone else's story "that claims that Vince Foster was murdered" or was it a lie? To me it's a lie. And did Ingraham get called on this lie? No, host Howard Kurtz replied "We'll have to revisit that another time."

I'm sure Ingraham smiled, knowing she and her ilk got away with another one.