“Rachel Maddow at Most Shameless: Claims GOP Congressman ‘Received Advance Notice’ of Oklahoma City Bombing,” Jack Coleman writes at Newsbusters:

“Lean Forward,” MSNBC’s new slogan suggests. The better to stick a shiv in your opponent’s back.

Ethics-averse Rachel Maddow did exactly that on her MSNBC show last night. After disparaging Republican candidates for their gall in criticizing reckless federal spending and government-controlled health care, Maddow made this jaw-dropper of a claim –

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MADDOW: Yes, this has happened to a smaller degree before. In 1994, in the first mid-term election after the last Democratic president was elected, we got a slate of candidates that included Helen Chenoweth of Idaho and Steve Stockman of Texas. These two were so close to the militia movement in this country that Mr. Stockman actually received advance notice that the Oklahoma City bombing was going to happen.

… and by that, Maddow implies, Stockman consigned 168 innocent people to death. Except that Stockman received no such prior, uh, “notice” (note how Maddow did not say “warning”) , which explains why Maddow neglected to attribute this outlandish assertion to a source, any source.

And as Coleman adds, “A perfunctory search through Google quickly reveals evidence refuting Maddow’s claim.”
Our suggestion for MSNBC’s next advertising slogan appears at the top of the post; needless to say, Maddow’s Oklahoma trutherism will be but one in a barrage of increasingly crazed attacks from the legacy media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) as November nears.

As far as negative campaigning from actual candidates (as opposed to their media surrogates) how bad has it gotten? So bad that even Howard Kurtz has noticed.

Update: “Just a few months ago, Maddow herself said Stockman received the fax after the bombing.”

Update: For our earlier MSNBC ad campaign parodies, click here and here. The HuffPo has the original version of the ad up above, and Fox has also started having some fun with General Electric’s island of misfit pundits.