The President’s comments at the Associated Press luncheon on Tuesday received a great deal of media attention. Much of the punditocracy was focused on the President’s preemptive strike at the Supreme Court and apparent attempt to direct judicial decisions from the oval office. The political grandstanding by the President precipitated a grandstand volley between the judiciary and the DOJ, as well as predictable partisan posturing from both the right and left.
Frankly I am at a loss to understand what Obama hopes to gain from this kind of rhetoric. Sure it will fire up his base, but it also fires up the GOP base to a degree that the presumed Republican nominee could never hope to achieve. I also don’t see how it helps Obama with centrists and independents. When both a former mentor and student think he got it wrong, it is no surprise that his press secretary was on the defensive.
The President also tried to make hay with the oft-repeated point that the individual mandate was supported by Republicans before they were against it. Avik Roy and Ilya Somin point out the converse is also true, with many Democrats (including candidate Obama) opposing the individual mandate before they supported it.
We once again see partisan hackery, hypocrisy, and cynical opportunism from partisans and politicos on both the right and left. Nothing new there.
But is it true equivalent hypocrisy? Or is it false equivalence?
Which brings us to this response from the President during AP luncheon Q&A that did not merit quite so much media attention, but it got mine:
Question: "Republicans have been sharply critical of your budget ideas as well. What can you say to the Americans who just want both sides to stop fighting and get some work done on their behalf?"
President Obama: "I guess another way of thinking about this is -- and this bears on your reporting. I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and an equivalence is presented -- which reinforces I think people's cynicism about Washington generally. This is not one of those situations where there's an equivalence. I've got some of the most liberal Democrats in Congress who were prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests, and who said they were willing to do it. And we couldn't get a Republican to stand up and say, we'll raise some revenue, or even to suggest that we won't give more tax cuts to people who don't need them.. So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it's important to remember that the positions I'm taking now on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What's changed is the center of the Republican Party. And that’s certainly true with the budget."
I have a few. We've often heard this "false equivalence" complaint in recent years, but exactly what is the charge of "false equivalence" supposed to mean to a reporter on a practical level? Does it mean that the reporter should simply blame Republicans 100% for legislative failures at the behest of the administration? Or should the reporting be more nuanced than that? Should the reporter only slant the reporting to assign 75% blame to the Republicans and 25% to the Democrats? Or is it adequate to blame Republicans 52% and Democrats 48%? Who makes these fine judgments about whether there is false equivalence or true equivalence or some fine gradation of equivalence in a news story?
No problem. Democrats James Fallows and Greg Sargent are happy to tell you exactly who to blame and exactly what percentage to apply to Republicans.
This "false equivalence" meme and this speech are just another partisan attempt to shape the narrative, which is another way of saying - managing the press. Let's take a step back. In the early 2000's Professor George Lakoff, a Berkley cognitive linguist became a darling of progressive political thought. His ideas were embraced with an almost religious fervor on the left. To vastly (and unfairly) over-simplify his thesis: Lakoff asserted that the Democrats political misfortunes at the time were attributable to the fact that they let Republicans and Conservatives control the narrative and frame the issues. It was not the ideas, candidates or policies of the left that were being rejected at the polls. It was the way they talked about their policies. The problem was incorrect "framing" of how the issues were debated and discussed. It was just those darn words that they were using.
The subsequent conventional wisdom that evolved among Democrats and progressives was that if they simply use the right words - the correct "framing" - their ideas and policies would be broadly accepted by electorate at large. It's so obvious. If you start with the premise that progressives have a stranglehold on THE TRUTH, and if Americans are not being persuaded, then it should be obvious that THE TRUTH is just not being presented correctly. Progressives simply need the right "frame" to showcase their policy masterpieces and Americans will flock to admire their cause.
Meanwhile - on the other political wing: For years, even decades, Republicans have made political hay by accusing mainstream broadcast and print media of having a liberal bias. It is a de rigueur meme in virtually any GOP campaign that garners national attention. Every perceived criticism in the press can be deflected with that charge. Let's say you are a VP candidate who does not read books, does not know history, and has no real understanding of foreign policy? No problem. Liberal media and "gotcha questions" are to blame.
It is a popular and well mined meme. Best-selling books have been written about liberal bias in the media. Blogs are dedicated to monitoring and exposing liberal bias in the media. Conservative pundits bloviate about liberal bias in the media. The very raison d'etre for the Fox News Network was to provide a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to the perceived liberal bias in the media (which ironically spawned the current incarnation of MSNBC - apparently so conservatives could see what liberal bias in the media looks like when they really try).
"Liberal bias" is a cliche' but it is a politically effective cliche'. What does it mean when conservative politicians complains about "liberal media bias"? Simple. They don't like the way a story is being reported. They want the story reported the way a conservative perceives "THE TRUTH". If you can change the narrative int the press, or get your supporters to ignore a negative narrative in the press by charging "liberal media bias" - why not drag out that reliable chestnut? It's effective.
So lets get back to the left side of the political spectrum. What if you are a liberal Democratic candidate or operative and you also would like to influence the press to use a narrative more sympathetic to your cause? What if you'd like to undermine a competing conservative narrative in the press? What are you going to say? Are you going to accuse the press of "Conservative Media Bias"? Outside of Fox News, who is going to take that seriously? It's ineffective. No one believes it, not even liberals. But - a charge that media is reporting a "False Equivalence" between Republicans and Democrats - well - that sounds different and kind of intellectual and maybe that is a good reason to dismiss reporting insufficiently sympathetic to Democrats.
The charge of "False Equivalence" from the left is nothing more or less than political spin hoping to have the identical effect on perception of MSM reporting that the right seeks to achieve with "Liberal Media Bias."
The notion of charging the media with reporting "false equivalence" strikes me as absurd. Certainly there is media bias. There always has been and always will be. Sometimes it is left and sometimes it is right. It is not going to change because the right accuses the MSM of "liberal media bias" and it is not going to change because the left accuses the media of reporting "false equivalence".
This is politics as usual. I expect it from partisan Republicans. I expect it from partisan Democrats. But I do feel there is something unseemly and demeaning about the President of the United States stooping to this level.
But whether it is a president or a pundit, making the charge, I'll stick with the "Doctrine of False Non-Equivalence" which is to say....
They are equivalent. Deal with it.
UPDATED: Fixed typos. Cleaned up syntax. Added links.
Cross-posted at Donklephant
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