O'Reilly asks anti-choice activist if she "believes that Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill"

I, for one, don't believe in rolling passively over and allowing manipulative liars and intellectual thugs to define the debate. Apparently you do, but I find your reasoning to be strange, to say the least.

The debate goes slightly beyond labels. You may note that on any number of abortion threads I have steadfastly denied the definition of an embryo or fetus as a "person", so be aware that I don't favor allowing manipulative liars to "define the debate" either.

You're arguing that progressives dare not challenge the right on the horrific dishonesty of their self-labeling because they might just turn around and challenge us on our own labeling.

I'm not claiming that nobody does it now. The point would be that it's poor behavior, and doing it ourselves takes away credibility in criticizing it. What's MMfA going to say about some right-wing pundit using the term "pro-death", if they want to alter labels themselves? Again, who is more brazen by nature in spinning things to their advantage? It's not liberals, clearly. So the pro/con ratio on abandoning the respect for labels is a joke. It doesn't accomplish much, and it legitimizes spin efforts from those who have zero sense of shame and a much greater capacity for dishonesty. Why should any objective moderator try to maintain that sense of decorum if both sides abandon it? It also plays into the sense of "both sides are the same", which is certainly not politically beneficial to the side that generally behaves better. That point is hard to overemphasize.

Hell, that's sort of the point of Media Matters, isn't it... to point out the misinformation, the dishonest and hypocritical arguments, and the propagandistic misframing of the debate that the right so consistently engages in? Does it really strengthen us to respond so meekly to their attacks?

You're going off the tracks a bit here. It should be clear after my five years here that I support MMfA's exposure of misinformation and hypocrisy. You can address the arguments of the opposition full well without trying to change labels. "Change" is the key word here. If you want to argue that the term doesn't fit, fine. Changing it to suit your own preference (as has been done in the headline here) is a different story. Their movement belongs to them, so they get to name it, the same way nobody else gets to rename your pets. If someone wants to point out that your dog is humping their mailbox, that's legitimate. Trying to get the whole neighborhood to refer to your dog by a different name is not. I don't see how that concept takes any great deal of power away from anyone. People can still make their points very clearly without resorting to childish behavior.

As for "meekly", it's just a question of picking your battles, and more importantly, your battlefield. Liberals who make broad and harsh criticisms against conservatives here lose a lot of ground in arguments. Sticking to logic and facts is exponentially more effective. This has been pointed out any number of times regarding the behavior of people like Limbaugh:if we're debating the actual issues, we win, but if we're fighting in the mud, we lose.

Allowing a bunch of zealous, raging, anti-choice control freaks the faux dignity of labeling themselves pro-life is pretty much the same as keeping the Emperor's nakedness to ourselves. Unreality is simply a poor and ultimately self-defeating strategy. The debate... this contested reality... can only be won by aggressively disputing that which is so obviously disputable. Again, I will not concede to the right the inane and deliberately misleading labels that they've so arrogantly and falsely chosen to self apply.

So you don't have any confidence in your ability to challenge the policies, beliefs and philosophies of the pro-life movement? If you do, then this isn't necessary in the slightest. You can point out the King is naked without trying to change his name to "King Bare-Ass" or whatever. Again, I'm not saying that you can't discuss the merits of the label. I'm just saying that nobody else has the right to try to change it. Point out any hypocrisy you like, just don't push a "we should call them..." argument.