There has been heavy media coverage of the picture of Obama-with-Hitler-mustache that a guy was displaying outside one of the townhall meetings the other day. The picture is at one of the links below. Several talking heads on TV blamed Republicans and conservative talk radio for motivating this ugly display (see third link below). One might be forgiven for thinking that they knew what they were talking about. One might have assumed, naively, that the network news people did some investigative reporting to determine the facts.
In fact, it would have been quite easy. All they had to do was to read the message on the bottom of the picture and go to the web site, which is a Lyndon LaRouche web site (first link below). But no, they simply parroted what their world view told them must be the case. This sloppiness and utter disregard for the facts have become more and more typical of liberal TV news programs.
As it happens, Lyndon LaRouche is closer to a communist than he is to a conservative. On the issue at hand, his web site actually advocates a "single payer" health care plan, just not Obama's.
The activist who was displaying the picture was later seen handing out literature for Democratic Representative John Dingell (see second link below). Thus either he was a Democrat plant or else he was a LaRouche supporter who also supported Dingell.
They call this particular kind of deception "watering the plants". The liberal media bought it willingly, and then spread it far and wide. We can expect to see much more of this now that Nancy Pelosi falsely accused conservative town hall participants of carrying swastikas.
Regarding TV news, it's been tempting to say "trust but verify". But now one can't trust it at all.
http://www.larouchepac.com/
http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/08/busted-obama-as-hitler-poster-was.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/08/12/nbc-cnn-msnbc-all-assign-communist-larouches-obama-hitler-poster-conse