Desensitized Maine journalists allow LePage to get away with falsehoods

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Commentary: Desensitized Maine journalists allow LePage to get away with falsehoods
The media use the governor’s outrageous statements as fodder for a partisan debate – even when the remarks are provably wrong.
By Mike Tipping

http://www.pressherald.com/2014/07/19/mike-tipping-desensitized-maine-journalists-allow-lepage-to-get-away-with-falsehoods/

excerpt:

NO LONGER NEWS

Why wasn’t LePage’s constant and outrageous disregard for the truth (recognized even by his fellow Republicans) more of an issue during that election – and why isn’t it more of one now, after it has continued through his four years in office?

In part, it’s because he does it so much. Whether he’s claiming he conducted black fly studies that never occurred, describing nonexistent college entrance exams targeting Maine students or falsely asserting that 47 percent of able-bodied Mainers don’t work, LePage routinely and unabashedly tells whoppers that are easily proven false.

It seems like every week, he finds a new way to abuse the truth. This last week, he claimed that he never threatened to veto the compromise on nursing home funding. The week before that, he claimed that he hadn’t repeatedly discussed arresting his political opponents for treason with a group of “sovereign citizen” conspiracy theorists. But the agenda that the group sent to the governor’s office before the meetings and group members’ descriptions of what was said tell another story.

By being so brazen and so consistent in his false claims, LePage has desensitized all of us to his dishonesty. It’s no longer treated as big news here when our governor tells a whopper, where in another state it would be a front-page headline.