It's not often that right-wing bloggers actually disprove their own point so publicly and spectacularly in less than 24 hours. But they managed to do exactly that by whining about an Obama re-election initiative to ferret out smear campaigns while they launched a new smear campaign against Michelle Obama.

And no, there's no indication Obama critics appreciated the deep irony involved.

This week we saw the collective freakout over the new AttackWatch website. Designed to combat smears and lies about the Obama administration, the launch, perhaps not surprisingly, produced widespread condemnation from the people who traffic in smears and lies about the Obama administration.

The fact-checking site is "offensive" and "sinister," and just like "Big Brother" and "Nazi Germany," conservatives cried.

But is AttackWatch necessary? The right-wing blogosphere quickly answered that question by (surprise!) launching a nasty smear campaign in which bloggers condemned the First Lady based on what they think she said (yes, lip-reading was the basis for the attack), while recently attending a solemn Ground Zero memorial on Sept. 11.

The attack is almost beyond belief in terms of just how debasing and dishonest it is. But that, unfortunately, is the state of today's right-wing media, where hating the Obama's has become an all-consuming, albeit deeply dishonorable, profession.

Yet these are the same people stomping their feet because Obama's re-election team has the gall to pushback on smear campaigns? If anything, bloggers this week confirmed just how important a site like AttackWatch will be.