We must tell it like it is

From Fred at Slacktivist:

The title of the post at Joe.My.God is “Donald Trump Tweets Racist Lying Graphic.” The title of the post at Talking Points Memo is “Trump Retweets Inaccurate Statistics About Black Murder Rate.” Joe gets that right. Josh gets it wrong. The former headline is more true and more precise than the latter. It is inaccurate to describe Trump’s tweet as merely “inaccurate.” That’s better than the flaccid, passive, sub-contracted irresponsibility of newspapers describing it as “disputed” or “controversial” or “criticized,” but its still monumentally inadequate.

Trump is spreading deliberate lies deliberately. He’s quoting made-up statistics attributed to a nonexistent “bureau” — statistics that were originally fabricated and promoted by a swastika-waving self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi. Those statistics are not simply inaccurate — they’re wholly untrue. They are a racist lie. Calling them anything less than that isn’t journalistic objectivity or propriety, it’s just irresponsible.

From Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post:

The Post’s Fact Checker columnist, Glenn Kessler, found no evidence to support Trump’s claim and gave him Four Pinocchios, reserved for the most baldfaced lies. PolitiFact gave the statement a Pants on Fire rating, denoting extreme mendacity. But when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed the GOP front-runner to explain himself, noting that “police say it didn’t happen,” Trump resorted to what has become a familiar dodge.

“I know it might not be politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down,” Trump said.