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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGreg Sargent: Obama slams 'false equivalence' media
Morning Plum: Obama slams false equivalence media
BY GREG SARGENT
May 23 at 9:26 am
At a fundraiser last night, President Obama unleashed a surprisingly spirited and comprehensive attack on both-sides-to-blame media coverage. While he has taken issue with Beltway coverage before, what was particularly noteworthy this time is that he made the case that false equivalence coverage is fundamentally misleading in the sense that it obscures the basic imbalance that currently exists between the two parties.
Its worth quoting at length (per the White House transcript):
Youll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, theres gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And theres a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses. But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific. We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who dont think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country youre not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
They, so far, at least, have refused to budge on bipartisan legislation to fix our immigration system, despite the fact that every economist whos looked at it says its going to improve our economy, cut our deficits, help spawn entrepreneurship, and alleviate great pain from millions of families all across the country.
So the problem is not that the Democrats are overly ideological because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side. There are no radical proposals coming out from the left. When we talk about climate change, we talk about how do we incentivize through the market greater investment in clean energy. When we talk about immigration reform theres no wild-eyed romanticism. We say were going to be tough on the borders, but lets also make sure that the system works to allow families to stay together
When we talk about taxes we dont say were going to have rates in the 70 percent or 90 percent when it comes to income like existed here 50, 60 years ago. We say lets just make sure that those of us who have been incredibly blessed by this country are giving back to kids so that theyre getting a good start in life, so that they get early childhood education Health care we didnt suddenly impose some wild, crazy system. All we said was lets make sure everybody has insurance. And this made the other side go nuts the simple idea that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, nobody should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick, working within a private system.
So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, its not true. Whats broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/23/morning-plum-obama-slams-both-sides-to-blame-media/?hpid=z3
BY GREG SARGENT
May 23 at 9:26 am
At a fundraiser last night, President Obama unleashed a surprisingly spirited and comprehensive attack on both-sides-to-blame media coverage. While he has taken issue with Beltway coverage before, what was particularly noteworthy this time is that he made the case that false equivalence coverage is fundamentally misleading in the sense that it obscures the basic imbalance that currently exists between the two parties.
Its worth quoting at length (per the White House transcript):
Youll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, theres gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And theres a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses. But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific. We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who dont think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country youre not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
They, so far, at least, have refused to budge on bipartisan legislation to fix our immigration system, despite the fact that every economist whos looked at it says its going to improve our economy, cut our deficits, help spawn entrepreneurship, and alleviate great pain from millions of families all across the country.
So the problem is not that the Democrats are overly ideological because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side. There are no radical proposals coming out from the left. When we talk about climate change, we talk about how do we incentivize through the market greater investment in clean energy. When we talk about immigration reform theres no wild-eyed romanticism. We say were going to be tough on the borders, but lets also make sure that the system works to allow families to stay together
When we talk about taxes we dont say were going to have rates in the 70 percent or 90 percent when it comes to income like existed here 50, 60 years ago. We say lets just make sure that those of us who have been incredibly blessed by this country are giving back to kids so that theyre getting a good start in life, so that they get early childhood education Health care we didnt suddenly impose some wild, crazy system. All we said was lets make sure everybody has insurance. And this made the other side go nuts the simple idea that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, nobody should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick, working within a private system.
So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, its not true. Whats broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/23/morning-plum-obama-slams-both-sides-to-blame-media/?hpid=z3
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Greg Sargent: Obama slams 'false equivalence' media (Original Post)
flpoljunkie
May 2014
OP
riqster
(13,986 posts)1. Good on him.
MBS
(9,688 posts)2. good for him-
Greg Sargent also wrote.. .
. . in his remarks, he (Obama) also said the only remedy for the problem is for Democrats to vote out Republicans, which is to say, its on Democrats to fix by winning elections.
GOTV, everyone!
kairos12
(12,817 posts)3. Corporate media will continue to dance to the tune of false equivalence.