GOP Senator Mike Pence repeatedly, blatantly lies on national TV

Republican Senator Mike Pence (IN), chair of the House Republican Caucus, went on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday to talk against the Health Care bill. He told Mitchell that the bill would include $1 trillion in new taxes, most of which would fall squarely on the heads of small business. This is a number with no basis in fact. The CBO has put it at $540 billion. Still a significant sum, but almost half of what Pence is claiming.

Mitchell, in a roundabout way, called him on the number. Pence shrugged it off and kept on going.

As a reward for lying, MSNBC invited him back on the next day, where he repeated the lie.

Host Carlos Watson immediately jumped in. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Watson interjected, "unless you're looking at different data than I'm looking at, I don't remember there being a trillion dollars in new taxes." Pence said he was "rounding up," and then later revised his figure to $800 billion. But Watson wouldn't budge, and neither would Pence:

WATSON: I'm very clear that we are not talking about anywhere close to a trillion or $800 billion in new taxes...so if you've got data from the CBO that suggests that some of the proposals on the table...represent that much in new taxes then that's significant new information. Where are you getting that?

PENCE: Well I don't think that's significant new information I think the estimates we've all been working with from the CBO are in the -- I'm trying to remember -- it's about the $800 billion range in the estimated cost of new taxes.

Mike Pence decided to "round up" (his words) from $540 billion to $800 billion, then go up to one trillion because he felt like it.

This is a guy House Republicans are trusting with anything? It recalls this essay from Matt Yglesias at thinkProgress where he describes Pence as:

And I can tell you this about Mike Pence: he has no idea what he’s talking about. The man is a fool, who deserves to be laughed at.

If cable news networks were run by people with any conscience, any sense of obligation or ethics, they would be treating (Pence) as the joke he is. But of course they aren’t run by people with any conscience or any sense of ethics, so it’s all just treated as another subject for debate.

So is Pence a liar, or just an idiot of immense proportions? Either way, he shouldn't be put out front by the GOP. And even if the GOP is so morally bankrupt as to put him out there, the cable news networks should take some responsibility to put on people of substance, those who won't maliciously repeat debunked lies.