Republican conservatives? "The avatar, the exemplar, the paradigm" of intellectual dishonesty.

Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s ostensible target is Mitt Romney, but his description of "intellectual dishonesty" as practiced by Republican conservatives is priceless.

Republican conservatives make intellectual dishonesty an art form

If you're a regular here, you've heard me rant from time to time about intellectual dishonesty. By this, I mean more than just your garden-variety lie. No, to be intellectually dishonest means to argue that which you know to be untrue and to substitute ideology for intellect to the degree that you'll do violence to language and logic rather than cross the party line.

Yes, we're all intellectually dishonest on occasion. But no one does it like Republican conservatives. They are to intellectual dishonesty what Michael Jordan was to basketball or The Temptations to harmony: the avatar, the exemplar, the paradigm. They have elevated it beyond hypocrisy and political expedience. They have made it ... art.