How Ted Cruz and Michele Bachmann get away with it

[Tom Joad]

This is why the "Both sides do it" argument is bullshit.

http://www.salon.com/2014/08/09/its_..._away_with_it/

Hannity helps, but right-wing obstruction and lies take hold because the centrist, objective press wears blinders.

“It all started when he hit me back!” That’s what the GOP is claiming, in a nutshell, when they try to convince the Beltway media that impeaching President Obama is a Democratic Party scaremongering fantasy/marketing scam.

It was fine for conservative Republicans to make all sorts of noise about impeaching Obama—since 2009, starting with Michael Savage, a mere 50 days after Obama’s inauguration, and with Darrell Issa jumping in as early as 2010—just as they clamor about Obama not even really being president (“show us the real birth certificate!”), about using ACORN to steal his way into the White House, about being secretly Muslim, etc. With so many scurrilous false accusations flooding the lifeblood of the Republican Party, how could they not talk about impeaching him? Yet, when Democrats recently got serious about pushing back? Now, all of a sudden, it’s a matter of politics! Partisan spin! Cynical manipulation! And what’s truly pathetic, the Beltway media (typified by Politico) eats it up, or else “balances” it by blaming both sides (à la MSNBC’s Chuck Todd) — as the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky and the Nation’s Leslie Savan scathingly pointed out, after which Michele Bachmann and Steve King both engaged in more impeachment talk!

It would be bad enough if this political dynamic were a one-time phenomenon, but it’s not. As Savan pointed out, this is standard operating procedure for the GOP:

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