Friday, December 23, 2011
Despite writing in a major national newspaper
Paul Krugman has noticed that the dialogue of the campaign trail is in no way balanced. And the truth is the first casualty in the war on words. To illustrate his point he highlights Mitt Romneys inability to tell the truth.
As Greg Sargent of The Washington Post has pointed out, there’s a common theme to these whoppers and a number of other things Mr. Romney has said: the strategy is clearly to portray the president as a suspect character, someone who doesn’t share American values. And since Mr. Obama has done and said nothing to justify this portrait, Mr. Romney just invents stuff to make his case.Not that the answer would ever get into print in the Times, but I have to wonder if he has ever asked his editors why this is so?
But won’t there be some blowback? Won’t Mr. Romney pay a price for running a campaign based entirely on falsehoods? He obviously thinks not, and I’m afraid he may be right.
Oh, Mr. Romney will probably be called on some falsehoods. But, if past experience is any guide, most of the news media will feel as though their reporting must be “balanced,” which means that every time they point out that a Republican lied they have to match it with a comparable accusation against a Democrat — even if what the Democrat said was actually true or, at worst, a minor misstatement.
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