What would The Washington Post consider an “absurd” allegation?

In today’s Washington Post , Anne Kornblut writes:

Facing a near-daily barrage of attacks from conservative opponents, White House officials are engaged in an internal debate over how hard to hit back, even as they have grown increasingly aggressive in countering allegations they deem to be absurd.

Note the wording there – these allegations are ones that White House officials “deem to be absurd,” not necessarily ones that the Post does. Therein lies a problem – as long as the media reports on allegations as if they are credible, those allegations with gain traction.

So what are those allegations that Kornblut is afraid to declare “absurd”? She mentions several: the baseless notion that Obama was planting to use an address to schoolchildren to indoctrinate them; the unhinged birther conspiracy theory; the accusation that Obama wants to kill people’s grandparents using “death panels”; the idea that Obama has an “enemies list”; and the view that health reform is intended to makes reparations for slavery. It’s the White House that thinks these claims are absurd; the Post would never say so.

Indeed, elsewhere in the paper, the Post is busy spreading the next attack on Obama they dare not deem absurd: apparently, conservatives think Obama has too many “czars.” Oh, sure, as the Post points out, many of those “czars” are Senate confirmed and their positions predated Obama’s administration. And as the Post notes, President Bush “had 36 czar positions filled by 46 people during his eight years as president.” But for some reason, the paper finds this a credible enough charge to allow numerous conservatives – who didn’t seem to have a problem with the Bush adminsitration’s “czars” -- to slam Obama for his “antidemocratic” actions. I guess this is just another allegation that “White House officials… deem to be absurd.”