Oh, That Liberal Media

While it's nice to see the media waking up to it's watch-dog role from it's lap-dog status as of late in regards to federal politics, it's unsurprising that this seems limited to attacking Republican candidates while oversight of Obama and the email-lady continues to get the blind eye or the quick report and move-along treatment.

Currently, it appears the Media has gotten the memo to attack the latest Republican to make a splash - Ted Cruz.

For example, we get this missive from The Detroit Free Press' Brian Dickerson - In opening round, Cruz courts pants-on-fire vote

Ted Cruz began his formal quest for the presidency this week the same way he became one of the most recognizable Republicans on Capitol Hill: by lying his head off.

Speaking to a captive audience in the bosom of Christian fundamentalism, Cruz doubled down on a series of assertions non-partisan fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked:

That the Obama administration seeks to "ban our ammunition."

That the Affordable Care Act has cost "millions" of Americans their health care coverage.

And that the ACA's employer mandates have forced millions more into part-time work.

None of these talking points withstands much scrutiny, as the non-partisan factcheck.org website explained in a post wearily dismissing Cruz's declaration as a medley of "dubious claims we have heard before, and a few we haven't."

Interestingly, going to the "non-partisan" websites from which Dickerson draws his conclusions reveals some very partisan slight of hand.

Let's take "ban our ammunition" for instance. factcheck rates it not-truthy because they state the administration only recently tried to ban one type of ammunition (M855). This conveniently ignores the already in place Obama ban on March 5, 2014 of 5.45.x39 7N6. Factcheck then rates the Cruz statement as untrue because it wasn't all ammunition being banned at once, get it?

Factcheck then decides as the arbiter of truth that the fact that millions did indeed lose their healthcare isn't the whole story with a mendacious explanation that:

Cruz isn’t the first to make this claim, which stems from President Obama’s ill-fated promise, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” That was clearly proven false when, in the fall of 2013, several million people received cancellation notices for individual market plans that no longer met the law’s benefit requirements.

But to claim simply that millions lost their health insurance is misleading. Those individual market plans were discontinued, but policyholders weren’t denied coverage. Many upgraded to compliant plans (albeit at a higher cost, for some).

Factcheck then punts on the part time work issue claiming there's a lack of data or that only a few hundred thousand have been affected or Factcheck hopefully claims it might be caused by the economy, cause Obamacare has had no impact on the economy.

Hardly a resounding smack-down of Cruz's statements as Dickerson pretends it to be, now isn't it?

In other words, contra Factcheck, Cruz was truthful and Dickerson and Factcheck are furiously spinning facts in their adjunct role as Democrat party supporters and distorter.