The False Equivalency Fallacy That Has Destroyed Our Media and Threatens the Existance of America

How many times have you been talking politics and pointed out a flat out lie that a candidate has told and heard the retort, "They all do it"? Well first off they don't. That retort is often justified with false equivalency. For instance, The Romney campaign put out a falsely edited video to made it appear that Obama had said business owners, "Didn't build that." He actually said nothing of the sort. The video was a bald faced premeditated lie. This is often compared to the Obama lie that he promised to close Guantanamo and get us out of Iraq in a year. He actually did promise to close Guantanamo but was thwarted by direct intervention of House Republicans who made it illegal to use funds to close the place. This hardly qualifies as an intent to deceive. As for ending the Iraq war in a year, He didn't actually specify that time table and that turned into a longer process but it is mostly done, sort of. There was no intent to deceive. Nothing the Obama camaign did or said ever reached the level of the outright deception of the falsely edited "You didn't build that" video. In a just America with a functioning media the campaign would have been over at that point. Obama would have received 77% of the vote with Romney retaining the 23% that comprise the right wing nut job faction of the Republican party. But the media is wallowing in the throws of the false equivalency disease and the election went down to the wire, again because the media consistently quoted bad polls to make us believe the race was close. It wasn't and grows more of a trouncing every day as the votes are fully counted and certified. Now go read this and think about it. America must have a functioning media if it is to survive. This is serious stuff. Froomkin has the essay on the essay.