Special report: The discourse you rode in on!
EPILOG—NAMING BOB SCHIEFFER: Today, we have the naming of names. We’ll start with a big name: Bob Schieffer.
Last Friday, Schieffer appeared on the CBS Evening News. Presumably, he was there to offer analysis, though Scott Pelley didn’t say.
As he started the program, Pelley reported on the day’s very large drop in the Dow. (The S&P downgrade hadn’t yet happened.) Then he turned his attention to Schieffer. This was the first “Q”-and-“A:”
PELLEY (8/5/11): Bob Schieffer is our chief Washington correspondent and anchor of Face the Nation. Bob, the president says Republicans and Democrats have to work together.
SCHIEFFER: I don’t think you’ll get any argument on that. The question is how, Scott. Everybody says we have to build confidence in this economy, but this parade of partisan foolishness that we’ve been treated to in Washington in recent weeks did nothing to increase anyone’s confidence. I think if anything, it made all of us more doubtful that Congress and the White House can do anything together.
If the president has said it once, he has said it a hundred times—we’re going to focus on getting people back to work. But, you know, Washington seems to have lost its way. In the span of 18 months, we’ve gone from spending nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus to cutting over a trillion from spending. But whatever they’ve tried, nothing seems to change.
I guess you can say things are getting back to normal in one way here, Scott—the president went off to a fundraiser the day after the debt crisis was resolved and Congress went on another vacation. So on that front, at least, it’s business as usual.
Pelley didn’t quite ask a question—and Schieffer didn’t quite give an answer. Indeed, in the course of his session with Pelley, Schieffer did something substantially different—he crafted a perfect example of the phenomenon Paul Krugman discussed in his July 29 column, the column we had discussed right here last Friday. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/5/11.
In that July 29 column, Krugman criticized a powerful cult; he called it the “cult of balance.” He described the work of this cult as “the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts.” In that first non-answer answer last Friday, Schieffer leaned in that direction. He said there had been a “parade of partisan foolishness in Washington in recent weeks,” but he gave no specific examples. He made no attempt to direct more blame to one party or to one person—though as he closed, he portrayed Obama and the Congress as equally feckless souls.
One was going to a fundraiser, the other was off on vacation! This was “business as usual,” Schieffer proclaimed, as he engaged in that business himself.
Schieffer hadn’t tried to dish differential blame—but then again, he hadn’t been asked to. But in his second exchange with Pelley, the liturgy of that powerful cult came through loud and clear.
Pelley lobbed another softball—and Schieffer squared around and bunted. In his imitation of an answer, he adopted the unmistakable stance of that useless, overpaid cult:
PELLEY (continuing directly): Do you see any of this changing, Bob?
SCHIEFFER: You know, frankly, I don’t. And I don’t think it will until both sides find some things they can work on together to make it better. But I’m still not sure either side is ready to put aside the politics and do that.
Yet, how bad is this? I mean, when people were saying today it’s good news that unemployment has gone from 9.2 to 9.1? That just tells you how deep this hole is where we find ourselves. It’s pretty bad when 9.1 percent unemployment is going on, and that’s hailed as glad tidings.
PELLEY: Thanks, Bob! Sunday on Face the Nation, Bob’s guests will be...
According to Schieffer, neither side was “ready to put aside the politics” and “find some things they can work on together.” This is exactly the type of “analysis” Krugman described in that column.
Who knows? That may really be the way Schieffer sees the current situation. He may really feel that the various parties and players were equally at fault in the debt limit fight. But plainly, this is precisely the type of punditry Krugman had critiqued in that column, just one week before. “And this is no laughing matter,” Krugman had said. “The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism.”
Go ahead—reread Krugman’s column. In Krugman’s opinion, it’s obvious that one side in the debt limit debate was much more ready to work with the other—that no one but a hackish cult member could possibly fail to see this. But when it came time to name the names of those who belong to this dangerous cult, Krugman failed to do so—again. Instead, he cited an unobjectionable AP report, written several weeks earlier.
Schieffer’s utterly worthless “commentary” hadn’t occurred at the time of that column. But big-name media players like Schieffer offer such piffle each night of the week. As they do, they give the public the reassuring impression that commentary and analysis are actually happening.
That impression is wrong; commentary and analysis really aren’t happening. That said, we’re long past the point where Krugman needs to get off his keister and name the names of the actual people who belong to this cult, which “has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster.” Either that, or it’s time to stop the shit where Krugman pretends to be giving us commentary. That AP report just isn’t what that column was really about.
Today, we have the naming of names. We’ll start with a very big name: Bob Schieffer. It’s possible to name big names while maintaining a tone of decorum. But Krugman’s readers deserve to know who he is talking about.
Today, we have the naming of names. But will he name names tomorrow?
As the poet had it: For Henry Reed’s deathless “Naming of parts,” go ahead—just click here.
According to Wikipedia, Reed “was forever being confused with the much better known Sir Herbert Read.” In much the same way, The Club for Growth is often confused with The Hair Club for Men.
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