Gingrich lies to TODAY Show audience, gets away with it

Newt Gingrich on The TODAY Show:

Do you really want to have 16,000 more IRS agents as a brand new health police?

As a matter of fact, no we don't. And that's why there is absolutely nothing in the health care bill that would do what Gingrich claims. His attack is verifiably false.

The health care bill does not give IRS employees any power to enforce the responsibility mandate -- there will be no audits, no IRS agents, not even any penalties. Nobody will be showing up at anybody's door. The only new thing the IRS will do is process tax credits for people who are receiving health insurance subsidies. And that won't require 16,000 new employees.

So what were the first words out of Matt Lauer's mouth in response to Gingrich's lie?

LAUER: Right.

And then?

LAUER: But we're moving into midterm elections, and if you look at the recent polls, everybody says it's jobs and it's the economy. So are they gonna' want want to talk about rolling back, turning back the clock on health care reform? Or do they want Republicans and Democrats to talk about jobs and the economy?

Sigh. I doubt Matt Lauer knowingly let Gingrich get away with a lie. Instead, he probably simply didn't know that Newt was lying. I guess that's to be expected. Republicans lie about so much stuff that it is virtually impossible to tell if they are telling the truth at any given moment unless you follow the issues fairly closely.

The result? It's easy for GOPers like Gingrich to get away with telling falsehoods. And so we get countless examples like we saw this morning on The TODAY Show: Republicans lying with impunity.