This sort of mythomania would be hilarious if it didn't impact public policy so gravely: the non-partisan website Spinsanity reports on the invented charge that Senator Robert Byrd criticized the cost of President Bush's stuntflying on board the USS Abraham Lincoln last month. Because Byrd has a well-earned rep for delivering pork to his constituents, the media could charge him with being a hypocrite. Too bad the charge wasn't true: when the senior Senator from West Virginia made his May 7th speech on the well of the Senate, he didn't mention whether taxpayer funds were burned for the photo op. In fact, it was Henry Waxman who requested that the GAO investigate.

It is a thing to behold the Fourth Estate at work...by the time the media got done, Senator Byrd's eloquent speech had been turned into a shrill partisan denunciation. It's not hard to fact-check something. With my limited resources and staff, I still have access to Google, and thanks to the magic of the Internet, I was able to read the Byrd speech on my own; I would venture a guess that almost all of the people quoted in the Spinsanity piece had access to Nexis, and/or other more powerful search engines, plus interns, a secretary, a staff, editors, etc.

And yet each of those writers chose to propagate a falsehood. Coming on the heels of some other recent myths (ie., the stories of Jayson Blair, the Whitewater "scandal", allegations that Al Gore claimed to have "invented" the Internet, the false claim that the New York Times disproportionately covered the discriminatory policies at Augusta, etc.) that have gained credence, it is fair to wonder if a "free press" continues to serve any useful social purpose. If a reporter does not care about the truth, then what exactly is the Constitution protecting?