Site Meter

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Falling off the Ballance beam

My head is spinning,because the Washington Post appears to have abandoned Ballance. The letter to Iran signed by 47 Republican senators seems to have gone too far for the most dedicated equilabrist to claim that both sides have a point.

They person who writes the headlines sticks to the rule of not siding for Democrats v Republicans or reality v spin "In wake of GOP letter to Iran, battle erupts over blame for dysfunction" but Greg Jaffe and Juliet Eilperin do not quote a single defender of the letter. The closest they come is to quote one of the signatories - Mitch McConnell blaming Obama for the actions of Mitch McConnell -- he claimed that Congress hasn't been consulted, but wasn't quoted arguing that the letter had any redeeming social value. I thought they had found a second non critic of the letter "Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), an Iraq war veteran," until I read the quote which began "'“I’m not going to sit here and defend the Senate letter,'” .

The points awarded to the Republican side are that Obama is responsible for the actions of Republicans because he made them really mad and that the breach of norms is not unprecedented. The second Republican claim is fairly firmly rejected in the concluding paragraph.

I am pleased by the shift, but I do think it is sad that an open letter went too far for ballanced reporting while torture and wars of choice didn't. Ballance took a breather, but the principle that words speak louder than actions didn't.

No comments: