Fox News: If President Obama gets his way, the special voting rights of some of America’s finest will be eliminated. The campaign is suing to keep some of the members of the military from having extra time to cast their ballots in one key battleground state.

best payday loans

The first sentence is a lie. The lawsuit is not about restricting the rights of America’s armed forces to vote, or taking away their extra time to vote. It’s about expanding that extra time to the civilian population. David Axelrod explains this to Chris Wallace:

Chris Wallace: Your campaign is suing the state of Ohio for giving members of the military extra time to vote early, until the Monday before an election, while other voters are going to have only until Friday. You don’t think that members of the military who are serving this country deserve special consideration…

David Axelrod: I absolutely do, and he way you stated it, and the way, frankly Governor Romney has stated it, is completely false and misleading. What that lawsuit calls for is not to deprive the military of the right to vote on the final weekend of the campaign. Of course they should have that right. What the suit is about is about whether the rest of Ohio should have that same right.

It’s interesting to observe how carefully Wallace phrases that first comment. If you interpret it literally, he’s expressing outrage over the fact that the military is not being given “special consideration” in voting — for the sheer sake of “special consideration.” That is, it’s not that the service men or women will be denied the extra time. It’s that the service men or women will be given that extra time along with a lot of grubby civilians. Our poor military folk just won’t feel as special!

But of course, Wallace frames the lawsuit as if it were an attack on the military enjoying that extra time.

I often wonder what goes through the minds of people like Wallace when they do this kind of thing. How do they justify such blatant lies? Do they deceive themselves into thinking they’re fibbing in the service of a greater truth — that truth being that some groups (like the predominantly conservative military vote) deserve greater access to the ballot that other groups (like the less predictably right wing civilian popuation?)