After listing through some of the nasty comments House GOPers were tweeting as the President was speaking to them about reaching a Budget Deal, she quoted the President calmly assessing the situation with George Stephanopoulos:
Obama: “You know — I think whatever I’m for, it’s very hard for a Republican to also be for. I think they always have to be a little bit — you know, maintain some distance.”
One would think after all the Filibustering and insults (some of them actually racist) that have been hurled at this President from the start of his administration, a columnist might react with shock and surprise that the sitting President managed to keep his cool.
Instead, Ruth Marcus offered this:
The president has made this point before, and maybe he’s right. Yet this analysis leaves him in a distinctly unpresidential posture — not leaning in, but holding back.
Excuse me, but...I did not think it was anatomically possible for one's head to get that far up one's...--never mind.
I don't know how to tell Journalists this, because...I really thought they would have covered it in Journalism school, but...it's not your job to balance the argument.
I know you think that's your job. But let's be clear about what your job really is.
Your job is to present both sides of a story...
Your job is not necessarily to lend them equal weight, particularly when they don't deserve it.
Again, you don't elevate both sides into equality. We don't need you to do that. In fact, it's a really bad idea if you do do that.
If you're a columnist, as Ruth Marcus is, this is even more tricky. Why? Because, a columnist offers nothing but opinion. They don't do any actual reporting. They don't go digging around for facts anymore...they've been excused from that particular activity. In fact, they are paid a substantial salary to say only what they think. Even if what they think has no basis in reality, as Ruth Marcus clearly demonstrated today.
One would think that some measure of journalistic integrity would matter in a circumstance like this, but again...you'd be wrong. The Washington Post is more than capable of publishing utter complete bull@#$% so long as it fills column inches. After all they employ Jennifer Rubin, Marc Thiessen, Robert Samuelson, Richard Cohen...and Ruth Marcus.
(Hey, at least Ezra Klein -- and I know me some Liberals who hate him for some reason -- no idea why -- does actual work to preparing his pieces.)
One would think it would matter to the folks at the Washington Post that their own readers can smell this line of crap a mile off, but we don't matter of the folks at the Washington Post. Ruth Marcus has proved...once again...that the Villagers are talking only to other Villagers.
Which could explain why most newspapers are in trouble.
We need Newspapers and Magazines and Media in general, advocating for their audience, and not entertaining their damn selves.
For example...if someone...say like the President...presents something that is backed in fact, and his opposition presents something that is cloaked in bull@#$%...we kinda need Media to call out the bull@#$%.
But they're not.
They used to. But they're not.
I mean it happens...sometimes, but it sure as hell didn't happen today with Ruth Marcus.
Let me quote something a columnist said not too long ago:
Excuse me, but can these people not count to 60? Have they somehow failed to notice that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have not exactly been playing nice? That while the left laments Obama's minor deviations from party orthodoxy, the right has been portraying him, with some success, as an out-of-control socialist?
That was from August 10, 2010. My goodness who wrote such a prescient piece?
C'mon, this is easy. This was Ruth Marcus...in a piece backing Robert Gibbs when he called out the Professional Left.
So what happened?
Apparently, Ruth Marcus...still employed by the Washington Post...has lost the ability...to count.
Ruth Marcus got lazy. She and the paper needed column inches to fill, and bull@#$% magically transpired.
When you say the President isn't showing leadership after showing in just a few short paragraphs that there's no one who's willing to be lead, we do wonder why the President is to blame, and not the Congress. And if you can't make that elementary of a call, it calls into question your ability to observe things...or any thing, for that matter.
I mean, I don't meant to tell Ruth Marcus in particular how to do her job, but I figured someone ought to.
