American Conservative Union Chair Says Journalists Shouldn't Report When President or His Staff Are Lying

This is absolutely incredible, in every sense of the word: This morning on CNN, while talking with anchor Alisyn Camerota, American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp asserted that journalists shouldn't say that Donald Trump, or any member of his administration, are lying.

Prominent conservative Matt Schlapp says that journalists should not say when the President/spokespeople are lying, and that they should leave it up to the American people to decide pic.twitter.com/tD2xuSacuH

— Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) April 30, 2018

—has always been, sometimes an obvious and sometimes a subtle, reference to Sarah's appearance, and I felt like that was beyond the pale. I also think when it just says, "She lies, she lies, she lies," now look: We have big political disagreements in this country, and I think it's wrong for journalists to take that next step. And, granted, she's a comedian, but plenty of journalists do it as well, is they take the next step.

Just present the facts; let the American people decide if they think someone's lying. The journalists shouldn't be the one to say that the president or that his spokesperson is lying, because what that does to 50 percent of the country is it makes them feel they're not credible to listen to anymore.

Schlapp doubled-down in a tweet later, writing: "I stand by that statement. Lying implies motive. Just cover the facts no matter how ugly and let the voters decide motives and intent."

Except: It's impossible to "just cover the facts" when the lies being told by the president and his people are designed specifically to obfuscate the facts and replace them with "alternative facts."

Schlapp knows this, of course. That's the precise reason he's making this argument.

Conservatives can't win on the facts. So they have to lie. And they bully the press into not calling those lies what they are.

If 50 percent of the country has hurt fee-fees that the demonstrable horseshit they've invented isn't accepted as "credible," too fucking bad. This is bothsideserism taken to absurd — and dangerous — extremes, all to protect the feelings of people who conjure a manifestly false reality in order to defend their unearned privilege.

And if the press agrees with Schlapp that they have no role other than to transmit, without commentary or context, the words of an authoritarian liar and his gang of lying reprobates, then they should make way for professional stenographers, who are bound by ethics not to participate in the dissemination of lies by pretending the president is a source whose anonymity must be protected for safety.

If the role of the press is not to authenticate information they convey, then they no longer have any meaningful role at all.