Frontrunner-of-the-moment Rick Perry is getting a lot of press for his performance at the recent Republican debate--especially because he's standing by his belief that Social Security is a "monstrous lie" and a Ponzi scheme, and that climate change is an untested theory advanced by corrupt, discredited scientists.

You can call such ideas a lot of things. "False" or "untrue," for example, would work. But a lot of reporters characterized Perry's performance in positive terms. In today's New York Times (9/9/11), Michael Shear writes that Perry

made clear in his first national appearance that he would campaign as an unabashed Southern conservative who is unafraid to speak bluntly, would double-down on controversial statements and planned to shrug off the concerns of the Republican establishment.

Shear later added that "Perry did not back down Wednesday night from his assertion that Social Security was a failure, even in the face of direct criticism by Mr. Romney."

"Unabashed," "unafraid," not backing down--these are all more or less positive descriptions.

Likewise, on NBC Nightly News (9/8/11), Andrea Mitchell said: "Perry proved he could throw a punch and take one. And he was unapologetic about attacking Social Security as a monstrous lie."

So he's not only a fearlessly blunt speaker, he's also an unapologetic punch-thrower. This is the kind of coverage the Perry campaign would probably pay for. Yes, there are pieces here and there that point out that, you know, Social Security isn't actually a massive scam. On the other hand, Washington Post liberal Ruth Marcus writes today (9/9/11): "On the substance, Perry’s point about Social Security-as-Ponzi scheme has some grounding in reality." She gets around to criticizing him, but that's a lot of ground to cede to a falsehood.

As Greg Marx notes at CJR,  the media designation of certain pieces as "factchecks" is strange because one might logically conclude that run-of-the-mill articles don't dwell on checking the facts of politicians (a conclusion that would largely be a correct one). He points to a CBS News piece on Perry and Social Security that quotes other Republicans disagreeing with his stance. Readers are apparently being asked to believe either Karl Rove or Rick Perry on the issue. That's a lot to ask of anyone.

As you may have heard, the White House-backed deficit commission failed to gain a supermajority vote to support a proposal from co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Their suggestions came under sharp criticism from liberal and progressive critics.

But the December 3 broadcast of the PBS NewsHour, a short report on that failure was tilted heavily in favor of supporters of the plan. Quoted in the piece were Bowles, Simpson and their ally Sen. Kent Conrad. Former SEIU chief Andy Stern, who voted against the plan, was the only no vote who was heard from.

On December 1, the NewsHour had interviewed Bowles and Simpson as they continued to make their pitch for their plan. (When asked how he would respond to critics who say the deficit panic is mostly hype, and that other problems are more pressing, Simpson said: " I will tell them to kind of sober up, and the fact that the tectonic plate has shifted in America.").

And the December 3 broadcast included a discussion with conservative David Brooks--who supports the Bowles/Simpson plan--paired with "liberal" Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, who also supports it, praising it for being an "adult" approach to the problem.

If only the debt commission had considered opening the voting to the media--they would have received near-unanimous support.

Regular NewsHour left/right panelists Mark Shields and David Brooks were off on April 18. Sitting in on the right was former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. In the liberal chair was Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who is not exactly known for her strong progressive views.

And in fact, Marcus established that fact right from the start on the debate over torture, showing (once again) that a good TV leftist is usually not, well, a leftist:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ruth, to you first. The release of these Bush administration-era interrogation memos and, simultaneously, the decision not to prosecute the CIA agents who carried them out--right move, wrong move by this administration?

RUTH MARCUS, Washington Post: Right move on both, and a very brave move on both. The president opened himself up, as he knew he would, to criticism from the right, as in the Wall Street Journal op-ed that was referenced in the previous piece, that by disclosing this he was making America weaker.

And he opened himself up to a firestorm of criticism from the left that he was--I know actually how much criticism you can get for this, because I wrote a few months ago that I didn't think these folks should be prosecuted, and I was called a torture-enabler. And I don't think of myself that way.

And so the left is very unhappy about the failure of prosecutions. They're latching onto this hope that maybe some of the higher-ups will be prosecuted, and I honestly do not think that that's going to happen.

In a world where torturers don't think of themselves as torturers, it's not surprising that torture-enablers don't think of themselves as torture-enablers. But what else are you supposed to call people who argue that laws against torture shouldn't be enforced?