Mike Malloy, Air America's evening slot radio host,аmarked the first anniversary of the radical radio station by getting a major story wrong. Malloy is convinced that America is a fascist state and every night he stands vigil, hyperventilating into his microphone, listening for the sound of jackboots in the corridor.

Wednesday night, Malloy reported that the Michigan legislature had passed a bill that would enable health care providers to refuse to perform a medical service if doing so was contrary to their religious convictions. Or as Malloy put it, 'There is a law working its way through the Michigan legislature if doctors or other health care providers cannot be disciplined or sue if they refuse to treat gay patients....'* Malloy claimed that Michigan Catholics proposed the bill 'to kill and destroy gay people.'

If you had a nationally broadcast radio show, and you got a hot tip like this from a blog,аwouldn't you fact—check the story by looking up the details yourself?

Sure you would, because a) you wouldn't want to make an idiot of yourself by reporting a story without confirmation, and b) you would want additional details.

But not Mike Malloy. He came out swinging Wednesday night, making the startlingly original observation that the Republicans were like Nazis, adding that 'Republicans want to control everything..... including how you worship a deity and if you don't worship one, they'll kill you.'а

But Malloy had to rewind himself on Thursday night's show, acknowledging that his hot news tip was a year oldаand the proposed legislation is stalled in a Senate committee:

'The story got re—released by a couple of websites around the internet and a lot of us thought they were referring to the current session of the general assembly.... The House did pass it a year ago but it was stopped in the Senate.'

We await Al Franken's denunciation of Mike Malloy as a big fat liar.

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* (for a more even—handed discussion of the proposed legislation, try this blog)

The Michigan Catholic Conference (pdf), discuss the legislation in this press release:аа

'In recent years, adversarial campaigns, lawsuits and public relations events have been launched to force Catholic health care providers to offer services that conflict with Catholic moral teaching....'

Lona Manning observes the American scene from Canada.