Fahrenthold 538
I think this article “GOP freshmen get a tough lesson in politics” by David Fahrenthold in the Washington Post perfectly illustrates everything which is wrong with US political journalism.
The theme of the article is explained as follows
“the same hoarse-throat tactics that helped them bring down incumbents last year — attacks on a health-care plan, town-hall heckling — have now been used against them.”
My initial , of course, is that not all health-care plans are the same and not all attacks on health-care plans are the same.
But the article is infinitely worse than I imagined. Hence the rest of the post after a jump.
This question is addressed in the article as follows (I believe I have been complete and thorough)
freshman Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) …
Huizenga, however, rejected the idea that the Democrats were simply re-using the same scare tactics that Republicans used to attack President Obama’s health care law.
“They are lying,” Huizenga said. In contrast, he said, “we’ve got facts.”
and
“In a court of law, you say it once, and you offer a piece of evidence, and that fact is no longer in dispute,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), previously a prosecutor. But, in town-hall meetings, Gowdy said he’s been forced to repeatedly re-prove the same point: that the GOP plan would not affect seniors who are already on Medicare.
These are the only discussions of what is true and what is false about health care plans. The rest is all discussion of politics. The assertion that Democrats “are lying” is not contested anywhere in the article.
A grand total of one Democrat is quoted, and he is not quoted on the question of whether he is lying
Here is all of the quotation of Democrats in the article.
“They’re like the classic schoolyard bullies,” said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “who throw punches — and then when you throw a punch back, they beg for forgiveness.”
The claim that Democrats “are lying” is not contested in any way.
Note also, the other brush with reality — Gowdy claims that many people in town halls think that the Republicans are going to elimiante medicare also for people currently on Medicare. This claim of fact is not supported by any evidence. Fahrenhold just accepts his word for what happened in his absense.
Gowdy is not asked to explain why he added the qualifier “who are already on Medicare.”
Also his claim about the Ryan plan is false. The Ryan plan incorporates the Medicare cuts in the PPACA which apply to some people currently on Medicare. Republicans continue to denounce those cuts. Gowdy voted for them (as did almost all current members of the House except for 4 Republicans who voted no on the budget resolution, 2 (including Boehner) who didn’t vote and a few surviving blue dogs).
Growdy’s “piece of evidence” is a plainly false claim of fact contradicted by the text of the resolution for which he voted. In a court of law, that would be perjury (if he were under oath) or at least contempt of court.
But he isn’t in a court of law. He is talking to a Washington Post reporter, so he can say something which is demonstrably false and won’t be called on it.
The Post will publish the unsupported claim that Democrats “are lying” but won’t note the fact that a Republican said something false.
In defence of Grady, he might actually believe that the Medicare privatization is the only thing the resolution says be done to Medicare. I’m sure he often votes without knowing what he is voting on. So his plainly false claim might be the result of ignorance not dishonesty.
I think you’re being too generous here with the last sentence above. Both the politician & the reporter know the difference. They know what they are doing too. I do agree that there’s something wrong, but you left out total incompetence, in your description. Just my opinion.
I will again quote from the master of political and social discourse and upheaval,
“When will the people be educated? When they have enough bread to eat, when the rich and the government stop bribing treacherous pens and tongues to deceive them. When will this be? Never.” M. Robespierre
Well Jack, that part of the public that we call workers have always depended on the press for their education. The rich and powerful didn’t like for the people’s education to be accurate so they just bought the press. Never is correct.
“Also his claim about the Ryan plan is false. The Ryan plan incorporates the Medicare cuts in the PPACA which apply to some people currently on Medicare. Republicans continue to denounce those cuts. Gowdy voted for them (as did almost all current members of the House except for 4 Republicans who voted no on the budget resolution, 2 (including Boehner) who didn’t vote and a few surviving blue dogs).”
It’s also useful to remember that the Senate voted on Paul Ryan’s and Pat Toomey’s budget proposals earlier this week. Both contain the PPACA cuts to Medicare that apply to current recipients. All but 7 Republicans voted for Paul’s budget and all but 5 voted for Toomey’s budget.
So if Republicans continue to say that only the Democrats have voted for Medicare cuts, and that they haven’t, they’ll be lying. And more importantly, by voting for Ryan’s proposal, they’ve voted to end Medicare as we know it for those 55 and younger.
As for the Washington Post, well, it’s still good for wrapping fish.
P.S. Rand Paul’s budget, which would have eliminated Section 8 Housing and all college aid except for Pell Grants (along with NPR, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Consumer Product Safety Commission etc. etc.) only received 7 yay votes in the Senate.
Look carefully at the ownership of the WaPo since before WW II. Eugene Meyer, Katherine Graham’s father, was a banker and Chair of the Federal Reserve in 1933 when he bought the Post. Meyer gave ownership to his son-in-law, Phil Graham and his daughter Katherine, Phil’s wife. Since the early 30’s the WaPo has been steered by owners with serious ties to the financial industry. Add to that the appearance of Ben Bradlee just after WW II whose family were wealthy old line Bostonians. Bradlee was hired by the Post and quickly rose to the top of the editorial pyramid there after a brief stint in the early 50s with the USIS, a State Department propaganda agency.
The ownership and management of WaPo has for the past 80 years been closely tied to wealth, banking interests and various significant players in US politics. It would be inconsistent with that heritage for the Post to report on politics in a completely honest and unbiased manner. There is no escaping one’s personal biases as they are never understood to be anything more than the proper out look on any issue. Once in a while you tell the truth by accident, but in general you report your observations through a fog of one’s personal back ground. What Piaget would describe as the processes of assimilation and accommodation. In that way the world makes sense to us regardless of our misunderstandings and prejudices.
Thanks for the reminders about Eugene Meyer and Ben Bradlee. However, it seems to me (and I can’t back this up statistically) that the Post has adopted a clear neocon stance at least since Fred Hiatt became editor of the Op-Ed Page. That includes distorting truth both in their editorial pages and in their news pages to promote the Likudnik and imperialistic goals of the neocons. Recently I’ve seen more mention of articles which are seemingly editorial in nature appearing on page one, ehich I would expect to be straight news territory. I can’t tell, because where I live the dead tree version of WaPo isn’t available, and I go to their web site as little as possible since they fired Dan Froomkin for telling the truth and exposing the counterfactuals in their news stories.