Wind him up, and Ron Fournier clangs his tinny "both sides" cymbals. He's been writing the same, schoolmarmish, tsk-tsk column week after week, for years now. Only the subject matter changes.
Today it's DHS funding, or rather the lack of it, which is a staggeringly obvious acute symptom of the GOP's exclusive, and chronic, disorders. Yet Fournier thunders that "Both parties deserve a measure of blame for the latest dysfunction."
That's his assessment. Notice, however, how he shifts perspectives toward the end of his piece: "The fact that both sides are wrong doesn't mean they are equally wrong." This declaration would be an extension of his assessment, right? A bit of clarifying finger-pointing, in which the guiltless party might nonetheless share some minor measure of blame? Wrong. Fournier's next sentence removes him, in toto, from his own appraisal and any such fairness (my emphasis): "Most voters are likely to conclude that Republicans are a bit more culpable than Democrats." Not Fournier. Most voters. And, of course, just "a bit."
Subsequently he returns to 50-50 blame-laying: "If DHS shuts down this weekend, it almost doesn't matter who get[s] blamed in the short, medium, and long terms. Both parties will be failures. Again."
The singular point of Fournier's columns — one undifferentiated piece after another — is that both sides are at fault. Yet when that narrative becomes absurd even to Fournier and his sympathetic readership, he suddenly declares that blame "almost doesn't matter." It's all rather pathetic.
It just seems like more of the same old "government is the problem" narrative that is intended to create voter apathy.
Posted by: Marc | February 25, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Fournier is playing his assigned part in the right wing distortion machine. To have maximum effect, they need people in respectable and/or mainstream outlets to push the conversation in their preferred direction. With Fournier, or Jonathan Karl at ABC, or that 60 minutes correspondent who tried to elevate Benghazi conspiracy theories by airing them on that still-respected show, or in their own ways, Davids Brooks and Frum, they all sing a particular tune meant to obfuscate and confuse the public as to the GOP's ongoing sabotage.
With Fournier, it's become so predictable that it's a punchline now among liberals, but that is of no concern to him. Blame both sides, ignoring or papering over all of the necessary context and prior history implicating the GOP's responsibility, and whenever possible, blame Obama for failing to leeeeeaaaaad. Every.single.time. Thus he turns blindingly obvious, despicable GOP sabotage into just your usual partisan bickering. Tsk tsk. And he gets invited on Morning Joke and approvingly cited by mainstream journalists and Sunday show anchors for his faux above-the-fray chin-stroking bullshit. Which helps the GOP skate away from the scene of their latest fiasco in a cloud of "they're all to blame" chatter.
I still hold out hope that my charitable long-distance diagnosis of Ron as having severe dementia proves to be true. But it's far more likely that he doesn't believe a word of what he says, knows exactly what's going on, and is carrying water for his preferred side, which has always quite obviously been the GOP - recall his mash notes with Karl "keep up the fight" Rove and his being offered the job of McCain's top press surrogate. The fact that he still claims a nonpartisan objectivity is just further evidence of how far gone the political media is today.
Posted by: Turgidson | February 25, 2015 at 12:11 PM
Ornstein and Mann's "Lets Just Say It: Republicans are the Problem" is still the best editorial I've read on the issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html
Posted by: Jason | February 25, 2015 at 01:26 PM
Clearly it is the duty of those inclined to compromise to do so with those who refuse to compromise. Naturally anyone with a brain and a rudimentary understanding of game theory instantly gets that in order to win anything you MUST be among the uncompromising. On this one bases a government?
Posted by: Peter G | February 25, 2015 at 02:09 PM