…Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, David Gregory, Gwen
Ifill, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams and just about anybody else who
gets the chance to interview political candidates and elected officials over
the coming months.
Or, lets call this a
Maybe Now? Redux.
There’ve been some pixels and ink dedicated lately to the issue of partisan
intransigence in the House and even the
Senate.
Initiated by an
op-ed
piece in the Washington Post last month by nonpartisan congressional historians
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, a number of
writers,
pundits
and other
public
figures have alluded to the unwillingness, inability or just plain refusal
of Republicans in elected office to compromise with Democrats in order to pass
legislation. Some Republican candidates have been
outspoken
in their belief that their refusal to compromise is one of their strongest
virtues.
I’m singling out Matthews in the title because Hardball has long been one of my favorite opinion shows and because
he does a better job than
most figures in his profession of cutting through an interviewee’s
smokescreens and getting to the truth. He does this by refusing to accept
answers at face value, and not treating their stated assumptions, prejudices or
any unsubstantiated claims as facts. It’s this kind of incisive but even handed
journalistic inquiry that is the only real hope of untangling the knot that our
current government finds itself tied up in.
Obviously, Democrats will blame the current impasse on Republicans and Republicans
will point to examples that put the onus on Democrats. But journalists have the
tools and the opportunity to untangle the mess, exposing obfuscation and
posturing while identifying genuine efforts at consensus building and problem
solving.
The first question that has to be asked particularly of Republicans was suggested in the earlier post on May 4: “Do you believe that Democrats, Liberals and
Progressives have a legitimate say – a legitimate right to participate –
in governing the country?” The answer to this simple question will have
profound implications for everything said afterward in the interview and for
that individual’s subsequent words and actions. If the answer is “yes” then the
follow-up question will have to be “Well what’s wrong with compromising then?”
If the answer is “no,” follow-up questions can go directly to the heart of how
they could possibly expect to get anything accomplished in a legislative body
populated with people whom they regard as unfit to govern.
As long as our media
outlets remain a welcoming platform for Republican legislators to simply excoriate
their Democratic counterparts and ideas while repeating their own unchallenged bumper
sticker talking points, they remain under no obligation to perform the
duty they were sent to Washington for: to govern the country.
This doesn’t have to mean hunting down and harassing only Republicans.
By all means, ask Democrats the same questions. But I have to say I got a damn
good idea how different the answers will be: One need only read over a certain former Republican Speaker of the House's "memo"
to his fellow legislators instructing them in the language they should
use when describing their Democratic counterparts to gauge the respect GOP lawmakers have for their colleagues across the aisle. Besides, for thirty years, I’ve been cruising
the radio dial, listening for the Liberal Media’s twisting of American ideals
and strength of purpose. What I’ve heard is Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage and
O’Reilly characterizing Liberals and Democrats as perverts and degenerates, nothing less than genuine
enemies of America and of decency itself. Now that they run the Republican Party and dictate to their
elected officials, how much does anyone think the GOP can actually accomplish
as long as there are any Democrats
left in government?
And further, how long will it take and -- more importantly -- how much will it cost, for the GOP to get
rid of them all?
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