Doesn't change the fact that NPR's CEO turned tail and fled

This is what happens when you think that "appeasing" psychopaths like James O'Keefe is the way to get him to stop:

Of course, the real story is never what it seems with O'Keefe. From the selectively edited Acorn videos to his abortive efforts to "take down" Senator Mary Landrieu (Democrat, Lousiana), which resulted in criminal charges, to his sophomoric attempts to get a CNN reporter in a room with him and a variety of sex toys, the mainstream media has had plenty of warning about his love of "truthiness" and disregard for actual facts. And, as with most of O'Keefe's videos to date, releasing selectively edited, embed-friendly clips got him exactly the coverage (and notches on his Flipcam) that he wanted – even as the full footage showed that almost everything he claimed to have discovered was untrue.

In the end, though, it wasn't the "liberal" media that jumped to NPR's defence, or even the mainstream media that O'Keefe and his followers decry as biased. It was Glenn Beck's conservative site, the Blaze, that thoroughly debunked the videos long after the mainstream media had breathlessly and largely uncritically reported their existence with the exact framing O'Keefe intended: NPR caught on tape defaming conservatives! Given the maelstrom of the 24-hour cable and internet news cycle, and in the midst of a pitched battle over Republican budget cuts, NPR's board waved the white flag and offered up its sacrificial CEO to the outstretched claws of the partisan attack machine.

Of course, after the videos have been debunked, NPR remembered to do the due diligence it should have done before and decided the videos were "inappropriately edited". Unlike former agriculture department employee Shirley Sherrod, who was fired in haste by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and later got an apology after her misleadingly edited video was debunked, there's not likely to be much absolution for either of the hastily-booted NPR executives. Despite some navel-gazing by reporters who shouldn't have swallowed anything from O'Keefe without a massive grain of salt to accompany it, the sad truth is that O'Keefe's reputation hardly had further to fall when they bought his story once again.

So, for all the evidence that should lead to the contrary, the great likelihood is that O'Keefe's headline-baiting videos will continue to claim victims. And reporters and editors will vow to learn, and then be unable to resist a good, truthy story – even if it's not the actual, you know, truth. After all, they can always run a correction – without losing their jobs.

And this is what happens when we run from a fight where we know we are right. Wingnuts are more married to their ideology than they are to their spouses -- and nothing, not even actual truth right in front of their eyes, will sway them. The media have become lazy cost-cutters doing whatever they have to in order to emulate Fox News (*cough* HuffPo *cough*). Facts don't matter. "Balance" means giving the same credence to demonstrable fact on the one hand, and utter horseshit pulled out of someone's ass on the other. It's disgraceful that it was a web site owned by Glenn Beck, of all people, to shed light on James O'Keefe's NPR shenanigans. Because NPR was too fucking lazy, or too fucking genteel, to do its own due diligence.

Ask President John Kerry what happens when you let lies go unanswered. Or President Al Gore.