This is why politicians lie, lie and lie again

Here's an illustrative quote:

Palin has come under fire in recent days for misleadingly saying she told Congress "thanks but no thanks," refusing an earmark for a bridge to a sparsely inhabited island in her home state. Independent groups and media fact-checkers have said Palin advocated for the federal earmark before opposing it, only ended after Congress had essentially killed it, and kept the $223 million for the appropriation after the project was killed.

Weak-sauce as objectivity--what a notion. Can't you tell your readers what happened, instead of this "but others say." And by the way--aren't you media fact-checkers. Isn't that your job? What politicians have long figured is that whole swaths of the press corps are so lazy and, frankly, just soft that their idea of journalism as little more than On The Other Hand-ism, as the art of dueling press releases. It all makes you long for the day when journalism still was blue-collar job.

UPDATE: Via a commenter below. Perfect illustration of the problem. Is John King Roberts a journalist or some manner of flack-facilitator? I demand actual proof--not just a puffed-up job title.