Eric Boehlert: "Chaos," "civil war"! -- the press throws a Dems in Disarray party

[babylonsister]

https://pressrun.media/p/chaos-civil-war-the-press-throws

“Chaos,” "civil war"! — the press throws a Dems in Disarray party
Calm down
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


Clutching their pearls with extra force in recent days, the Beltway media have cranked up the drama, announcing that a missed deadline to vote on the massive infrastructure bill now before Congress represented a defining calamity for the Biden White House. It also marks the ongoing obsession with process journalism, which Beltway reporters love, as they focus on the theatrics of lawmaking at the expense of the substance.

The hyperventilating was widespread. “Chaos” had erupted among “feuding” and “warring factions” of the Democratic Party, and the no-vote last week represented a “humiliating blow to Mr. Biden and Democrats,” the New York Times shrieked. A “civil war” has engulfed the party, the New Yorker announced, which was especially lazy and misguided since there are exactly two Democratic senators standing in the way of Biden, and 48 who support him on infrastructure.

snip//

By obsessing over the drama of the negotiations and reporting breathlessly on the jockeying that’s going on, the press all but ignores the contents of the pending legislation; contents which are truly extraordinary, as Biden works to expand what infrastructure means in America. The bill is all about investing in human welfare.

It proposes to spend $350 billion a year for a decade on initiatives like universal pre-K, free community college tuition, extended child tax credit, Medicare expansion, paid leave, and huge investments in reducing carbon emissions.

According to a recent Politico-Harvard poll, when showed a list of provisions that might be included in the infrastructure and social spending packages now before Congress, most voters picked allowing the government to directly negotiate drug prices with manufacturers as being the most important. That was followed by “increased federal spending to prepare for pandemics, more resources for long-term and home-based care and expanding Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing care.”

But most news consumers have no idea those provisions are part of the negotiated legislation, since there’s virtually no coverage of the contents.

And that’s a win for the GOP.

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[greenjar_01]

2. There's an old saying in soccer

If you don't want the other team to celebrate, don't let them score.

Yes, yes, I guess the press isn't supposed to be the "other team," but seriously, the Dems have made their own bed on this one.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. American corporate media is owned by the Uber wealthy...what content do u think they will

push and which they will put on a shelf?

Time, long past due, to break up the big networks monopoly of 3 as they are only leasing the airwaves that we the people, own.

Start there.

Information is badly needed, misinformation is on a rampage.

[doc03]

4. I don't think it is the news media is not focusing

on what is in the bill. All the Democrats are talking is how
many trillion it is. It's another case of poor messaging from Democrats and letting the Republicans define the program. From what I see there is a lot of room to negotiate. I define infrastructure as a highway, bridge
or airport. What I read most of this is just giving away money. Maybe that is why Democrats just want to talk about the cost instead?
I am more with Joe Manchin than most on DU I guess. But I don't want it all killed like some with the attitude that it's either my way or the highway.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

6. Democrats have defined the program in excruciating detail. The mass media reports on internal

differences, relatively minor and expected, to stir the pot.

Meanwhile Republicans have succumbed to a violent cult political philosophy, homogenous in its unity…no differences to report on, so no conflict to stir up the pot.

[doc03]

8. Until recently all I have heard is bickering about the

price tag.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

9. Sir, bickering is part of being a political family, never any part of a cult like the other party.

[marble falls]

10. 'Cause cults don't bicker? I did not know that. Learn something new every day.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. The self-same media did the same thing during the ACA sausage-making process

dutifully proclaiming that the markups from each of the 6 House and Senate Committees working on it, were "THE FINAL BILL", and hyperventilating about it, causing all sorts of purposeful confusion about how bills are marked up, negotiated, amended, and reconciled to actually get to their "final" versions to be voted on... And that confusion was rampant right here on DU too back then.

And since they refused to discuss what happens with legislation based on simple Civics 101, they got chance to fill column inches and airwaves with tons of distorted and nonsensical pronouncements, right up to the passage of the initial piece, and then to the final reconciliation piece.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. Yes. By now obvious that the mass media is embracing if not sloppy kissing fascism.