When you tell the truth, you don't have to worry about keeping your stories straight. Words to live by, but they come too late for the gals from Outfoxed.

It didn't take long. Just a half hour after George Bush finished his acceptance speech, the newshounds (another fine product from the Outfoxed syndicate) rushed to slam Fox News:

After Bush's RNC speech ended tonight (September 2, 2004) at 11:11 p.m. ET (so viewers tuning in at the top of the hour for news or weather, etc., saw at least eleven minutes of it, lest they hadn't been watching), Fox News began a round table discussion with Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol and Brit Hume. During the Democratic National Convention, immediately after John Kerry (or anyone else) ended a speech which Fox carried for any length, Fox News had at the ready, a very, very high level Republican (think Ed Gillespie, Andy Card) to refute whatever was said. Tonight, it's the usual Fox talking heads...Fair and balanced huh?

Another stinging indictment from the watchdogs of accuracy. But there's one slight problem--it's a lie. Newshound "Melanie" apparently didn't bother to read their own site's posts about the coverage of Kerry's acceptance speech:

Beginning at 11:02pm (EDT), the regular Fox panel began critiquing the speech, with intermittent brief segments from reporters on the floor of the convention (Michael Barone, Carl Cameron, Martha MacCallum, Major Garrett)....Is it that the A-list people refuse to appear on Fox? Or does Fox largely invite only guests who will tell viewers what Fox wants them to hear? When they can’t find “safe” guests, they stick with their own staff, who will obviously toe the line--or else.

So a month ago newshound "Nancy" criticized Fox for not bringing in any guests to critique Kerry's speech. But today "Melanie" says the exact opposite. How odd. How can this be? She was so sure that Ed Gillespie came on. Well it turns out he did, only it wasn't on Fox:

CNN covered the post-Kerry speech as expected by interviewing Ed Gillespie, RNC Chairman, at about 11:03, and he responded as expected.

Oops, another contradiction.

What Nancy wrote a month ago directly contradicts Melanie's latest attempt at media analysis. Ain't no way around it; one of them is lying. But perhaps Melanie's response to me clears it all up:

• JD, thank you so much for your many comments to my posts. Your guidance in helping me construct them has been most helpful. Please continue to add your comments so I'll thus continue to refine my writing skills. Given that those you defend are titans of honor like Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Fox News, I hope you might soon forgive my occasional error.

Why thank you, Melanie. I'm thinking that somewhere in there is an admission that your article was, as I said, untrue. I assume you will correct me if I'm wrong and you still insist that you are correct and I (and Nancy) are wrong. I'm not sure how Delay, Cheney, and Bush got in there, but at least you got the part about Fox News right. Baby steps.