Monday, March 1, 2010

Why The Assumption of Bad Faith?

Even before the Health Care Summit last week the commentariat assumed that the whole was mere political theatre, with both the President and the Republicans using the event as a way to score political points.

What evidence did the various news outlets give - and these were reports on NPR, on MSNBC, on CNN - that the President was acting in bad faith and was uninterested in actually getting the best bill possible? Yes, we had lots of indicators that the Republicans were acting in bad faith.

Their insistence upon Pay-Go, until the President of the opposite party supported it was just one of the indicators. Their insistence that a health care bill include their ideas - until it did and they still wouldn't support it.

But where was the evidence that the President was also acting in bad faith? The White House laid out the 100 places where there was compromise and/or adoption of Republican ideas. Of course the White House isn't about to scrap the whole and begin again. That's not a reasonable demand on the part of the minority party.

Yes, a majority of Americans now oppose what's being called Obama care, but the majority of Americans also don't know what's actually in the bills - and the commentariat hasn't helped there.

What happened to reporting? Why are we stuck with nothing but commentary, usually disguised as reporting? Why do organizations that decry the constant use of "horse race" as the only way to describe the national scene continue to use horse race as the only way they describe the national political scene.

I'm pretty tired of both the mainstream and the alternative news.

1 comment:

Juliana said...

Good post. It is frustrating, isn't it? No one will give Obama a chance. If it is his idea, it is wrong or bad or whatever. And there is a reason for this. A really ugly reason. Wish there was an answer.