Political Animal
Blog
Whenever there’s any kind of dispute, “he/she started it” invariably sounds childish. It’s especially true in politics, in which a lot of voters just don’t much care.
But I’m of the opinion that accountability matters, and when the media gives the public the wrong impression, it’s worth setting the record straight. Here’s the Washington Post’s report this morning on the spending standoff that may lead to a government shutdown in six days.
Congress left town for the weekend without resolving the latest spat over spending, an almost accidental dispute that set the parties bickering over $1.6 billion in budget cuts — an amount that equals just 0.04 percent of the federal budget. As a result, Washington once again finds itself a week away from a potential government shutdown, a possibility that was supposed to have been averted as part of last month’s deal to end an epic battle over the federal debt ceiling.
That agreement was still largely intact Friday. But Democrats decided to pick a fight over a side issue: an insistence by the GOP to pay for more disaster relief funding by cutting a popular auto-industry loan program. Republicans refused to back down. [emphasis added]
That second paragraph is puzzling. If Republicans insisted on specific demands and refused to back down, how is it, exactly, that Democrats picked a fight?
If assigning responsibility matters, then the details are worth paying attention to. A basic framework was in place for a stopgap spending measure, and officials from both parties were fairly confident the deal would hold together. Then Republicans decided to play a couple of games.
The first was a decision to change the rules when it came to emergency disaster relief — Republicans said they wouldn’t approve the aid unless Democrats accepted cuts to a successful clean-energy program. The Senate and the White House said this wouldn’t do, but the House GOP went ahead anyway.
The second was a decision to make the spending bill a little more attractive to far-right members on Thursday, with the leadership buying some GOP votes by cutting $100 million from a Department of Energy loan program the GOP loved until a few weeks ago. The Senate and the White House again urged Republicans to be more sensible, but the House GOP again proceeded anyway.
“Democrats decided to pick a fight over a side issue”? No. Republicans went with some cheap stunts and Senate Dems said they wouldn’t play along this time. (I emphasize “this time” because they traditionally give. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a conservative Dem from Louisiana, said yesterday Dems “grew a backbone…. We normally cave.”)
Blaming Dems for this mess strikes me as pretty silly.
Facebook
Twitter
c u n d gulag on September 24, 2011 10:15 AM:
"Blaming Dems for this mess strikes me as pretty silly."
Blaming Democrats is how you earn your paycheck at the WaPo, with the notable exception of a couple of Op-ed columnists.
Oh, and Steve, you couldn't have picked a better example of what's wrong with the newspaper part of the MSM.
The WaPo still has a certain cachet, unlike say, the NY Post or the editorial pages of the WSJ.
If Watergate happened now, Woodward and Bernstein would have been kicked out on their asses, and Nixon would have received the full support of the editors and writers at the WaPo.
Live Free or Die on September 24, 2011 10:20 AM:
Steve, can you go to Capitol Hill and give Dems a tutorial on how to explain things properly to the media so that they can get their message across effectively? Tell them to use the words "hostage taker", "kidnapping", "shooting the hostage", "economic terrorism". This way they will get attention from the media and get their point out to the public.
wordtypist on September 24, 2011 10:24 AM:
The writer of the article, Lori Montgomery, has a habit of editorializing in what's supposed to be a news article. And she usually does it in favor of the republicans. She could be writing for the Washington Times,not the Post.
jjm on September 24, 2011 10:33 AM:
Yay for continuing to expose these 'mainstream' phony 'newspapers'.
I am continuously shocked by the editorializing in news stories in the New York Times (I never read the Washington Post) which is ALWAYS slanted in favor of the GOP, mysteriously enough since the paper is ostensibly 'liberal.' It actually takes the editorial page to offer us real news; yesterday Krugman, today Joe Nocera on the phony Solyndra 'scandal.'
One example: when Paul Ryan was soundly booed for his infamous kill Medicare budget at his town hall, the New York Times reporter wrote glowingly of the audience's being enraptured with him and pressing him to run for president. It took several days, and lots of media internet postings, before the NYT mentioned it. To me, the whole story looked and smelled phony when I read it, something like those stories about Jessica Lynch and the Judith Miller stuff on WMD. It seems minor in the Ryan case, but it all adds up to tremendous slanting of the news itself.
Why have editors lost their journalistic standards?
They HAVE to be following the dictates of their corporate owners.
But it never fails to creep me out.
Gabby Hayes on September 24, 2011 10:37 AM:
Gol Durn Fernickity Librul Press alway sidin' on the Democrat side o' the fence. C,mon Roy hop in ol Nellybell we need to blow this town.
stormskies on September 24, 2011 10:39 AM:
Seymour Hersch said that in order to have a fair and objective media in our country, at this point, over 95 percent of all the media 'editors' would have to be fired and replaced ............
The worst enemy our country has is the vast majority of the CORPORATE MEDIA ..........
Roy Rogers on September 24, 2011 10:42 AM:
Now, Gabby, you know I won't leave my Silver behind!
That's something only a hardhearted "let 'em die"-er would do!
Hi-yo, Silver! Awaaayyyy!
kevo on September 24, 2011 10:53 AM:
Da Nile is the longest river in the world, and those in the media who try to swim it will surely drown! -Kevo
Perspecticus on September 24, 2011 10:57 AM:
Ahhhhh, the WaPo. Spend one year bringing down the GOP and 30 years making it up to them.
Trigger on September 24, 2011 10:58 AM:
Hey, Roy, when did you dump me for Silver?? ;(
DK on September 24, 2011 11:01 AM:
Apparently, it must be a requirement to be logically impaired in order to work at the WaPo.
There's an obvious pattern going on right now in Congress, that is every single piece of legislation that comes before Congress is seen by the Repubs as an opportunity to extract more ransom in terms of budget cuts.
Why this isn't blatantly obvious to everyone is beyond me.
TCinLA on September 24, 2011 11:07 AM:
Why is anyone still surprised that the Washington Pest continues to get everything upside down and backwards? It's run by Fred Hyatt, a demonstrable right wing moron. It's not the paper that took down Richard Nixon. If this crew of idiots had been there 40 years ago, Nixon would have been declared President for Eternity.
There is no "mainstream media" in Washington D.C. that has any value past lining the bottom of the birdcage or wrapping the dead fish in. And it's not even much good for those purposes. hell, the neighborhood advertiser once known as the LA Times does a better job of getting things right. Maybe they're far enough away to have sufficient perspective to spot the trees in the forest.
Mimikatz on September 24, 2011 11:27 AM:
Not silly, calculated. The media Post especially, prefers the GOP for reasons I've never really understood, probably having to do with their coddling millionaires.
SYSPROG on September 24, 2011 11:32 AM:
'That second paragraph is puzzling.' REALLY Steve? It's not puzzling. The 'village' for whatever reason, have decided that they would rather bring down the country then report fairly and 'maybe' contribute to the re-election of Democrats. End of discussion.
DAY on September 24, 2011 12:03 PM:
"Never argue with a man who buys his ink by the barrel …" Ben Franklin.
The good news is almost nobody reads newspapers any more. Or watches the "Evening News".
The Right gets theirs from Fox, and gets it wrong.
We, on the other hand- being bright and educated folk- get it from many sources, and make up our own minds.
(I guess that last could be considered snark. . .)
DisgustedWithItAll on September 24, 2011 12:09 PM:
Here's Lori Montgomery's and e-mail:
montgomeryl@washpost.com
Let her know what you think of her writing. I did, and I think that sort of thing helps.
Rich2506 on September 24, 2011 12:23 PM:
I just read the piece in detail in order to write an LTE on it. Very distressing to see how very, very deeply concerned the WaPo is to be even-handed and to give both sides, to the point where they don't even what the principle of the fight was until the 14th paragraph! The idea that Republicans want to hold FEMA funding hostage to more mindless budget-cutting at a time when Americans desperately need jobs isn't clear at all.
Tomm Undergod on September 24, 2011 12:44 PM:
It's not just Kaplan Test Prep Daily. A couple of nights ago, Anderson Cooper was busy agreeing with David Gergen and some Republican that "both sides do it" and were both playing games with disaster relief and government funding. At this point, the only thing "they all do" seems to be ignoring intransigence by the fringe party.
In the old days, Father Coughlin did not have presidents and senators on his hateful radio program, but his modern successors do. And in less-old days, Robert Welch would not be a national political candidate. "But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone." Joseph Pulitzer said, "Our republic and its press shall rise or fall together," but of course that was before our republic and its press were both owned by the same people.
CDW on September 24, 2011 12:49 PM:
I stopped reading the post several years ago, but was drawn back to it first by Greg Sargent and then Ezra Klein and finally the NYT paywall. But, this is the end of it for me now.
Robert Waldmann on September 24, 2011 1:00 PM:
I didn't read the article. I just read the headline. Then I honestly thought "This time the Republicans have gone so far that even Lori Montgomery couldn't pretend not to notice." But she did. Indeed she didn't just say that opinions on shape of earth differ, but also that it is flat. The House caucus which passed a bill unacceptable to the Senate and left time didn't pick a fight. Rather the Caucus which is still in town willing to discuss matters did.
This is not, I think, a matter of arguable opinion. As usual Montgomery writes as a Republican operative. Montgomery and Helderman made a statement in their own name about who is to blame. I think that should be a firing offence for a reporter. The fact that their claim is plainly absurd is just icing on the cake.
My guess is that they don't even understand what they did. They just assume that everyone knows the rules of the game -- Republicans refuse to compromise and Democrats cave. So the news is that Democrats haven't caved (yet). So the Democrats picked the fight and the Republicans had every reason to consider their work done and go on vacation.
There was a more striking example last congress when some reporter said the Democrats were filibustering when the Republicans were filibustering. The news was that Reid didn't just move on to other business, so he was doing what he tried to stop the Republicans from doing.
Who started it may be petty, but statements in news articles along the lines of Montgomery and Helderman's must not be tolerated.
max on September 24, 2011 1:11 PM:
The Washington Post has become steadily unreadable for years. I was a subscriber but now I only buy the Sunday edition because my wife wants the local food coupons. I toss the Outlook and Editorial/Opinion pages into a container near the fireplace without reading them, read the Business and Style sections to see if (a) I have any money left in my mutual funds and (b) check out local shows and concerts, read the magazine and work on the crossword puzzle, and then adjourn to my copy of the New York Times to find out what's really happening in the world.
Tonto on September 24, 2011 2:26 PM:
"Hey, Roy, when did you dump me for Silver?? ;("
He wanted my horse, until he figured out that even I can outrun Scout. ;)
Rich on September 24, 2011 2:53 PM:
Lori Montgomery writes like someone on GOP Hill staffers' speed dial. She has no analytic ability, but she's a useful source of the latest GOP spin.
cwolf on September 24, 2011 3:17 PM:
Hey Max on September 24, 2011 1:11 PM:
The New York Times is not the place "...to find out what's really happening in the world."
For decades the NYT has been rightly ridiculed as the paper that prints "All the News That Fits Our Views". For example, I believe there has never been a war they did not cheer-lead.
If you want a better view of "... what's really happening in the world," try on Mother Jones, Democracy Now, Huffpost, WaMo, TPM, The Guardian, AlJazeera - or some of the many other information sources in this world
Rick B on September 24, 2011 4:38 PM:
OK. The Repubs decided that the accepted way of funding disaster aid didn't fit their desire to shrink government so the Repub House passed the radically different from normal bill to cut the disaster aid funds out of a successful auto program. The attached this on a must-pass bvill to fund the government. The Senate killed the radical change and the budget bill with it.
The Repub House is now saying "It's our way - radical change - or we'll shut the government down and blame the Democrats for not goind along with the changes we demand."
It's like when the Germans invaded Poland and blamed the Polish for starting the war because they shot back at the invading troops.
We should never say just "the Republicans...." It should always be "the Radical Republicans...."
Margaret on September 24, 2011 4:45 PM:
Trouble is, this is the narrative that cable news is pushing. It is quite simply, a lie. And so, our problems continue. I am tired of boycotts, how about a huge mass march in NY to protest media propaganda. I swear it has gotten MUCH worse since Citizen's United. Coincidence? I think not. I do not even want to think about what will happen if the village gets its way and we end up with a GOP Senate and Obama manages to eek out a win .With this kind of "reporting" America will freaking fall apart!
James M on September 24, 2011 7:08 PM:
Great posts but it is even worse than you guys think. For example, the Japanese media, which for some reason has a consistent Republican bias, has completely accepted the GOP talking points on virtually every issue. It was essentally reported here that the debt ceiling crisis occurred becaused of a serious debt situation in the U.S., and a recent NHK special report implied that both sides were to blame for the political gridlock in Washington.
The American poltical media has based its entire structure on the premise that there are 2 credible political parties in the U.S. The media simply can not accept that one of the parties has gone nuts. Cynical perhaps, but the GOP has brilliantly exploited the inability of the MSM to adjust to the new reality.
Kathryn on September 24, 2011 7:47 PM:
Read this in A.M. and immediately emailed Montgomery and other writer. I couldn't believe it, front page too. Now that I'm home planning on letter to the editor but my chances of getting published are slim. The Washington Post disgusts me, this was especially egregious.
Robert on September 25, 2011 5:54 PM:
Katharine Graham is 'turning over in her grave' and not for the first time.