The anatomy of a right-wing smear is textbook at this point: How fortunate conservatives are to have journalists that are so talented at their craft they can listen to a statement and hear what they want to hear, even if it’s not there at all.

While Campus Progress is pleased that the right-wingers have taken an interest in our National Student Conference, we're a bit confused how they're pushing a complete lie that one of our guests, CNN pundit Paul Begala, claimed that "Republican want to kill" progressives.

These things spread faster than you can say "Durbin," but it appears the accusation first came from CNSNews.com's Jered Ede, who wrote the following:

Young liberals this week flocked to the nation's capital to hear, among other things, liberal television pundit and Democrat political strategist Paul Begala accuse Republicans of wanting to kill him and his children to preserve tax cuts for the rich.

(snip)

Begala's presence on the panel created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a p***-poor job of defending" the U.S.

Republicans, he said, "want to kill us."

Which would definitely be an outrageous statement, had Begala actually said that. He didn't. But that didn’t stop first the Drudge Report and then today the Washington Times from repeating this claim. Today, the capital’s own Unification rag reports flatly, "Democratic strategist Paul Begala says Republicans want to kill him and his children to preserve tax cuts for the rich.”

The video and audio of the event is up on our site in its entirety. (The segment of interest begins at about 50:40.) Or, if you'd prefer, you can listen to the audio clip in question here, which is transcribed below:

BEGALA: ...we sit back and allow George W. Bush and our Republican friends to pull out 9/11 like a cheap handgun in a bar fight. Okay? "9/11." There's a drought in the Midwest. "9/11." The deficit's up. "9/11" You know? But, I think we need to fight them on that. I think, frankly they did a piss-poor job of defending us, and their strategy was always "we'll fight them over there so we don't fight them here." Well guess what, bin Laden didn't get the memo. He wants to fight us here as well as we saw in London last week. And so, the- their theory is, "we can't really do everything to protect our country because we have to cut taxes for the rich." And so, it... they want to kill us- particularly this city and New York and some other places. I was driving past the pentagon when that plane hit. I had friends on that plane, this is deadly serious to me- they want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit. You know, that is bullshit national defense and we should say that.

Sure, Begala could have been more precise in dealing with these pronouns. But save for referencing Bush's "friends" Begala doesn't say "Republicans," nor does he say "terrorists." We're assuming this is because most people with comprehension above a fourth-grade level would realize that Begala was referring to terrorists as the "they" who want to kill us.

So which is it: Do these right-wing journalists have the comprehension skills of elementary-schoolers, or are they lying on purpose?