Still No Penalties For Lying

As Steve Benen details, there's just no penalty for the GOP lying on TV. The Village gets them right back on to continue to lie, even when the Villagers have to call the GOP out. This week's example? GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Last week, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) appeared on ABC's "This Week," and raised a number of arguments that proved Hatch doesn't understand health care reform. He argued, for example, that reform would force "up to 119 million people into Medicaid," which isn't even remotely accurate. He added that members of an Independent Medicare Advisory Council will determine "what kind of health care you're going to have," which is just crazy.

Seven days later, "Meet the Press" decided to reward Hatch for his performance by having him address health care again. This time, he argued that the Congressional Budget Office concluded that "tens of millions of people" would lose their private insurance, go with the public option, and "destroy the private health industry."

David Gregory, to his credit, had his facts straight and intervened. "Well, wait a minute, Senator Hatch, that's not right. The Congressional Budget Office did not say that.... The CBO said that, in fact, those enrolled in private insurance plans would go up by three million, and they estimate that about 10 million people, only 10 million people go into a public plan. 'Tens of millions,' that's different than 10 million."

Hatch, undeterred by reality, responded, "Well, that's plenty. Others are saying up to 119 million people."

The "119 million" number is the same bogus claim Hatch repeated last week, which is still completely wrong.

But it doesn't matter. Sen. Hatch will be invited back again and again on MTP and the other Sunday shows in order to lie about Obamacare. He'll get called out, but he'll be back again and again.

There's effectively no penalty for him to lie on national television. And Howard Kurtz keeps wondering why there's a trust issue with the Village these days. Fascinating.