Carly Fiorina keeps getting a giant pass from the media on her debate lies. She was immediately and widely crowned the winner of the debate without reference to those lies, and now that fact-checks have started appearing, they're still going easy on her. Fiorina vividly described scenes from an anti-Planned Parenthood video, only the scenes she described don't actually exist, as far as anyone can tell.
According to CNN, this fabrication was "true but misleading." Except for the part where it was false. The New York Times has a special take on it as well, headlined Carly Fiorina Said to Exaggerate Content of Planned Parenthood Video. Said to? And check out how the article kicks off:
Carly Fiorina set off some fact-check alarm bells on Wednesday when she dared Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama to watch undercover Planned Parenthood videos that show dead fetuses. While the authenticity of the videos remains a subject of debate, Mrs. Fiorina appears to have exaggerated their contents.
That second sentence is a masterpiece of slippery reporter-speak. "While the authenticity of the videos remains a subject of debate" is a really indirect translation to "the videos are at a minimum secretly filmed and deceptively edited, possibly worse." "Mrs. Fiorina appears to have exaggerated their claims" is a serious understatement at best.
Either Fiorina saw a completely different video than anyone else saw and she hasn't produced it for the world to see—a move that would not only let us evaluate the truth of her description but would match her stated desire to have everyone see how awful Planned Parenthood supposedly is—or she went well beyond the bounds of what's generally considered to be mere exaggeration. And don't forget that her "exaggeration" was about videos the authenticity of which the Times acknowledges is "a subject of debate." So Fiorina took a seriously questionable source, went way beyond what even it purported to show, and the Newspaper of Record rewards her with a "said to exaggerate" and "appears to have exaggerated."
Lying pays, if you're a Republican. If you're a Democrat, the Times will rush to regurgitate Republican lies about you.