Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Last Call For The View From Nowhere

Steve Benen makes an excellent catch on why Republicans constantly and consistently get away with their behavior as he notes Charlie Rose's interview with Hillary Clinton:

Which leads us to the 2016 election cycle and Hillary Clinton’s confrontation with the same question the president heard in the last cycle. Consider this exchange from Tuesday between the Democratic frontrunner and CBS News’ Charlie Rose. 
ROSE: A lot of people think the biggest problem for America is Washington. And that’s reflected in some of the politics that we see. 
CLINTON: Yes, that’s true. But look at the way our Founders set it up. They set up this separation of powers. And they made it really difficult to get things done. And some years it’s really hard. We’re in one of these periods where we have a minority within the other party that doesn’t believe in compromise, doesn’t believe in reaching consensus – 
ROSE: But there you go attacking them. That’s not the way to do it! 
CLINTON: No. Because part of what you have to do is make it clear to everyone else who is in that party that there is room for negotiation. 
Clinton’s answers were important, but not quite as illustrative as Rose’s line of questioning.

Note Rose's response to what, as Benen points out, are all true statements by Clinton.

Pointing out the objective truth, that there is a subset of Republicans that do not believe in reaching a consensus, is a "partisan attack" in Rose's mind and he says so.

In other words, we have a Beltway journalist who believes telling the objective truth about the GOP is a partisan attack.

Benen:

Note that everything Clinton said happens to be true. Objectively, by any fair measure, there’s a significant contingent among congressional Republicans that “doesn’t believe in compromise” and “doesn’t believe in reaching consensus.” I’m hard pressed to imagine any observer, of any ideological stripe, making the case that Clinton’s wrong about this. 
But as it happens, for some, it doesn’t matter if what Clinton said is true. If you’ve ever wondered why so many media professionals cling to the “both sides are always to blame, facts be damned” narrative, this offers a powerful hint: to acknowledge simple truths about many congressional Republicans sounds like an “attack,” and must therefore be avoided.

It's always "both sides do it".  And both sides always means "Democrats are to blame".

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