E. J. Dionne’s column is really lame water-carrying. He wants to suggest that all of Democrats’ problems are now over, and they were never that big a deal in the first place. “Worse from the Democrats’ viewpoint, Dorgan’s move fed exactly the story line that Republicans have been pushing hard: Combined with the retirements of Gov. Bill Ritter in Colorado and of a number of incumbent House Democrats, Dorgan’s decision looked to be part of a mass flight of vulnerable members of President Obama’s party from a grim political battlefield.”

As Jim notes over at the Campaign Spot, the “story line” the Republicans have been pushing hard is actually, you know, true. It didn’t just “look” like a mass flight. It is a mass flight. The Republicans are also pushing the story line that the deficit is too big and dogs lick themselves, neither of these claims are untrue because the GOP is pushing them. (Okay, the GOP isn’t pushing the dog thing, but why not add a little color?)

Instead of acknowledging reality, Dionne spins it all into a feel-good story. “But the retirement stories didn’t stop there, and the paradox is that by the time all the exiting was over on Wednesday, Democrats had reason if not to smile, then at least to give a sigh or two of relief.” Why? Because Chris Dodd announced he’s not running and that gave back Dems a seat. Gosh, it sounds like the worst is over for the Dems. Does anyone really believe that?

Jim goes on to explain how most of the explanations from Dorgan & Co. are bogus. They quit now because they know they’d get shellacked. He’s right, of course. But what bothers me more is the tendency of the press to let the retirees get away with their explanations. This, to be fair, is often a bipartisan phenomenon, though I’d argue Dems benefit from it more than Republicans.

Take Dorgan. In an NPR interview yesterday, he acted as if it was absurd he was resigning because he might lose. Rather, he says he wants to do other things. Paint by numbers, perhaps! Of course this isn’t true and no one believes it (including Dionne). But imagine if it were true. What a betrayal to the Democratic party that would be! The Dems are on the ropes, this “story line” is creating huge problems for the party. Obama will need every vote he can get moving forward. The party has waited decades for this moment. And Dorgan thinks this is the perfect time to pursue his love of butterfly collecting and cash in? What a jerk!

Of course, he’s not a jerk, he’s just a conventional politician, and he’s lying. I understand the desire to let politicians save face, but there’s a downside to the practice. First of all, it’s just dishonest. But it also amounts to taking sides in a political argument.

Taking retirement excuses at face-value isn’t the worst form of this sort of thing. The worst is when the press treats party-switchers as purely, or even mostly, principled. Sen. Jim Jeffords was sanctified when he joined the Dems (remember his stated reason for switching had something to do with Bush underfunding education). And Arlen Specter didn’t get nearly the roughing up he deserved. Then again, the roughing-up Specter deserves is a really high bar, involving all sorts of medieval clubs with pointy parts and straps and whatnot.

Regardless, it would be nice if reporters interviewing politicians had a standard rule of asking at least one follow-up question premised on the assumption that the obvious lie they were just told were in fact true.