After Fox replayed "sting" videos showing alleged fraud at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, then-Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) introduced a measure to cut ACORN's government funding. Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) wrote a resolution honoring James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles for producing the ACORN videos, and 31 of his GOP colleagues signed on. It never received a vote.

When Beck suggested on his show in June that an Obama administration drilling decision helped liberal billionaire George Soros, two Republican Members repeated the claim using similar language on the House floor. Limbaugh called the BP oil spill fund set up last year a "slush fund," a term repeated by Members in television appearances and during floor debates.

With the addition of the tea party movement to the national conversation, the spin cycle has added a setting that could be labeled "outrage." Ideas that hosts use to gin up their base go from television to the House floor to the cardboard signs displayed by tea partyers on the National Mall.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow told Roll Call she believes the right "has long had a wider-reaching, more fully-formed messaging apparatus than the left."

"It may be that there's more rightwing media echo in their politics simply because the right's echo-chamber works better," Maddow said in an e-mail. "Comparatively speaking, messaging on the left is much more ad hoc, much less disciplined and repetitive, and much less wide-reaching."