Well, I knew I was overdue to be in agreement with one of my conservative counterpart’s Grading PolitiFact reviews, and for a moment I thought I was, in reading his review of this PolitiFact ruling on statement by Obama on Paul Ryan’s Budget. On the face of it, it looked like Grading PolitiFact made a good point. But as is most often the case, as I dug into the details, I realized that I just couldn’t comfortably see eye to eye with that “F” being awarded for “bad journalism” along with those “protesteth-too-much” exclamations of a PolitiFact ruling that’s “horrifying” and “a train wreck.” It always seems to turn out its readers are expected to make some logic/reality jumps that are just too far reaching.
Grading PolitiFact’s contention is that ruling writer Angie Drobnic Holan totally ignored Paul Ryan’s “specifics” he noted in a later interview about the loopholes he intended to close in his so-called Budget plan, making Obama’s statement that the “Republicans in Congress never list(ing) one” less than the True it was awarded. Writer Holan admits as much, publishing exactly what Ryan said in her ruling write-up. So the question becomes why she “skipped over” this, from a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace.
The problem is that it not only wasn’t enough, when it comes right down to it, Ryan’s budget is pure fantasy, and Grading PolitiFact wants you to accept the fantasy as reality.
This was like Newt Gingrich’s “Moon colony” fantasies. Imagine this scenario (green background added for "effect"):
Newt Gingrich makes a statement that “My plan for this lunar colony is to mine its green cheese and haul it back to earth.”
Obama, trying to remain polite, tells an audience that Newt has not said how he would specifically pay for any lunar colony .
In the mean time, Fox News asks Newt about how he planned to pay for the colony, and Newt says the green cheese could be mined and marketed by private industry.
PolitiFact says Obama’s statement is True, that Newt did not say how he would pay for it, since the “mined and marketed by private industry” statement was so vague.
But PolitiFact could just as well say Obama’s statement is True because THE MOON IS NOT MADE OF GREEN CHEESE. PolitiFact likely avoided that as too many Republican pundits would yell “bias” because they really believe the Moon is made of green cheese.
But Grading PolitiFact says because Newt told Fox News the non-existent green cheese could be mined and marketed privately, that means Newt did specifically say what could be done, therefore Obama’s statement should not have been rated true.
On the basis of Ryan’s agreeing with interviewer Chris Wallace on loopholes which may be closed for high income earners, according to writer Bryan White, it makes the “literal claim” of Obama’s less than True. Now, this in and of itself doesn’t “broaden the tax base” and certainly won’t make up the $4.6 trillion that White claims means “isn’t spending $4.6 trillion on lower tax breaks.” In other words, at what income level is the loophole to be closed? Does Ryan specify that? With such a lack of specifics, the so-called loopholes can’t relevantly be calculated into that $4.6 trillion.
And when White says Obama is engaging in double-speak, he then follows with his dose of what I’ve called “the thief shouting robber.”
If the budget pays for the $4.6 trillion by increasing taxes by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions then it isn't "spending" $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. There are honest and forthright ways to express skepticism that the Ryan proposal remains neutral on income tax revenue. Obama did not use one of them.
But it isn’t honest and forthright on the part of Ryan because closing ALL the loopholes aren’t enough to pay for the $4.6 trillion. The debt still increases, the deficits are still there (see chart below by clicking "read more"). Ryan’s budget proposal is an exercise in futility (i.e., the moon is made of green cheese). And I don’t know how else Obama could be more honest and forthright in expressing skepticism on Ryan’s proposal of “tax revenue neutrality.” Maybe it’s just his political correctness in not just coming out and saying Ryan’s budget is a sham.
Eric Alterman explains it quite nicely, putting the onus squarely on “conservative pundits” like writer White: (emphasis added)
Remember, Rep. Ryan’s plan makes no sense at all without the assumption of $5 trillion or so in loophole reductions, but he specifies none of them and pretends—what everyone knows to be false—that Congress and the president can and will simply close these loopholes whenever its members decide they feel like it—as if all those powerful lobbyists are giving them money for nothing.
The entire “Ryan budget” exercise is one in ideological masturbation. Nobody with any knowledge of either economics or politics can take Rep. Ryan’s calculations seriously.
So why do they pretend to do so? My guess is that this is yet another example of the effectiveness of the right’s critique of the “so-called liberal media.” Pundits like to think of themselves as honest brokers whose judgments are somehow “beyond” politics. But so long as the conservatives continue to rush rightward into a never-never land of magical budgets and a nearly religious refusal to accept simple science, math, and historical precedent before presenting policy proposals, these pundits must pay less and less attention both to the details and evidence that purport to underlie them.
Grading PolitiFact pays no attention to the details and evidence underlying Ryan’s budget. It assumes Ryan’s budget as an honest, achievable proposal while slamming Obama for not taking it as seriously as writer White does.
When I first began my Grading PolitiFact criticisms, I had a table where I had determined one of several “keys” to its criticisms, generally what was being relied on to justify the almost always flunking grade. Lately I’ve noticed it goes two ways: either the context is narrowed or expanded depending on what would benefit Grading PolitiFact’s charge of bias. This is a very subjective determination, and a weakness that Grading PolitiFact certainly has preyed upon in its never-ending quest to prove “PolitiFact bias.” But the exploitative use of that weakness has now become Grading PolitiFact’s drawback. So that key might be brought back in a different form in respect to context.
No comments:
Post a Comment