Both Siderism Uber Alles

These days one cannot swing a dead White House Communications Director without hitting a Republican goon on the teevee machine telling great big whoppers about how the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land.  Even John McMaverick --  The Greatest Republican Who Ever Walked The Earth  -- cannot pry his mouth open without lying flagrantly and ridiculously about what actually happened with the Affordable Care Act (from The New York Times):

The Affordable Care Act “was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote,” Mr. McCain said, and Republicans must not make the same mistake.

And so let us take a moment to discuss the two reasons why the "rammed through Congress by Democrats" lie has become so ubiquitous that it now comes instantly to the lips of every Republican in Christendom.

First, as Joan Walsh pointed out in Salon years ago, this has been the GOP's cardinal talking point about the ACA (and their alibi for every crime again democracy) for a long, long time.  

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And this is despite the fact that, at the time he was rolling out the GOP's obstruct-everything-at-any-cost strategy, Mitch McConnell told The New York Times that obstructing everything at any cost was the plan.

“It was absolutely critical that everybody be together because if the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out,” Mr. McConnell said about the health legislation in an interview, suggesting that even minimal Republican support could sway the public. “It’s either bipartisan or it isn’t.”

In fact, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that without their absolute, party-line fealty to the "Kenyan Usurper And Congressional Democrats Ram Through The 'Kill Your Sainted White Grandmother' Bill" bullshit to prop them up, the Republican Party would have completely collapsed long before they nominated and elected President Stupid.

But the second reason that the "rammed through Congress by Democrats" lie remains virtually unkillable is because, for the most part, the Beltway media absolutely will not challenge Republicans when they trot it out.  

Because they can't challenge it.

Because it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that without their absolute, down-the-line fealty to Big Lie of "Both Sides Do It", the Beltway media would have collapsed years ago.  Which means, when covering the biggest domestic policy battle in a generation -- the fight over health care for the American people -- the Beltway media simply will not allow the accepted historical narrative to become that , even though it cost many of them their jobs, Democrats managed to overcome the hysterical and unrelentingly unified opposition of the Republican party to provide millions of Americans with affordable health insurance.

The Beltway media must take this simple story of Good Guys versus Vicious, Racist Assholes and butcher it into a "process" story about the machinations of Congress.

And then they must lie about about that process by helping the Republican party once again rewrite history so that the Left was somehow just as awful as the Right.