Discussing "Lipstickgate," Kurtz asked: "Why, exactly, did the mainstream media go hog-wild over a manufactured story that was pushed by the right?"

So at the start we have: 

"KURTZ: I seriously thought about passing up entirely this ridiculous, trumped-up, phony lipstick controversy. No one really seriously believes that Barack Obama was talking about Sarah Palin when he used the well-worn barnyard phrase. Just about everyone knows it was essentially pushed along and made up by Drudge, Sean Hannity, and the New York Post, which endorsed McCain, by the way, in a front-page editorial."

Then later:

"SESNO: No. I just wish I'd bought lipstick futures at the right moment, you know? It is this -- you know, we've talked about it before, this echo chamber that we're in. Turn a catchy phrase, put out a nasty enough attack, have, you know, something personal and specific enough, and we can't resist it.

KURTZ: We're like addicts.

SESNO: We're like addicts. And make it -- as I say, make it catchy and nasty enough, and everybody jumps on. It's a feeding frenzy."

As well as:

"KURTZ: Catnip for the news media.

MASON: It's true. I hate to say it. It might be a new low for the news media this late in the game for us to become so distracted with something as trivial as this. And we're not talking about the issues. I wish we were more high-minded. But it is a funny story, and everyone was talking about it for a day, and then it was gone.

KURTZ: I think it was about 48 hours. And even as they were saying, "Well, you know, this isn't quite the way it happened," it didn't matter. They'd still do segment after segment on it."

So to sum it up, the McCain camp lies. They admit they are lying but don't care. The media do a story on the lie for at least one news cycle even though they know it's a lie. They then wring their hands or shake their heads tutting about how bad the lie is BUT STILL DO NEWS STORIES ON IT INSTEAD OF HAMMERING THE MCCAIN CAMP FOR THE LIES THEY KEEP TELLING. 

This isn't addiction, this is recidivism along with a complete abdiction of responisbility and integrity. The news media's job is supposed to be to report the facts. McCain is lying AGAIN. THAT should be the story.

"Fabricated by the right."
O please thats rich, as far as i know it was obama that said it not the right wing media. If they chose to comment on what he said that doesn't mean they expanding something. If the mainstream media choses to report thats because they wanted to not because the right tricked them into doing it.

Are we to really believe that these idiots aren't acutely aware of the fact that they've been on a continual "new low" for the better part of the last - what 10-15 years or so?

I wish we were more high-minded.

Are you freakin' kidding me? Mason says this like there's just not a damn thing they can do about it. Like they've just been collectively having a bad hair day all this time. It's always fascinating to me when these eejits sit around and make the story about themselves.

How about a little less talk and a lot more action? Bunch of navel gazing miscreants. Sheesh

Check out another nasty thing the Republicans are doing

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=12243

Another look at this subject by Deepak Chopra ........"Obama and the Palin Effect"

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week.
 On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper. She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger,fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other."

 For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.
 Look at what she stands for:

. Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty,
 small-minded parochialism.
 Ignorance of world affairs; a repudiation of the need to repair America's
 image abroad.
 Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for
social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
 Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these
issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
 "Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out
corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.
Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been
 in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities
 and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored,that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat.

 The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is
a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress.
The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side
 of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The
 Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues
 based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The
 shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow
-- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of
 progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in.

IMHO the ONLY way this could have been covered responsibly would be:

"The McCain camp is putting out an ad claiming that a 'pig in lipstick' comment that Obama made in a speech about McCain's policies was supposed to be a slam against Palin", followed by playing a clip from Obama's speech with the lipstick comment in context"

Picking up the GOP talking points and running with them is irresponsible. Are there NO journalistic standards?

Balancing coverage by repeating false accusations (or responses to truthful accusations) is not journalism, it is merely an extension of a campaigns PR operation. 

Amazing.. McCain hadn't even met her yet and HE was calling her a pig. 

I'm using the infallable logic formulation Republicans use of course.