Last week, Blitzer hosted far-left Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) on “The Situation Room.” Virginia is one of the Democrat-controlled states suing to stop President Donald Trump’s March executive order imposing new guardrails on the currently unsecure remote voting procedures. Spanberger accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate voters into staying home; this is apparently one of those focus-group spawned talking points: I started hearing it repeatedly on CNN and MSNOW a few days ago.

“The continued attacks that we’re seeing from the Trump administration is really just an effort to get people fearful, to get people to stay home, and, in many cases, to eliminate what is a valid, safe, secure way for people to be able to have their voices heard and to vote,” she said.

Lies. If there is no way to know who filled out the ballot, it is neither valid nor safe. If the chain of custody cannot be guaranteed, it is not secure. But then Spanberger had Virginian’s vote on a referendum that said eliminating Republican districts in her “purple” state would “restore fairness” to upcoming elections. A responsible, ethical, non-partisan host would have pointed out that little detail.

Instead, Wolf said, “And in Virginia, you have a lot of military personnel who totally rely on mail-in ballots if they want to be able to express their opinions!”

“That’s true,” Spanberger replied, ponging Wolf’s dishonest ping. “It’s members of the military service, of our diplomatic service, intelligence services, people serving overseas in service to our country who get their ballots mailed to them at the various postings throughout the world.”

Military and overseas voters remain protected under UOCAVA, and the new Postal Service rules expressly exempt their absentee ballots. Both Spanberger and Blitzer had lots of time to check on the facts; in Blitzer’s case, he is professionally obligated to do so before he misinforms millions of people. Why keep an always enervated, 78-year-old broadcast journalist around if he can’t be trusted to display the care and integrity of an old hand? As for Spanberger, well, she has proven repeatedly that she is willing to lie to the public to advance her progressive agenda. That’s why objectivity and independence is so important for anyone interviewing her on national TV.

This week, Blitzer had to issue a “quick note of clarification”:

“We discussed legal challenges to the Trump administration’s directives for the Postal Service on mail-in voting. A comment I made suggested that U.S. military and overseas voters’ ballots would be impacted by these directives. I want to be clear right now: Those ballots are exempt from the Postal Service’s new rules implementing the president’s March executive order.”

PJ Media’s Matt Margolis writes that a “quick note of clarification” on CNN means “we got caught.”

I know, I know: Wolf especially, being a dim bulb, can evoke Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” However, Blitzer, and CNN, and the whole Axis news media, is more properly judged by the axiom of “The Dishonest Waiter.” (ARGH! I need to add that to the Ethics Alarms Glossary!). In the movie “Denial,” Tom Wilkinson as Barrister Richard Rampton explains in a trial why a Holocaust denying historian claim that he just made an “honest mistake”strains credulity:

“He is, to use an analogy, like the waiter who always gives the wrong change. If he is honest, we may expect sometimes his mistakes to favor the customers, sometimes himself. But [he] is the dishonest waiter. All his mistakes work in his favor.”

If anyone can cite a single instance when anyone on CNN misstated facts in a way that made President Trump, Republicans or their policies seem better or more successful than they were, I’d love to know about it.