False Evenhandedness: The Reductio Ad Absurdum

by hilzoy

Via Media Matters: This is incredibly funny. It's a story from ABC News, called 'Politicians Get Nasty', about ugly political ads. It cites some of the obvious ones -- the bimbo ad directed against Harold Ford, the NRCC ad alleging that Michael Arcuri, a Democratic candidate for Congress, had called a fantasy hot line (in fact, it was a wrong number dialed by an aide; the right number -- same seven digit number, different area code -- was dialed right afterwards), Rush Limbaugh's comments about Michael J. Fox.

But, I hear you ask, what about the Democrats? Well, ABC has that one covered too:

"Democrats aren't necessarily running clean campaigns, though.

As the races tighten in the next couple of weeks, the left will likely unleash its garbage as well.

When the going gets tough, the politicians get ugly."

Yep: actual malfeasance balanced by purely hypothetical future badness -- badness that, at the moment, exists solely in the fevered imagination of ABC writers. Would it have been so hard either to come up with an actual mendacious Democratic ad or, if one could not be found, to run an article about how Republican politicians -- not politicians in general -- are running despicable ads? Apparently. But then, this is the same ABC News whose political director just told Bill O'Reilly that " I think we’ve got a chance in these last two weeks to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances."

Coming next week on ABC: "Heads of State Get Nasty", which describes the actual atrocities perpetrated by the likes of Presidents al-Bashir of Sudan, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Karimov of Uzbekistan, and then notes that the Prime Minister of Norway will undoubtedly do something awful at some unspecified time. Likewise, "TV Characters Get Nasty", about the appalling things that have been done by Beavis and Butthead and some of the less sympathetic characters in The Sopranos, and the possible future horrors that are, no doubt, about to be perpetrated by Big Bird. Or, just to be bipartisan about this, "Politicians Who Shouldn't Have Left Things In Their Freezers!", in which we learn about William Jefferson and -- and -- and, well, um, maybe next week some lobbyist will leave something in a Republican Congressperson's freezer. Probably something really, really bad. Maybe a severed head.

Making stuff up: it's all just part of reporting the news.

Comments

[dutchmarbel]

Tralk? Riding one.... Moi?? What the felgercarb are you talking about?

[Anarch]

A dream I had. A wonderful, glorious dream :D

[dutchmarbel]

Ah... that reminds me... 04.00h over here so I should do some dreaming of my own :)