Greg Sargent - "The Morning Plum: The false equivalence pundits are part of the problem"

[TomCADem]

Here is a good article from Greg Sargent outlining how the media has helped obscured and perpetuate the impasse over the sequester. Indeed, Sargent notes that the press has moved to simply accepting Republican dysfunction as a given, therefore putting the burden of reaching a solution entirely on Democrats to presumably embrace Republican ideals without any concessions from Republicans. Even liberals on DU have sometimes embraced, "We expect this from Republicans..." narrative in attacking Democrats for failing to reach a solution.

As the lead up to last GOP default threat showed, Republicans are NOT immune from pressure. However, they must feel political pressure, which must come in large part from a media that does not protect them by portraying a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans or (worse) just giving them a free pass.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/26/the-morning-plum-the-false-equivalence-pundits-are-part-of-the-problem/

The battle over the sequester has sparked a corollary argument over the proper role of pundits in assigning blame in political standoffs of this type. A number of us have argued that the facts plainly reveal that Republicans are far more to blame than Obama and Democrats for the current crisis. The GOP’s explicit position is that no compromise solution of any kind is acceptable — this must be resolved only with 100% of the concessions being made by Democrats — which means any compromise Dems put forth is by definition a nonstarter at the outset.

Analysts reluctant to embrace this conclusion — an affliction I’ve called the “centrist dodge” — have adopted several techniques. One is to pretend Dems haven’t offered any compromise solution, when in fact they have. A second is to argue that, okay, Dems have offered a compromise while Republicans haven’t, but Dems haven’t gone far enough towards the middle ground, so both sides are still to blame for the impasse. (The problem with this dodge is that it fails to acknowledge that Republicans themselves have openly stated that there is no distance to which Dems could go to win GOP cooperation, short of giving them everything they want.)

We’re now seeing a third technique appear: Acknowledge that Republicans are the uncompromising party, but assert that it’s ultimately on the President to figure out a way to either force Republicans to drop their intransigence or to otherwise “lead” them out if it.
* * *
The argument now is basically that the president is the father who must make his problem children behave. Only this is worse than just a dodge. Lots and lots of people are going to get hurt by the sequester. Anyone who helps deflect blame from Republicans — in the full knowledge that they are the primary obstacle to the compromise we need to prevent serious damage from being done to the country — is unwittingly helping to enable their intransigence.

[Cha]

1. K&RRRRR! thanks Tom

[msongs]

2. the media are not the one calling for "bipartisanship"... nt

[TomCADem]

4. There is nothing wrong with bipartisanship and compromise...

...the problem as the article notes is that due to false equivalence, it means that if Republicans are refusing to compromise, then the media invents the narrative that Republican's position on tax cuts is like the force of gravity, it cannot be changed, thus only Democrats are responsible for moving toward the Republican position.

If the media is going to invoke bipartisanship, then the blame should be placed squarely on Republicans, because they are the only ones not offering anything. Boehner and McConnell are saying revenues are off the table. The media should be saying, then what exactly are Democrats supposed to be negotiating over? The media should be crystal clear that Republicans are at fault for forcing crisis after crisis and then refusing to compromise at all if they are going to insist on bipartisanship.

[annabanana]

3. Kicking because when this kind of analysis is in WaPo.. Maybe,

just maybe, the ice is beginning to crack. . .

[Rowdyboy]

5. Nice to see someone get it occasionally

Its pretty rare

[Jim Lane]

6. He's being fairly charitable when he says it's done "unwittingly".

"Anyone who helps deflect blame from Republicans — in the full knowledge that they are the primary obstacle to the compromise we need to prevent serious damage from being done to the country — is unwittingly helping to enable their intransigence."

Anyone who has that level of knowledge about the situation must also know what the effect of the false equivalence will be. Therefore, whether their motivation is to help the Republicans or simply to promote their own careers by shielding themselves from any charge of partisanship, they're not doing it unwittingly.

[Cosmocat]

7. I have YET to see anyone i the media

push back even one bit when some republican balls about how it is the President's fault republicans act like jackasses.

For 8 god darn years, any criticism of Bush II was slammed for this horse shit, "you can't criticize the COMMANDER IN CHIEF while troops are in the field," meme. Any criticism of him made you a god hating, terrorist enabler.

We still have troops in the field, but it is just accepted to blame this president for republican's being jackasses.

Liberal press, indeed.

[Babel_17]

8. Greg Sargent is a good writer

and he's amazing when he's "in the zone" with articles like that.

[maxsolomon]

9. and the result is all over every message board on the intertubes:

"the sequester was obama's idea".

yeah, as a last-ditch measure to stop an entirely manufactured debt-ceiling crisis.