Washington Post veteran writer doesn't read the Washington Post ... or he's a liar

After reading Eugene Robinson's latest op-ed claiming that the Romney campaign is lying about the Obama record on spending, all I can conclude is that the writer doesn't read the newspaper where he's worked for for three decades and is surely handsomely paid.

Or, he's intentionally being dishonest about the Romney record. But that just sounds crazy, right? Right?

To catch up, first read Becket's take-down of the White House's claims of a history of "fiscal restraint." Turns out the administration's claims are based on a provably (and proven) false piece from known Obama sycophant Rex Nutting at MarketWatch.

Now, after composing yourself following the exposure of the Obama administration's lies about it's spending habits, go read Robinson's nonsense about Romney's and the GOP's "lies" about Obama's spending record. From Robinson's open:

There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.

Every political campaign exaggerates and dissembles. This practice may not be admirable — it’s surely one reason so many Americans are disenchanted with politics — but it’s something we’ve all come to expect. Candidates claim the right to make any boast or accusation as long as there’s a kernel of veracity in there somewhere.

Even by this lax standard, Romney too often fails. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies. Quite a bit.

“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” Romney claims on his campaign Web site. This is utterly false. The truth is that spending has slowed markedly under Obama.

An analysis published last week by MarketWatch, a financial news Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co., compared the yearly growth of federal spending under presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Citing figures from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, MarketWatch concluded that “there has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”

Robinson went on to back up his use of the MarketWatch lie by saying:

The MarketWatch analysis was re-analyzed by the nonpartisan watchdogs at Politifact who found it “Mostly True” — adding the qualifier because some of the restraint in spending under Obama “was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans.” Duly noted, and if Romney wants to claim credit for the GOP, he’s free to do so. But he’s not free to say that “federal spending has accelerated” under Obama, because any way you look at it, that’s a lie.

The kicker, of course, is that Robinson totally ignored his own paper's analysis (and the AP's and Jake Tapper's) of the MarketWatch piece that gave Nutting's report this grade:

An even bigger question is: What the heck is wrong with the WaPo editors? How can a garbage piece like Robinson's see the light of day?

Ed Morrissey wants to know, too:

But it’s the complete disregard for the Post’s own analysis that is so stunning in the decision to publish Robinson’s column.  Robinson does mention one fact checker, but it’s not Kessler, who dismantled MarketWatch’s analysis; it’s from PolitiFact, which has been roundly criticized for its “Mostly True” score on this point. It’s as if Kessler doesn’t exist at all at the Washington Post, which Kessler himself must find either amusing or somewhat disturbing this morning.

In that light, Robinson’s column looks like an exercise in projection.  Robinson calls Romney a liar, and then offers this amusing accusation as well:

[Romney] seems to believe voters are too dumb to discover what the facts really are — or too jaded to care.

On both counts, I disagree.

Maybe Romney thinks that certain columnists are too dumb to discover what the facts really are on their own, or are too partisan to care.  On both counts, at least in regard to Robinson, Romney would be correct in thinking so.  It’s at least the most glaring example of projection in the media in quite some time.

The larger question remains, though: do Washington Post editors read their own newspaper?  If so, how did they approve a column with claims which their own analyst had already proven false?

Robinson's either a liar or an ignoramus -- neither of which should be permissible at the Washington Post.