Jackson Diehl and “Allowing”
People usually attribute the badness of The Washington Post’s editorial page content to Fred Hiatt, since he’s the man in charge, but judging by this column, Hiatt’s number two man probably lacks the intelligence required to dress himself in the morning so it must be hard out there for the boss. Diehl’s theme is that Obama is just like Bush. And his evidence is that if you, like Diehl, don’t have a functioning central nervous system or any understanding of public policy issues, then things that normal people recognize as different are actually the same. You can go elsewhere (Steve Benen, etc.) for critiques of most of Diehl’s main points, but I thought this particular twitch showed just how pathetic this column was:
We know from the Clinton administration that any attempt to create a national health-care system will touch off an enormous domestic battle, inside and outside Congress. If anything, Obama has raised the stakes by proposing no funding source other than higher taxes on wealthy Americans, allowing Republicans to raise the cries of “socialism” and “class warfare.”
The problem with Obama’s health care plan is not the plan. Nor is it the proposed source of funding for the plan. Rather, it’s that the choice of proposed funding source, though Diehl doesn’t object to it on the merits, will “allow” Republicans to oppose it on the grounds of “socialism” and “class warfare.” Really? Obama should have somehow denied them permission to criticize his plan? His plan is not, after all, “socialism” and yet failure to propose socialism has not prevented Republicans from raising the cry of “socialism.” Nor has the fact that it’s not a proposal to tax small businesses prevented Republicans from raising the cry that Obama is raising taxes on small businesses. Surely it’s the responsibility of Obama’s opponents to avoid responding to his initiatives in a hysterical manner. And if Jackson Diehl doesn’t like the hysteria, he should consider blaming the hysterics.
21 Responses to “Jackson Diehl and “Allowing””
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March 9th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Diehl learned Concern Trolling from Richard Cohen.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:59 am
The DC media are trying to give a hand to the Republicans, not because they like the Republicans, but because close contests are better for the political media than blowouts, from a business perspective.
It’s similar to how they kept discussing the Democratic primary as a close race whose outcome was in doubt long after Obama had built an insurmountable lead.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am
That’s the problem. Diehl is a lying hysteric himself, so, yes, he likes the hysteria.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Well, give Diehl credit on this front: He beat Politico to the story
March 9th, 2009 at 9:05 am
allowing Republicans to raise the cries of “socialism” and “class warfare.”
For some reason, this has got me wondering what Obama would need to do to allow Republicans to raise the cries of “cowabunga!” and “whoa! dude!”.
I guess he’d have to nuke Sweden or something. And then…Diehl could complain that Democrats weren’t supportive enough of aggressive warfare against neutral nations, which would cost them votes in the prarie states in the future. And then David Broder could weigh in and say we need to support a bipartisan compromise in support of nuking Vatican City and Paris! And then! Krauthammer could explain that only latent homosexuals and communists would support anything less than nuking the moon!
max
['Ya know... *I* should write the WaPo opinion pages.']
March 9th, 2009 at 9:07 am
This is the state of DC journalism in 2009:
Watch, observe and even predict the political posturing and tactics, no matter who friggin’ absurd they are.
Just DO NOT call them out on it and DO NOT add context or perspective.
The last thing you would want is get on the bad side of O’Reilly, Limbaugh or Malkin, is that it??
No “Butt Boys” from Rush, right?
March 9th, 2009 at 9:17 am
max,
Let’s not forget giving Joe Scarborough the opportunity to say that Nancy Pelosi, while cosponsoring and voting for the AUMF against Sweden, undermined Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to Republicans by opposing their efforts to amend it to include a cut in the capital gains tax.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Barack Obama is a carbon-based lifeform, who uses a respiratory system to take in oxygen and expel CO2, just like George Bush.
That’s not Change We Can Believe In! That’s Metabolism as Usual!
Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss. I’m so smart, and you are naive.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Beltway definition of “hysterical”: a view outside the Overton Window. The left was hysterical in castigating the lawlessness and incompetence of the Bush Administration; the right is hysterical in criticizing the socialism of the Obama Administration. Ergo, same.
Critical to understanding how this game works is what is missing from the “analysis”: almost all of what the left said then, and says now, was and is true; damned near everything the right said then, and says now, was and is false. But the true/false dichotomy has no meaning inside the walls of Versailles. The game is all.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
this is really the height of journalistic equivalence. David Broder would be proud. equating action on health care with the iraq war also strains credulity. yes, both will engender partisan bickering, but all bickering is not created equal. raising a fuss over going to war vs. fixing a chronic problem hurting the middle class are two different animals.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:23 am
nice, I like this feistier post! lack of a central nervous system, hehe, yes, that’s good stuff.
glad people are ceasing to take these people seriously. really, outright derision is all they’ve ever deserved, even when they were in power. but now … its time to take a piece of marble, carve words like ‘republican’ ‘free market’ ‘drill baby drill’ ‘deregulation’ ’socialism’ ‘rugged individualism’ ‘no new taxes’ ‘christian nation’ ‘means testing’ ‘voter ID law’ ’social security crisis’ into it, sketch a little pic of joe the plumber making out with sarah palin at the top, and bury these fools for good.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Matt sounds awfully touchy this morning.
Perhaps his career plan of being a partisan hack isn’t turning out to be the sweet ride he expected.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Whatsa matter, Sailer, didn’t get enough attention on earlier posts?
March 9th, 2009 at 9:41 am
If only Obama and the Dems really were calling for class warfare and socialism.
As others have noted a couple of bankers and Congressmen strung up on Wall Street would go a long way towards prodding needed reforms in our economy.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Shit, Sailer’s here.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Jackson’s always been a tool.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
The central premise of this idiotic piece seems to be that Bush and Obama are alike in that they both used a major crisis as a pretext to ram through an ambitious policy agenda. Left unsaid, of course, is one crucial difference. The crisis Bush “led” us through was of his own making, while the one Obama is trying to deal with was largely brought about by the people whose opinion Diehl is now accusing Obama of being insufficiently solicitous of.
March 10th, 2009 at 2:29 am
This is incredibly frustrating because it’s a great illustration of a press corps which functions quite regularly as a mindless GOP tool. This is far more pernicious than a simple lie.
Obama advertises a bipartisan approach and suddenly he’s expected to have superhuman powers to stifle Republican talking points, or else he’s doomed to failure? These people need to be followed around by Seth Meyers from SNL: “He ALLOWED them to call it socialism? Really, Jackson Diehl?”
April 9th, 2009 at 2:21 am
FANTASTIC!
April 9th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Hey, nice tips. I’ll buy a glass of beer to the person from that forum who told me to visit your blog
April 15th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I’ll share it on Twitter.