There is an old saw, "you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."  There needs to be a new saw, "you can get the media to run with any story as long as it's anti-Obama."

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has an excellent blog on the topic on Huffington Post; Governor Palin's Crazed Health Care Rant: Blame the Washington Post. (emphasis mine)

As a basic rule, politicians will say anything they can get away with. If an effective politician thinks that he can call his opponent a drug-dealing, serial-murdering gangster, and have the charge taken seriously by the media, then he will do it, even if there is no reality whatsoever to the allegation. The reason that most politicians don't describe their opponents this way is because the media will denounce them as liars, who are unfit for responsible public office.

This basic truth must be kept in mind in understanding the health care debate. The debate has trailed off into loon tune land, and it's the media's fault.

Baker uses as an example Sarah Palin's outlandish fabrication, "Obama's plan would force her to stand in front of a "death panel" to argue for the life of her baby with Down Syndrome." 

The reason that Governor Palin thought she could make up stories about President Obama's death panels is that the media have treated all sorts of other absurd inventions about his health care plan with respect. At the most basic level, opponents have repeatedly said that President Obama's plan will lead to rationing of health care.

There is not an iota of truth to her statement (and she has since walked it back) yet the media are all over it like pigs in a blanket (with all respect to mini-hotdogs and crescent rolls).

The media have allowed the politicians to turn life into death and night into day when it comes to the health care debate because they decided that anything said against President Obama's plan should be treated with respect, no matter how absurd it might be.

The media have the job of informing the public. They have the time and the resources to know that when opponents of President Obama's plan talk about rationing, they are not telling the truth (i.e. they are lying). If the media just pass these assertions on to the public without comment, then they are giving them credibility.

Why are the media enabling these lies and deceptions?  We know why Fox News does it, they have a very specific right wing agenda.  Let's face it they make Radio Moscow look like amateurs in the propaganda wars.  But what about the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC.  Are they patsies for the right wing?  Their big pharma advertisers?  The corporate masters?  In search of a shrinking audience?  Or, are are they just plain stupid?  I vote for all of the above.

This is partially our fault.  Instead of demanding the truth from these people we look away in disgust.  I for one stopped watching cable news months ago.

Winston Churchill knew from where he spoke, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Baker sums it well:

And if the opponents of health reform think they can get away with one really big lie, then why shouldn't they start moving forward with even bigger ones. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with Governor Palin's death panel line. For this we owe our thanks to The Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media.

 If you can control the media you can control man's mind.  May God have mercy on our collective souls...