You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to “debunk” claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president’s [at the time Kennedy] program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn’t adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of “conservative claims” to weigh, horse-race style against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as “extremist” — out of bounds.
Rick Perlstein
In America, Crazy is a Pre-existing Condition
The Washington Post (August 16, 2009)

Due to pre-existing appointments on my schedule, I had to delay posting the President’s weekly which essentially is debunking the rants of the “death eaters” –and yes they remind me of the Harry Potter characters — who appear to insist on sucking the life, soul, and sanity out of common sense in the health care debate. So, sigh! With the media giving them the microphone because a horse race is more important to them than the truth, the President has to put in some extra time and say “it ain’t so.”