22 June 2010, 11:34 am
The media's enduring, and understandable, fascination with the Tea Party movement continues unabated, as this weekend's coverage demonstrates. Unfortunately, what appear to be false notions of objectivity—or perhaps a lack of interest in policy—is preventing that coverage from illuminating what the movement actually represents and what it would do if empowered. Case in point: the Associated Press just published a 2,300 word stemwinder examining how and why a variety of individuals became involved in the Tea Party movement without once asking what precisely the platform consists of. It tells you the back stories of representative Tea Partiers, dutifully quotes their antipathy toward government, taxes, and deficit spending, and their horror at the accusation that they are motivated by racial animus. But the reporter seems never to have posed any serious questions about what tradeoffs they would make to achieve their stated goals. There are only two ways to balance a budget in the red: raising taxes, which Tea Partiers vehemently oppose, and cutting spending. But what spending should be cut? Defense and veterans spending, which accounts for 54 percent of the federal budget? It would be pretty hard to merge that with the Republicans' foreign-policy-hawk wing. Entitlement spending such as Social Security and Medicare? Good luck winning elections with that platform. Discretionary domestic spending is the favorite target of fiscal conservatives. But when it comes to specifics, suddenly every program seems worthier than when demonized in the collective abstract. Which politician wants to cut spending on Homeland Security? Education for students with special needs? (Surely not Sarah Palin!) "Concerned Americans trying to find their voices, and a way to channel their disgust," the AP earnestly reports. "To hear what motivates them is to begin to understand what's going on in American politics in 2010." But what if what motivates them is ignorance? A CBS/New York Times poll showed that 44 percent of Tea Partiers believe their taxes have gone up under President Obama, and only 2 percent believed they have gone down, even though, in fact, Obama has cut taxes. Might that be worth bringing to bear? Maybe we should even ask the Tea Partiers whether they are aware of the reality on taxes and if that changes their views http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/06/21/why-doesn-t-the-media-interrogate-tea-partiers-beliefs.html... Read More »
Share on del.icio.us
Share on digg
Share on Technorati
Share on reddit
Share on Yahoo!
Share on Furl
