Tag Archives: liberal

Where’s the Media Apology on BS IRS “Scandal”?

From “How the media outrageously blew the IRS scandal:  A full accounting,” Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon:

“While the initial reports about the IRS targeting looked pretty bad, suggesting that agents singled out tax-exempt applications for Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the media badly bungled the controversy when supposedly sober journalists like Bob Woodward and Chuck Todd jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst from day one. Instead of doing more reporting to discover the true nature and context of the IRS targeting, or at least waiting for their colleagues to do some, the supposedly liberal mainstream press let their eagerness to show they could be just as tough on a Democratic White House as a Republican one get ahead of the facts. We expect politicians to stretch reality to fit a narrative, but the press should be better.

“And they would have gotten away with it, too, had their narrative had the benefit of being true. But now, almost two months later, we know that in fact the IRS targeted lots of different kinds of groups, not just conservative ones; that the only organizations whose tax-exempt statuses were actually denied were progressive ones; that many of the targeted conservative groups legitimately crossed the line; that the IG’s report was limited to only Tea Party groups at congressional Republicans’ request; and that the White House was in no way involved in the targeting and didn’t even know about it until shortly before the public did.

“In short, the entire scandal narrative was a fiction. But it had real consequences, effectively derailing Obama’s agenda not long after a resounding reelection, costing several people their careers, and distracting and misinforming the public. It’s not that nothing went wrong at the IRS, but that the transgression merited nowhere near the media response it earned. But instead of acknowledging its error or correcting the record, the mainstream political press has simply moved on to the next game.”

The whole piece is worth a read, as Seitz-Wald also calls out David Gregory, Jon Stewart, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Matthews, and Robert Gibbs for taking the bait so credulously without doing their homework.

Busted!

The NYT has an excellent article* pulling back the curtain on the supposed liberal, gay-rights group “Use Your Mandate” that is running ads against Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense purportedly from the left.

But the Times traces its ad buying back to Smart Media, a GOP company that does work for, wait for it, the Emergency Committee for Israel, Bill Kristol’s neo-con group that has gone after Hagel not just professionally, but personally, by smearing him as an anti-Semite.

Smart Media also has done work for John McCain, who has refused to back his supposed “friend” Hagel.  Other clients include Christine “I’m Am Not a Witch” O’Donnell, and Jon Huntsman, Jr.  The Times couldn’t find any liberal groups or politicians Smart Media has represented in the past.

I hope Dem Senators put this pathetic, tacky sleaze on the record at the Hagel hearings.

* “Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel,” Jim Rutenberg

 

 

A Two-Party System Based on Intelligence?

From “Dinosaurs and Denial,” Charles M. Blow, NYT:

“According to a June Gallup report, most Republicans (58) percent) believed that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.  Most Democrats and independents did not agree.

“This anti-intellectualism is antediluvian.  No Wonder a 2009 Pew Research Center report found that only 6 percent of scientists identified as Republican and 9 percent identified as conservative.

“Furthermore, a 2005 study found that just 11 percent of college professors identified as Republican and 15 percent identified as conservative.  Some argue that this simply represents a liberal bias in academia.  But just as strong a case could be made that people who absorb facts easily don’t suffer fools gladly.”

The 15% Who Will Decide the Election

Forget the 1%, forget the 99%, focus on the 15%.  Your future is in their hands.

Of those who say they are Independents, about 60% lean toward one of the parties.  The remaining 40% are true “swing voters,” and they are only about 15% of voters.  They will decide who wins in November.

President Obama won 57% of these swing voters last time.  A new poll from Global Strategy Group shows that he currently leads Mitt among them, 44 to 38%.*

What’s especially interesting is that these voters see themselves as closer to Mitt ideologically, but they like Obama better.

Asked to place themselves on a scale of one to nine, with one as liberal, nine as conservative, and five as moderate, the swing voters’ average was 5.2, while they put Mitt at 6.1 and Obama at 3.9.  This would seem to bode well for Mitt.

But 57% of them gave Obama a favorable rating, compared to only 41% for Mitt.

Voting is ultimately an emotional decision.  If Mitt can’t get his favorables up, he will lose.

* “Obama leads among ‘swing’ indies,” James Hohmann, Politico

 

A Reminder of What The Election Should Be About

From “Capitalism Version 2012,” Thomas L. Friedman, NYT:

“America’s success for over 200 years was largely due to its healthy, balanced public–private partnership — where government provided the institutions, rules, safety nets, education, research and infrastructure to empower the private sector to innovate, invest and take the risks that promote growth and jobs.

“When the private sector overwhelms the public, you get the 2008 subprime crisis.  When the public overwhelms the private, you get choking regulations.

“[T]he ideal 2012 election would be one that offered the public competing conservative and liberal versions of the key grand bargains, the key balances, that America needs to forge to adapt its capitalism to this century.

“The first is a grand bargain to fix our long-term structural deficit by phasing in $1 in tax increases, via tax reform, for every $3 to $4 in cuts to entitlements and defense over the next decade.  If the Republican Party continues to take the view that there must be no tax increases, we’re stuck.

“As part of this, we will need an intergenerational grand bargain…. We need a proper balance between government spending on nursing homes and nursery schools….

“Another grand bargain we need is between the environmental community and the oil and gas industry….

“Another grand bargain we need is on infrastructure.  We have more than a $2 trillion deficit in bridges, roads, airports, ports and bandwidth….

“Within both education and health care, we need grand bargains that better allocate resources between remediation and prevention. … We waste too much money treating people for preventable diseases and reteaching students in college what they should have learned in high school.

“Capitalism and political systems — like companies — must constantly evolve to stay vital.”

The problem is too much willfulness and not enough will.   We limp along on last-minute, short-term, lowest-common-denominator bargains, but can’t manage the “grand bargains” that will get this country soaring again.