The Nation: Reality Bites Republicans
Reality Bites Republicans
Chris Mooney
May 16, 2012 | This article appeared in the June 4, 2012 edition of The Nation.
In recent months a growing chorus of commentators has begun to dismantle the notion that the current polarization of American politics is equally the fault of “both sides.” Most notably, two old Washington hands and collaborators, the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein, have directly blamed the Republican Party’s ideological extremism for our predicament. And they exhort journalists to stop splitting the difference between the two parties and to start telling the truth about which one is really driving the polarization and refusing to compromise.
Political ideologues don’t merely fail to compromise, however; they also concoct their own reality. Mann’s and Ornstein’s recommendations, accordingly, can be extended to the realm of reporting on fact itself—e.g., to the media watchdogs who strive for evenhandedness as they fact-check the statements of politicians on both sides of the aisle.
After all, we live at a time when Republican “Big Lies”—ranging from the denial of global warming, to claims about “death panels” (PolitiFact’s 2009 “Lie of the Year”) and a “government takeover of healthcare” (the 2010 “Lie of the Year”), to the assertion that President Obama goes around “apologizing” for America—are everywhere. In this context, is it not appropriate that the arbiters of political reality also take a stand?
In fact, there is reason to think that, at least in a subtle way, they already have—because the facts have forced them to.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/167930/reality-bites-republicans
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