Black Panthers in Philly do... nothing

One of the latest non-story right-wing stories: voter intimidation in Philadelphia. Of course, whenever I hear stuff like this, I always try to read about it and find out how true it is. (It's amazing how many on the right just repeat and comment on it without actually taking five minutes to find out if it's valid or not.)

For the record, I think brutal tactics on either side is inexcusable and should never, ever be tolerated. And I'm not nearly naïve enough to believe that all Democrats are totally noble and innocent when it comes to shady, underhanded campaign tactics. Trust me, this will be a running theme this week, because a post-mortem analysis will reveal lots and lots of nefarious voter role purges and voter suppression techniques. We can and we must get this fixed.

Anyway, the story in the video above turned out to be... nothing, despite it being pimped by the likes of Drudge and Faux News. I know this is a complete and total pipe dream, but I would really love to see the day that the networks would fact check first, speculate later never and report responsibly.

My saying the story was "nothing" isn't just speculation on my part. To wit:

Lovida Coleman from the McCain campaign was on Fox 29 News during the Fox Five O'Clock News and said, "I haven't seen any intimidation." The district attorney's office said that this incident was a "non-story."

Whoops - another non-story stirred up intentionally by the hysterical and increasingly irrational right-wing media in the face of certain and decisive defeat tonight, at least in Congress, and very likely for the presidency. Great reporting though, FNC - people just speculating and talking about a whole bunch of What-Ifs on the air for a few minutes. Why not just play Michael Jackon's Thriller or the theme music from the Twilight Zone?