We have a lot of problems with the discourse in this country: no one ever knows what bills do, we think that raising the debt ceiling means borrowing more money, and there are too many misconceptions about how our money gets spent. And when we're facing problems like that, the most important thing we can do is to be not discouraged, right? Because if we get discouraged or jaded, if we we become cynical and fed up with the whole process, then we give up, stop reading and talking and voting--we surrender what little power we really have to shape this country into something worthy of our intelligence and class.
That is why, of all our problems of the discourse, so many smart people in the know talk to me about false equivalence.
Today, Karen Tumulty's Washington Post article promises that the two candidates for Ted Kennedy's old Mass. Senate seat, studly moderate Republican Scott Brown and Wall Street ball-buster Elizabeth Warren, have dropped the veneer of civility and gotten their hands dirty as the clock ticks away on a tightly contested race.
"The most closely watched Senate race in the country has taken a sharp turn off the high road[...] each is seeking to undermine the other on the very traits that had been considered their greatest political strengths: his independence and her character."If I don't know any better, I think, "this is just politics as usual." I think, "what's a couple more monkeys on stage, flinging their mutant poop at one another," like every election, don't I? But this is important--let's look at exactly what each candidate had to do to grab this kind of attention.
"Warren[...] is urging Massachusetts voters to look beyond their affection for Brown to consider the votes he has cast and the national consequences of an election..."That is what passes for Elizabeth Warren's gloves coming off: she talks about Brown's record and asks voters to think.
I imagine, given the tone of the article, that Scott Brown's "sharp turn off the high road" follows a similar path--another substantive critique of his opponent's political history and place in the American ideological milieu.
"His new television ad highlights the controversy over Warren’s unproved claim that she is of Native American heritage."He could have stopped right there.
"It also raises the possibility — also unproved, and denied by those involved in hiring her — that she claimed minority status for professional advancement."Now, I remember these accusations from earlier in the campaign and I had already heard that the Brown team planned to bring them back. Brown is a very good campaigner, and I assume he knows what he's doing politically.
However, I still expected better from the media. I expected a reporter to recognize the difference in tone between holding a man to his record and "stop pretending you're not white, you affirmative-action hire!" I expected to read "Scott Brown Loses Mind, Calls Opponent Race-Traitor" as the goddamn headline. I expected anyone casually scanning the article to not come away with the impression that this is just another story about "both sides" and "going negative." I expected better than a soft gloss-over in the fifth paragraph. I want weaponized word-making! I want the fucking razor!
I think it was Chris Hayes (MSNBC, The Nation) who said that "you can appear fair and balanced or you can be fair and balanced; you can't do both." I really wish he didn't, but he does have a point. Just because you're a little baby journalist (and you are broke, smoke too much and sleep too little) doesn't mean Republicans and Democrats are going to make your job easier by being "equally" anything
Alright, my 15 minutes are up. Get back to work.
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