Last week, I wrote about ThinkProgress‘s wild exaggeration about the number of states contemplating anti-immigrant legislation in the wake of the draconian new Arizona law.

This morning, TPMMuckraker picks up the story — with “a major hat tip to ThinkProgress” — and rebroadcasts it, with an update. ThinkProgress‘s seven states are now up to ten. The official TPMMuckraker description of their list — by Zachary Roth, who wrote the post — is: “At least 10 other states — many inspired by Arizona — are talking about enacting similarly draconian legislation.”

And the list includes the same wild exaggerations that were contained in Andrea Nill‘s ThinkProgress post:

• Colorado: Scott McInnis, the presumptive GOP nominee for governor, said this week that if elected, he’d try to pass something “very similar” to Arizona’s bill.

• Georgia: Nathan Deal, a former congressman and GOP gubernatorial candidate, also has said he intends to propose similar legislation to Arizona’s.

• Maryland: A Republican state legislator has said he plans to send a survey to state lawmakers and gubernatorial candidates to get them on the record as to whether they support Arizona’s approach.
[...]
• Ohio: Two Republicans — one a state legislator, the other a county sheriff — sent a letter recently to Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, asking him to work “to assure legislation is passed that will mirror” Arizona’s. Strickland has been non-committal.

By what stretch of the imagination can any of these instances be described as the state talking about enacting the legislation? Is there a sudden outbreak of reading comprehension disease among liberal blogs?

Josh Marshall, plugging the post on the TPM home page went with “ten other states are poised to pass or debating Arizona-style immigration laws.”

Really, Josh? When a gubernatorial candidate in Colorado says he intends to propose similar legislation to Arizona’s (if he wins the primary, and is then elected), that means Colorado is “poised to pass or debating” that legislation?

To borrow a phrase from Keith Olbermann: “Have you no shame, sir?” Or sense, for that matter. (Funny, how Olbermann has single-handedly turned “sir” into an insult word in our political lexicon.)