The mainstream media’s most insidious and deceptive trick is to present something outrageously false using a matter-of-fact tone and approach. The dark art of glossing over the truth as though the falsehood being spread is simply established fact is a ploy propagandists have used since time began.

NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower slipped a matter-of-fact WHOPPER into the top story of today’s “First Read.” The whopper is so subtle and devious I almost missed it.

See if you can catch it:

COLUMBUS, OH — The best — and most meaningful — statewide race of 2011 wasn’t in West Virginia (where Democrats narrowly won the gubernatorial contest). Or in Louisiana (where Gov. Bobby Jindal cruised to re-election). And it won’t be in Kentucky (where Democrats are poised for a blowout gubernatorial win). Or in Mississippi (where Republicans are expected to hold the governor’s mansion). Rather, the 2011 race with the biggest political implications is taking place here in the Buckeye State, where voters two weeks from today will decide the fate of Gov. John Kasich’s (R) law curbing collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers. It will test, once again, organized labor’s strength in the Midwest (after its mixed results in Wisconsin). It will gauge Kasich’s popularity (or unpopularity). It will serve as a trial run of sorts for next year’s presidential contest in this traditional battleground state. And it’s the same fight we’ve seen across the country — about how governments balance their budgets and about the role of the government worker.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the usual-usual bias at work here, where you have leftists disguised as objective journalists gaming the system by telling us which upcoming election is “the most important” and will be a “trial run for next year’s presidential race.” Obviously, what they’re doing here is what the MSM always does — laying the groundwork to craft a narrative in advance. Their hope is that the left will prevail (in this case, that the immoral practice of collective bargaining will be saved) so they can then run around MSNBC and NBC spinning this into a victory for Obama. But like I said, that’s the usual-usual coming from the MSM these days, especially NBC and Chuck Todd.

No, what I’m talking about is “First Read”‘s attempt to memory-hole the absolute beating Big Labor took in Wisconsin with this stinking load of matter-of-fact crap:


It will test, once again, organized labor’s strength in the Midwest (after its mixed results in Wisconsin).

Let me assure you that the results for Big Labor in Wisconsin were nothing close to “mixed.” In a series of elections and court decisions — in a state that went for Obama by a whopping 14 points — Big Labor enjoyed a perfect rate of failure.

Here’s a list of of what “First Read” spins into “mixed results”:

That is a 100% failure rate, and yet “First Read” describes those results as “mixed.” As we already know, though, the truth doesn’t matter to NBC News. All they’re interested in is crafting narratives that aid and abet the left, which means they will choose which elections are important and they will scrub away the inconvenient history of Wisconsin that might demoralize Big Labor’s turnout in Ohio.

Keep in mind, this sort of corrupt spin only begins on “First Read.” From there, it bleeds into everything else NBC-related. That’s the whole idea of “First Read,” to set the narratives in place before the news cycle begins.

NBC wants us to forget that Big Labor got its ass handed to them time and again in a state Obama won by 14 full points, because that’s horrible news for Their Precious One. And the sooner we forget such things, the sooner Chuck Todd can make Ohio “important” and start the Obama and Big Labor on the Rise! narrative.

Today, The Big Lie is almost always told in an offhand, matter-of-fact way. And if the guy doing the telling sports an everyman goatee, that’s all the better.