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I was very glad to see that Salon's Joan Walsh is about as tired of those in the media playing the "both sides" false equivalency game, where they compare the craziness that's become the mainstream on the right to some either nonexistent, or out of the mainstream entity on the left, for the sake of so-called balance or fairness, as I am.

It was nice to see her call out The Daily Beast's Lauren Ashburn for doing just that on this Wednesday's edition of Hardball with guest host Michael Smerconish filling in for Chris Matthews. Here's more on that from Walsh herself in her column at Salon: The wingnut trifecta:

Right-wing claims that Hillary Clinton faked illness to avoid testifying about the Benghazi tragedy would be funny if they weren’t so ugly. It’s the wingnut trifecta, smearing our most popular past Democratic president, Bill Clinton, along with our current president, Barack Obama, and the current 2016 front-runner, all with one shot. Imagine birtherism crossed with the worst of the hateful anti-Clinton lies, like the “Vince Foster was murdered” claim. That’s Hillary-health trutherism.[...]

I talked about the crazy Benghazi allegations on “Hardball” today and I was surprised to find myself in strong disagreement with the Daily Beast’s Lauren Ashburn. Ashburn acted shocked at the Clinton slurs; I argued they’re just the latest outbreak of Clinton-Obama derangement syndrome. But even more significant, Ashburn tried to declare that both sides are somehow equally to blame for the “incivility” of our current political debate, claiming that someone (she didn’t say who or where) had wished death on former President George Bush when the news broke that he was in the intensive care unit.

I’m on record, often, saying that false equivalence about haters on the right and left is dangerous. To equate Democrats and Republicans on this front, you’d have to imagine, say, Susan Rice suggesting something that crazy, not to mention unethical, about Mitt Romney’s secretary of state, had the 2012 race ended differently. And you can’t equate some random commenter on the HuffPost with people like Krauthammer and Hannity who have regular perches atop Fox News. That would be like Chris Matthews wishing death on the former president; it would never happen.

I agree completely, except I wasn't surprised by what Ashburn said. She's one of Howard Kurtz's favorite guests on his Sunday show on CNN where what she did during the Hardball segment is the norm and not the exception.

h/t Captain Kangaroo

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The wife of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Thursday said that her husband and sons had not joined the U.S. military but had found "different ways of serving" by going on religious missions as part of their obligation to the Mormon church.

During an interview on ABC's The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked Ann Romney how she would explain to the families of fallen soldiers why her husband and sons had not served their country.

"When I read about your husband, what I had read -- and maybe you can correct this -- is that the reason he didn't serve in Vietnam was because it was against the religion," Goldberg said.

"That's not correct," Ann Romney insisted. "He was serving his mission, and my five sons have also served missions. None served in the military, but I do have one son that feels that he's giving back to his country in a significant way where he is now a doctor and he is taking care of veterans."

"So, you know, we find different ways of serving," she added. "And my husband and my five boys did serve missions, did not serve in the military."

The candidate's wife explained that Mormon missions were like military service in that "you're going outside of yourself, you're working and you're helping others. And it changes you. And are we so grateful in this country for those people -- men and women -- that are volunteering, they're sacrificing their life for us, and we cannot forget that or we have to acknowledge that always."

"So, when you're facing these mothers whose children have not come back, how will you explain to them that your sons haven't gone?" Goldberg pressed. "Will you talk about the missions they've gone on?"

"I would say it's probably the hardest thing that a president and a first lady probably do is to comfort those that have lost a love one and have gone in harm's way," Ann Romney replied, not directly answering the question. "It is an amazing country, we have the most extraordinary fighting men and women, and we have to be so grateful for them. Of course, it's hard, and I don't think that any of us can understand the sacrifice that are being made by families."

Mitt Romney announced earlier this week that he had canceled his Thursday appearance on The View due to "scheduling problems."

In a secretly-recorded video released by Mother Jones last month, the former Massachusetts governor told wealthy donors that going on The View was a “high-risk” proposition because the “sharp-tongued” co-hosts were not conservative enough.

“Apparently the idea of sitting next to Whoopi Goldberg was just a little too intimidating,” media critic Howard Kurtz told Daily Download founder Lauren Ashburn. “Doesn’t this make Romney look like he’s avoiding a confrontation with the ladies of The View? He said he would go.”

“It opens him up to the argument that, how is he going to negotiate with Vladimir Putin if he’s afraid of sitting down with Whoopi Goldberg?” Kurtz continued. “When he agreed to go on, he was down in the polls. And now: Bye, bye, Barbara.”

(h/t: Mediaite)

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I've got to wonder if CNN's Howard Kurtz has ever once asked if the media was spending too much time focusing on a story that's bad for Democrats. From this Sunday's Reliable Sources, Kurtz asks his panel if the media has been intentionally trying to keep the Todd Akin story alive and to their credit, he can't get a single one of them to agree with him that the story didn't deserve the amount of air time it got.

He couldn't get any of them to agree that it's biased to talk about the fact that the Republicans policies are very hostile to women, or that it wasn't perfectly fair to bring their vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's views into the debate either. Sorry to disappoint you Howie, but sometimes the facts just happen to have a liberal bias and all the concern trolling by you for Republicans isn't going to change that.

And it's not the "liberal media" that threw Akin under the bus when this happened and demanded he get out of the race. That would be the Republican establishment and their allies in the media and right wing blogs that were responsible for that and for keeping the story alive as well. I don't believe there's a chance in hell if the tables were turned and this was a Democrat getting thrown under the bus for something they said that Kurtz would be saying one word about the amount of media coverage the story received.

When you can't even get any of your fellow Villagers to agree with you, it's time to hang it up Howie.

Transcript below the fold.

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You know how you can tell an attack ad from Democrats is working? The right wing and our corporate media start telling you to knock it off. CNN's Howard Kurtz gave the viewers of The Situation Room a preview of what we can expect on his show this Sunday and surprise, surprise, it's a big healthy dose of false equivalencies and pretending he's concerned about that nonexistent "liberal media" being seen as carrying water for the Obama campaign.

Sorry Howie, but telling the truth about Bain Capital and actual journalism and asking Romney to let people see his tax returns is not the equivalent of Fox noise running a recording of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in an endless loop. And the only types that are going to be "concerned" about that perception are Villager hacks like yourself, the Romney campaign and the right wing media at Fox, hate talk radio, right wing blogs and a whole bunch of outlets that are going to do their best to give cover to Mitt Romney, as you just did here.

Kurtz also throws out that right-wing canard that President Obama wasn't scrutinized by the press when he ran against Hillary Clinton in the primary last time around. I think Howie's been spending too much time paling around with Sean Hannity, because that's the type of crap we hear on his show night after night on Fox.

Lauren Ashburn, who appeared with Kurtz is exactly right, and it's the Romney campaign's fault for not seeing that this was going to be coming and being better prepared for how to deal with questions about his time at Bain. You know Kurtz is over the top when even Wolf Blitzer is telling him he's surprised by what he's saying and had to point out to him that if you're going to run for President, everything's fair game and Romney's using his business background as his "credential for running and saying he's going to fix the economy," not that it made most of the rest of this segment and Blitzer's comments any less hackish as well.

All of them poo-pooed the Romney's obvious race baiting at the NAACP, calling it a "conspiracy theory." Yeah, that's a "conspiracy theory" just like The Southern Strategy is a conspiracy theory, or in other words, it's not. Republicans have been race baiting to win elections for ages now, whether any of these birds wants to admit it or not.

Transcript below the fold.

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It's a good thing The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis has got his finger on the pulse of the American electorate... or then again maybe not -- Poll: Majority Of Americans Think Cain Harassment Allegations Are True.

Sadly the media continues to focus on his harassment problems instead of some of the larger troubles with his campaign as Karoli wrote about here -- Herman Cain and Mark Block: The Blocktopus, or the fact that Cain looks like he's a whole lot more interested in selling his books than actually being taken seriously as being qualified to hold the office he's running for.

From CNN's Reliable Sources:

KURTZ: But I do get the sense, Matt Lewis, that journalists are backing off, not just because other stories have come to the fore, but because Cain blamed the media repeatedly and he stayed pretty high in the polls. You heard those boos at the debate.

What's your take?

LEWIS: Well, I think ultimately the problem for the media is that there is no stained blue dress. We do know that a decade ago, that these two, you know, accusations were made and that settlements were made. But that's all we know. We don't have any proof or evidence.

KURTZ: Wait, wait --

ASHBURN: Are you kidding me? I'm sorry. I mean, no proof or evidence? I mean, these women are coming forward. It's their word.

In all of these issues, it always becomes a he said/she said.

KURTZ: Right.

ASHBURN: So, basically right now what you're saying is you're taking the advantage -- you're taking the he said point of view.

LEWIS: No, I'm saying that if someone is accused, that they're innocent until proven guilty. And you're assuming that Cain is guilty. I'm assuming that I don't know he's guilty. I don't --

ASHBURN: I'm not assuming he's guilty. I'm just saying we need to take these women seriously.

LEWIS: I agree. I would agree with you on that. I don't know that we're in disagreement.

KURTZ: Just briefly, you seem to be setting a pretty high standard since often there is only circumstantial evidence in this case. I mean, there are four women and two legal settlements. That if there's no semen, it can't be proven?

LEWIS: What I'm saying, and this isn't my opinion of what ought to be. This is based on what will the public believe, and the court of public opinion. And I'm of the opinion that if there were no stained blue dress, Bill Clinton would not have been impeached.

Likewise, I think Herman Cain was definitely damaged by these accusations. But I don't know that they're deadly to his political future unless there is some sort of proof, because anybody can accuse -- you could be accused, I could be accused.

ASHBURN: Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I'm hearing this.

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I don't know if it's just me, but Howard Kurtz seemed to be a bit puzzled during this panel segment on Reliable Sources as to why liberals like Thomas Frank might be disappointed with President Obama and the legislation he's managed to get passed during his first two years in office. I think Frank summed it up pretty nicely during the little time he was allowed to speak during this segment.

FRANK: That's true and look what he just did the other day. I mean, it's a great accomplishment. He did get something done with health care. I mean, it was -- it was the constant selling out earlier in the process, remember, of negotiating with the Rs, and then the Rs walked away from the table.

Sadly Frank wasn't allowed to elaborate any further during this part of their discussion before Kurtz turned the topic to Sarah Palin and we got more nonsense instead from the other panelists about whether the media has given the president good press coverage and why, whether they've sold their legislative accomplishments to the public well enough and other similar talking points.

What Kurtz and the other talking heads in the media don't seem to understand is that it is possible to appreciate what Obama has managed to get passed in this extremely hostile legislative environment while at the same time being upset that he hasn't used his bully pulpit to push for a more liberal agenda.

I realize fully that in this community we’ve got a range of views from Obama being a complete sellout and he’s as bad as or worse than George Bush with his policy positions to those who are still supportive of the President and who think he’s doing the best he can given the Congress he’s dealing with.

Personally, I’m in the camp where I’m upset with how he’s done business and that he has shown way too much deference to Big Business, and hasn’t done enough to undo the policies that we saw under Bush, with everything from rendition to continuing our occupations overseas to the spying, and to our ridiculous continuation of this “war on terror” -- which looks to me like an excuse to drop bombs on poor people’s heads rather than address the economic conditions that cause people to resort to terrorism in the first place.

That said, I’m also enough of a pragmatist to realize that for him to get anything done, he was going to have to work with Republicans and “conservative” or rather corporate Democrats in the Congress. I admit as Thomas Frank did here that he has gotten a lot of good legislation passed which is not easy to do given the Congress he’s been forced to work with. And as legitimate as the reasons are for anyone being upset with him, he’s still not as terrible as John McCain and Sarah Palin would have been had they been elected instead. If those war mongers had been elected, we’d be asking whether we should have bombed Iran or not by now and not how many troops we should be pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

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