James O'Keefe And A Media Movement Gone Mad

[Commentary] What is wrong with these people? That's a refrain that goes through my brain many times each week, and I'm sure goes through the minds of my Media Matters colleagues as we monitor the right-wing media and continue to be dumbstruck by what passes for content. Granted, players there have never gotten bogged down in details, and have rarely let the facts get in the way of a good, liberal-hating yarn. This is, after all, a team that's led onto the field everyday by a chronic liar, Rush Limbaugh. So the bar has never been set very high. But since Obama's Inauguration, there has been a frightening, wholesale change within the oxymoronic world known as "conservative journalism." Bottom line: There's no adult supervision, which allows the likes of James O'Keefe to rush to the front of the right-wing media line. And to be honest, he doesn't look that out of place standing along side such committed fabricators as Glenn Beck or Pam Geller or Jim Hoft or Andrew Breitbart, or Fill In the Blank for whomever is making right-wing headlines these days describing Obama in the most fanatical and hateful way possible.

[Boehlert is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America]