No, media villagers, both sides are NOT to blame

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Greg Sargent today has a cautionary tale about the false equivalencies the media villagers will make for the failure of the "super committee" aka the "super Congress." No, `both sides’ aren’t equally to blame for supercommittee failure – The Plum Line:

Here’s why the supercommittee is failing, in one sentence: Democrats wanted the rich to pay more in taxes towards deficit reduction, and Republicans wanted the rich to pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction.

Any news outlet that doesn’t convey this basic fact to readers and viewers with total clarity is obscuring, rather than illuminating, what actually happened here.

I agree with those who have argued that supercommittee failure doesn’t really matter all that much, and that the obsession with the deficit is itself misguided and makes solutions to the actual crisis at hand — unemployment — far less likely to happen.

But since the press is going to be obsessing over the supercommittee’s failure for days to come, and since we will be inundated with reams of bogus false equivalence reporting about it, it’s worth stating as clearly as possible what really transpired.

And so: Any news outlet that doesn’t leave readers and viewers with an absolutely clear sense that the primary sticking point was over whether the rich should see their contribution to deficit reduction increase or decrease is letting down its customers.

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The problem is that readers and viewers emerging from the cloud of fingerpointing and confused reporting risk coming away with the impression that both sides made roughly equivalent concessions, but just couldn’t meet in the middle, when this isn’t what happened at all.

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Putting aside whether the supercommittee failure matters at all, it’s plainly true that one side was willing to concede far more than the other to make a deal possible. And anyone who pretends otherwise is just part of the problem.

As Eugene Robinson writes today: "No, the sun didn’t rise in the west this morning. No, Republicans on the congressional supercommittee didn’t offer meaningful concessions on raising new tax revenue. And no, “both sides” are not equally responsible for the failure to compromise." Republican obstinance responsible for supercommittee failure – The Washington Post.