Columnists say the darnedest things!

MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2012

Petri grows up fast: In Saturday’s Washington Post, Alexandra Petri scolded Mitt Romney for the previous day’s birther-tinged remark.

To her credit, Petri scolded Romney for what he said. But somehow, she knew the remark was a joke—even though the audience seemed to applaud the remark more than it seemed to laugh. Somehow, she also knew this, expressed as she ended her column:

PETRI (8/25/12): This was off the cuff. The crowd liked it. Birther jokes are not new on the campaign trail. So it is easy to see how it slipped out. “Ha,” you can picture Mitt thinking. “The president’s birth certificate is a topic that people sometimes make jokes about! I, too, will make such a joke!”

But still.

Birtherism itself is a joke. And not a particularly amusing one. It’s the kind of embarrassing joke you wish people would stop telling.

What made Petri think she knew that the remark was “off the cuff?” That the remark “slipped out?”

Was Romney's remark off the cuff? Like the all-knowing columnist, we don’t know. That said, it didn’t look or sound off the cuff to us, although it may have been.

Why would Romney deliberately make that remark? Surely, Petri can think of possible reasons. We can think of several reasons, starting with Todd Akin.

(The base doesn't like the dissing of Akin. Let's throw a bone to the base.)

The youngsters really do grow up fast, as we recall on back-to-school day. They may grow up especially fast when they’re being paid good fough and being made part of the club.

They know which things they’re supposed to say. They know which things they mustn’t.

MEDICARE MUDDLE: We, the Walpiri!

MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2012

Conclusion: The world’s most primitive journalists: Everyone has heard about the less-than-modern people who never developed full number systems.

According to these stories, such people have words for “one” and “two,” but then go straight to “many.” That’s as far as their number words, or their counting systems, extend.

In our world, such people would be poorly equipped to discuss a great many real-life situations—although some of these situations may not present in their daily lives.

Are these stories true? The Number Warrior says they are. He cites Blake’s "Australian Aboriginal Languages," including his work on the Walpiri.

And you thought of Blake as a poet!

Whatever! For our purposes, it doesn’t matter whether these famous groups exist. In our own world, one such group plainly does exist, at least when it comes to attempts to discuss the Medicare program.

Uh-oh! The American press corps has never developed a language for discussing this program! This created a very large problem in 1995 and 1996, when the political discourse turned on claims about Newt Gingrich’s Medicare proposals.

The problem has arisen again in the past few weeks. Simply put, our press corps doesn’t have the tools, the language or the skills with which to discuss the Medicare system. (They may also lack the nerve.)

Seventeen years have passed since they floundered and failed in the Medicare fight between Clinton and Gingrich. In the past few weeks, we have seen them flounder again. Can the Walpiri count past two? We aren’t sure, but American journalists are similarly limited. And like the Walpiri of legend, they seem compldetely unaware of their massive shortcomings!

You might say that all they want is that apocryphal pair of warm shoes!

Today, we’ll do the penultimate post in our Medicare Muddle series. That said, this muddle will surely continue, for years, in the work of the mainstream press.

For today, we’ll offer a bunch of final observations—or, more specifically, six:

Drum comes through, as expected: On Saturday, Kevin Drum responded to our desperate plea from Friday. In this post, he answered two specific questions:

First question, in his own words: “Did Obama steal, rob, siphon, take or remove $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?” Second question: “After stealing that money, did he spend it on Obamacare?”

Taken together, Kevin’s answers are somewhat surprising. He says the answer to the first question is no—No, Obama didn’t take money from the Medicare trust fund.

You’d think that would pretty much answer the second question too! If Obama didn’t take any money from the trust fund, how could he have spent it on something else? Surprisingly, Kevin says the second question “is a little trickier” than the first—and he offers an analogy to help us puzzle this out.

Kevin offered the same analogy a few months ago. For us, the analogy hasn’t been especially helpful; your results may differ. But in Kevin’s dueling answers, you see how hard it is for us Walpiri to discuss the Medicare program. Obama didn’t take the money, he says. But it doesn’t automatically follow that he didn’t spend it on something else!

This isn’t exactly Kevin’s fault (more tomorrow). But as a non-Walpiri, we think his answers go together somewhat strangely.

We the Walpiri have many shortcomings when it comes to the discussion of Medicare. In part, the press corps has had a hard time spotting the demonology:

Spotting the demonology: The press corps has had a difficult time spotting the demonology in Romney’s recent statements. Starting on August 14, he began saying that Obama had “raided” $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund—and that he had spent the stolen/robbed/raided money on Obamacare.

Romney made this two-part statement again and again (more extensive texts below). This is the way he stated his claim on the CBS Morning Show:

ROMNEY (8/15/12): You know, the president, when he was campaigning in Denver, Colorado four years ago, said that Medicare was on a pathway to become bankrupt. And yet he's taking $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund to finance Obamacare, a new risky federal takeover of health care.

My commitment is, if I become president, I'm going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided.

Again and again, Romney said Obama has taken a big wad of cash from the Medicare trust fund. That claim is very specific—and the demonology is very high. In these repeated declarations, Romney didn’t say that Obama took $716 billion “from Medicare.” Again and again, he said Obama had “taken” or “raided” $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund.

That is a very specific claim—and as Kevin notes, it’s false. But the claim is also very high in demonology. Stealing money from a trust fund is a bit like taking candy from a baby. The demonology there is very high.

Presumably, that’s why Romney kept saying it.

According to Kevin, Romney was making a charge which is false—and his charge was loaded with demonology. But we had to scream and yell all week to get anyone to answer a simple question: Has Obama taken money from the Medicare trust fund? And of course, within the press corps itself, helpless Walpiri acted as if Romney never made this specific charge at all. At the New York Times, at the Washington Post, major reporters chose to ignore the demonistic language Romney was spreading all over the landscape. To all appearances, these helpless players had no idea that there is a difference between these two statements:

Obama took $716 billion from Medicare.
Obama took $716 billion form the Medicare trust fund.

In fairness, our “reporters” are often extremely skilled at avoiding such acts of demonology. Wet liquid starts to run down their legs when people like Romney make such charges; they worry about what might happen if they simply tell their readers that Romney’s charge is false. And so, they took the safe way out—they discussed the weaker charge other GOP players were making.

They kept skipping past Romney’s specific statement—the more heavily demonized charge. Example:

At Politifact, an unnamed reporter specifically cited Romney’s more specific charge, critiquing this statement from a radio interview: "Under the president's plan, he cuts Medicare by $716 billion, takes that money out of the Medicare trust fund and uses it to pay for Obamacare.”

But alas! In Politifact’s evaluation, the unnamed reporter made no attempt to answer our question: Did Obama take any money from the Medicare trust fund?

According to Drum, the answer is no. But Politifact skipped right past that claim—and it rated Romney’s statement “half-true.”

That demonized, highly specific language flew right past this reporter’s ear. Our rating for his or work: Highly incompetent.

Ladies and gentleman, meet the modern Walpiri! In their language, they have no words for “from the Medicare trust fund.”

A very perilous term: The Walpiri are lacking in number words. When it comes to discussing Medicare, our reporters have one word too many!

If we were advising the nation’s reporters, we would make this suggestion: Never use the confusing word “cut” when discussing the Medicare program. Use of this term almost always produces confusion. Always avoid this term, unless you’re prepared to explain what you mean with great care.

Several problems obtain with this word; for now, let’s discuss just one. When journalists talk about “Medicare cuts,” citizens rarely know what they mean: Are they referring to reductions in future Medicare spending? Or are they referring to reductions in Medicare services?

The difference is huge, but it routinely goes unspecified. Voters get misled in the process.

One example: At the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Sarah Kliff wrote an informative post about the way Obama has reduced future Medicare spending. In her very last paragraph, Kliff finally explained that Obama’s action doesn’t cut any Medicare benefits; it only “rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers.”

But up in her headline—the very first thing a reader will see—Kliff unwisely wrote this:

Romney’s right: Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion. Here’s how.

For a liberal like Kliff to write something like that is just unbelievably foolish. But then, the word “cuts” misleads readers again and again in the Medicare discussion.

The use of that word lay at the heart of the Clinton-Gingrich Medicare fight. Seventeen years later, our so-called press corps is still counting “one, two, many” when it comes to the use of that word.

No language for discussing inflation: According to legend, the Walpiri can’t deal well with collections of objects which number more than two.

Since their children don’t own twelve pairs of Nikes, this may not cause everyday problems. But uh-oh! Our own journalistic Walpiri have linguistic shortfalls too.

One such shortfall does cause problems on a daily basis:

Good grief! Our reporters don’t know how to discuss inflation, a very basic part of our lives! Endless confusion enters the stew when they try to discuss future Medicare spending, in which all dollar figures have of course been swollen by the effects of inflation.

By now, you’d think that even these primitive souls would have come up with some ways to deal with this obvious problem. But if you thought such a thing, you were wrong. Even the people who have done the best work in the past few weeks have been fumbling around with this problem (example below).

This lay at the heart of the endless confusion in 1995 and 1996. Almost two decades later, our modern Walpiri still can’t count to three.

Blatant incompetence at the Times: For our money, FactCheck.org’s Lori Robertson has done the best work with this topic in the past few weeks, especially in three recent posts you can access here (August 22, 22, 24). If you read those posts, you will see a reporter who is running rings around her hapless colleagues at the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Robertson’s work puts the Times to shame. In a rational world, a string of people at the Times would be bumped back to the random crime desk for the hapless work they've done in the past two weeks. In a rational world, that would include David Leonhardt, who was writing an analysis of a pitcher for the Times sports section while his stable of incompetents was making a mess of this topic.

Reading Robertson, you encounter a long array of information and facts—facts which have been notable by their absence from the Post and the Times. Even here, though, it must be said: Robertson displays some of the basic conceptual problems we have listed above. She skips past Romney’s most specific charge: The claim that Obama has raided $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund. And she deals very poorly with inflation, breaking her back to insist that no one is making any actual cuts in future Medicare spending. (They're just reducing the growth.)

That’s true—more correctly, it isn’t obviously false. But it’s also confusing, misleading.

Go ahead—read Robertson’s posts. You’ll meet a large array of basic facts—basic facts you haven’t encountered in the Times or the Post.

The New York Times likes doggies and hair. The New York Times represents the heart of modern Walpiri culture.

There are other problems: All week long, we asked the press corps to respond to Romney’s specific assertions. Asking our press corps to do such a thing is a bit like asking the Walpiri to count all their finger and toes.

That said, other problems exist in the Medicare discussion. Which of Ryan and Romney’s three million plans should we be discussing? Is it appropriate when the Obama campaign keeps offering that “seniors will pay $6400 more” critique—a critique which takes us back to Ryan’s original plan?

Regarding the Ryan-Wyden plan, does anyone know what journalists mean when they offer passages like the one we highlight below? We take this from Bill Keller’s column in today’s New York Times:

KELLER (8/27/12): Last year Wyden and Ryan held a news conference to release their plan. It would leave Medicare intact for anyone 55 and over, but give the next wave of retirees a menu of options including traditional Medicare and private insurance plans that would compete in local auctions. (The system resembles the insurance exchanges envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare.) By introducing a measure of choice and competition Wyden hoped to prod health care providers toward more efficient practices and reap savings that could be used to ensure the long-term survival of Medicare.

What does that highlighted passage mean? According to Keller, the Ryan-Wyden plan “would give the next wave of retirees [those currently under 55] a menu of options including traditional Medicare.” Does that mean that those retirees could just continue along with nothing changed in traditional Medicare, including the amount of co-payments they are required to make?

Scribes like Keller keep typing such things without clarifying this obvious question.

Tomorrow, we’ll offer two final points about the Medicare muddle, even as we start an exciting new series concerning the rise of Lawrence O’Donnellism. But please understand what happened in the past few weeks:

Romney paraded around the land, making a highly specific, highly demonized charge. He described Obama doing a very bad thing—stealing a large sum of money from the Medicare trust fund.

As usual, America’s “journalists” acted as if they hadn’t seen Romney do this. We screamed and yelled, then yelled some more. But aside from Gene Lyons and Kevin Drum, have you seen any journalist attempt to answer our blindingly obvious questions:

Did Obama steal, raid, siphon or otherwise take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund? If not, how could he have spent the money on Obamacare?

We’ll return to that second question tomorrow, the question Drum answered somewhat oddly. And we’ll recall the way the GOP fought the press corps in 1995 about its Medicare coverage. One side fights, the other side won’t.

Our mainstream reporters act like the Walpiri when it comes to the Medicare program. Our liberal leaders act like folk who want the Walpiri to hire them.

ROMNEY KEPT LODGING HIS CHARGE: Romney made his two-part charge again and again. Perhaps because of their primitive tools, the press corps seemed not to hear.

We can’t track every statement by Romney. If we are counting correctly, we have assembled seven:

Romney, Beallsville, Ohio, 8/14/12, noontime: But did you know that he has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund? He's raided that trust fund. And do you know what he did with it? He's used it to pay for Obama care, a risky, unproven federal government takeover to health care. And if I'm president of the United States, we're putting the $716 billion back.

Romney, Zanesville, Ohio, 8/14/12, mid-afternoon: You know that every time you get a paycheck, out of that money comes money going into the Medicare trust fund to pay for your health care when you're older. And this president has decided—I can't believe it—he has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for Obamacare.

Romney, Chillicothe, Ohio, 8/14/12, early evening: Do you know that if the president is re-elected, he will succeed in raiding $716 billion from Medicare, from the trust fund you have been paying into all your lives—$716 billion to pay for Obamacare? He is taking your money to finance his risky and unproven takeover of the health care system.

Romney, CBS This Morning, 8/15/12: You know, the president, when he was campaigning in Denver, Colorado four years ago, said that Medicare was on a pathway to become bankrupt. And yet he's taking $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund to finance "Obamacare," a new risky federal takeover of health care.

My commitment is, if I become president, I'm going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided.

Romney, Fox 35 Orlando, 8/15/12: If Obamacare is allowed to be installed, Medicare will be raided by $716 billion. The president takes $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for Obamacare.

Romney in Charlotte, 8/15/12, as quoted in the Baltimore Sun: "That came out of the Medicare trust fund. He raided that trust fund to pay for Obamacare. And as seniors hear this, they're going to be angry."

Governor Romney’s weekly podcast, 8/17/12: Hello, I'm Mitt Romney. And this November, America will make a choice about the direction we want to go as a country—and nowhere is that choice clearer than on the issue of Medicare.

President Obama's healthcare law raided $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund. And he did that to finance his takeover of the healthcare system.

[...]

We've got to save this critical program. You paid into it, and you've earned it. I think it's outrageous that the President took $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for Obamacare.

For that bullshit podcast, click here.

He said it again and again and again. Soon, pundits were saying shit like this on programs like Inside Washington:

KRAUTHAMMER (8/19/12): Number one, CBO says that if Obama—and it wrote this—if ObamaCare were abolished, it would increase the Medicare trust fund by $700 billion. The money was removed from one pot, ended up in another pot.

Incredibly, that’s what Charles said. But no other panelist said a word! The Walpiri weren’t able to hear.

The New York Times is trying to help!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 2012

Romney’s new campaign director: Sheryl Gay Stolberg has spotted a problem with Mitt Romney’s campaign.

On the front page of today’s New York Times, she describes the lingering problem:

STOLBERG (8/25/12): Next week, Mr. Romney will go to Tampa, Fla., to accept the Republican nomination for president, after months on the campaign trail casting himself as Mr. Fix-it, a turnaround specialist whose business experience can revive a struggling economy. There, his advisers will seek to humanize Mr. Romney, who has had trouble connecting with ordinary voters.

But what his campaign has not offered, to date, is a crisis narrative, the kind of biographical story of overcoming hardship that other politicians have used to define themselves and inspire other Americans.

Romney hasn’t offered “a crisis narrative,” the kind of biographical story other politicians have used to inspire Americans. As she continues, Stolberg suggests a solution to this nagging problem:

STOLBERG (continuing directly): The French car crash and Ann Romney’s illness provide such a narrative; they are dark moments—bookends of sorts—in what otherwise has seemed a charmed existence. Both offer clues into Mr. Romney’s character, and the way he reacts to challenges. He is both forward-looking and inward-looking, practical and deeply private, with a consultant’s instinct for identifying solutions even in the most personally trying times.

If the campaign can’t craft this "crisis narrative," Stolberg seems eager to do it for them! On today’s front page, she discusses two moments in Romney’s life which provide the inspiration his campaign hasn’t given us yet.

Is Stolberg still a journalist? Or is she a strategist for Candidate Romney? This morning, she doesn’t seem sure.

Might we suggest another “dark moment” from Romney’s life which might “offer clues into his character?” This moment led to very bad outcomes for people not in his family.

We’ll suggest the moment we’ve mentioned all year—the looting of GS Technology, the story the New York Times has simply refused to report. Our question: How did workers’ pensions get “underfunded” at this company while Romney was lugging off big wads of cash? Why was Bain unable to meet its obligations regarding these people's health care?

The New York Times has refused to report this story, even though Reuters offered a detailed report on this episode all the way back in January. The Times still hasn’t reported this “dark” episode—although this morning, Stolberg offers us two dark moments which we might find inspiring.

Who knows? Maybe the Times will report on Bain’s alleged looting before the campaign is finished. But this morning, Stolberg virtually volunteers as a campaign assistant to Romney. Right there on the Times front page, she notes that Romney hasn’t performed a key task.

And so she openly volunteers to perform the key task for him!

Just a guess: The liberal world will stare into air, as the liberal world typically does. Liberal careers go through the Times.

For that reason, some things can’t be said.

MEDICARE MUDDLE: Miller keeps getting it right!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 2012

Interlude—Medicare muddle no more: The Post’s Matt Miller has been on fire since Romney selected Ryan.

This morning, he offers a deconstruction of our Medicare mess. His headline: “The real Medicare villain.”

We’re sorry to be unpleasant today. But the liberal world, such as it is, has long been too clueless to say this:

MILLER (8/25/12): The beginning of wisdom on Medicare’s future starts with two things both parties say but which can’t simultaneously be true.

The first is that we spend much more on health care than any other advanced nation yet get no better results. The second claim—implicit in the attacks on Obama’s $716 billion in “cuts” or on Romney/Ryan’s heartless vouchers—is that, if we do much to slow the growth of health-care spending, we’d hurt seniors’ access and quality of care.

As I’ve argued before, no matter how often and how loudly interest groups and politicians scream this second claim, it can’t be true if the first claim is a fact. And U.S. health care’s inefficiency is indisputable.

Duh. As everyone knows, we spend massively more per person on health care than other developed nations. At the same time, we act as if there’s no earthly way to cut back our spending on health care (read, to cut back our Medicare speanding).

As Miller notes, this simply doesn’t make sense.

As Miller continues, he describes a “progressive catastrophe.” He does make one factual error:

MILLER (continuing directly): The United States spends twice per person on health care what most other advanced nations spend without better outcomes to show for it. As a share of the economy, this now translates to an eye-popping 18 percent of GDP; the next closest nations spend 12 or 13 percent, while the OECD average is in the 8s. Mighty Singapore, with comparable results, spends just 4 percent! And these nations perform better under every model—from single-payer (Canada, England) to mandated private insurance (Switzerland, Holland) to creative public/private hybrids (Singapore).

These aren’t just dry numbers. They represent a progressive catastrophe. If we could run our health-care system as cost-effectively as other rich nations—which also manage to insure everyone, while we shamefully still leave 50 million people without basic coverage—we’d free up hundreds of billions of dollars each year to pay for infrastructure, R&D, universal preschool, great teachers for poor kids, a mega-earned income tax credit for the working poor, and higher wages (that’s my starter list, at least).

After Republican intransigence, in other words—and even after we eventually raise taxes to help fund the boomers’ retirement—it’s not an exaggeration to say that health-sector inefficiency is the biggest obstacle to progressive goals in America.

Duh. Within our profligate health care system, every consumer is being looted by powerful interests. The drug manufacturers, the medical device makers—it’s obvious that every player is taking a large extra slice.

This leads to our complaint about Miller. As people constantly do, he understates the extent to which we overpay for health care. On a per person basis, we pay two to three times as much as other developed nations.

Obviously, large sums are being looted.

The liberal world has tolerated this situation for a very long time. In 2009, our nation spent a year pretending to have a discussion of health care. Again and again, we noted the way the major news organs refused to examine that basic question: Why do we spend so much more on health care than other developed nations?

The New York Times took an obvious dive; so did the Washington Post. The NewsHour refused to conduct a discussion of this blindingly obvious question.

When T. R. Reid published his much-discussed book about international health care, he too presented a bogus discussion of our massive over-spending. Where is all our money going? The big news orgs refuse to say. And as this groaning silence persists, the liberal world stares into air.

Be sure to read Miller’s whole column. Truly, he has been on fire since Romney selected Ryan.

That said, has there ever been a dumber people than we modern-day liberals? The historians could probably answer that.

But wouldn’t you know it? They’re on sabbatical! The historians are lounging in France!

MEDICARE MUDDLE: No answers, no peace!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 2012

Interlude—Failed by Drum: We’re fans of Kevin Drum around here.

Yesterday, Kevin Drum failed us.

At the close of the week, Drum published this post, “An Itsy Bitsy $716 Billion Medicare Q&A.” He answered six questions about the ongoing Medicare muddle.

None of the questions were these:

Did Obama steal, rob, siphon, take or remove $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?
After stealing that money, did he spend it on Obamacare?

All week long, we’ve begged for answers. Yesterday, Drum presented his Q-and-A—and he skipped both questions.

How did we come up with our questions? From the Romney camp's attacks on Obama! Romney, Ryan and RNC chairman Reince Priebus have explicitly said that Obama stole $716 from the Medicare trust fund, then spent it on Obamacare.

Those are very specific charges. But are the charges true?

We've been asking that question all week. Kevin didn’t say.

Will we liberals ever learn how to argue? Will we ever be willing to challenge the work of the mainstream press? One of the ways you argue is this:

You challenge the claims your opponents are making! Especially when their claims are false! Beyond that, you scream and yell when the “mainstream press corps” refuses to do that job.

Our own assumption would be the following: No! Obama didn't take a sack of cash from the Medicare trust fund. As far as we know, he didn’t take any money from the Medicare trust fund at all. (Although we’ll assume that many liberals secretly think he did.)

For that reason, he couldn’t have spent that big sack of money on Obamacare. Or on anything else.

Romney’s charges are bogus. But the Washington Post and the New York Times have been working hard to avoid confronting these charges.

As usual, the liberal world has been willing to let this go.

Why do these charges matter? On Wednesday night’s O’Reilly Factor, Dick Morris explained what voters hear when Romney makes those accusations. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/23/12).

In his National Memo column this week, Gene Lyons gave the same explanation, in more pungent terms. This is what voters are being told when Romney makes those charges. We join the explanation in progress:

LYONS (8/22/12): In case that’s too subtle, Romney himself has said “there’s only one president that I know of in history that has robbed Medicare.” He told an audience in Ohio that Obama “has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund. He’s raided that trust fund.

“And do you know what he did with it? He used it to pay for Obamacare, a risky, unproven, federal takeover of health care.”

On “Meet the Press,” Republican National Committee chairman Rience Priebus declared that “This president stole...$700 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare. If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it’s Barack Obama.”

Robbed, stole, raided, blood on his hands.

Then who IS Obamacare for, if not for you and yours?

A recent letter to my local newspaper spelled out what Romney’s too tasteful to say: “obese, lay-about, cigarette-smoking, drug-taking, welfare-sucking, emergency-room-visiting no-accounts...[who] expect the government to provide them everything for free.”

That’s right, THEM.

THEY are getting YOUR benefits.

Duh. That’s what voters are being told when Romney says that Obama “robbed the trust fund” to pay for Obamacare. This leads to the questions we've asked all week:

Did Obama take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund? Did he use that big wad of cash to pay for Obamacare?

We're fans of Kevin Drum. Yesterday, he didn’t answer our questions. But people, you know what we say around here!

That’s right. No answers, no peace!

Coming Monday: In 1995, the RNC fought the Medicare coverage

Exactly what we’ve been talking about!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012

Robert Reich starts to imagine: At Salon, Robert Reich calls Romney “a lying machine.”

After that, he starts to imagine:

REICH (8/24/12): Mitt Romney, lying machine

I’ve been struck by the baldness of Romney’s repetitive lies about Obama—that Obama ended the work requirement under welfare, for example, or that Obama’s Affordable Care Act cuts $716 billion from Medicare benefits.

The mainstream media along with a half-dozen independent fact-checking organizations and sites have called Romney on these whoppers, but to no avail. He keeps making these assertions.

Every campaign is guilty of exaggerations, embellishments, distortions, and half-truths. But this is another thing altogether. I’ve been directly involved in seven presidential campaigns, and I don’t recall a presidential candidate lying with such audacity, over and over again. Why does he do it, and how can he get away with it?

"Why does he do it?" Gee, let's all try to guess!

In fact, Romney’s claims about Medicare are much more aggressive than Reich says. Yes, Romney basically says that Obama “cuts $716 billion from Medicare benefits.”

But his actual charges are more extensive and harsher. Judging from this weak report, Robert Reich doesn’t even know what's being said.

Beyond that, note the fantasy: Reich seems to think that “the mainstream media” have “called Romney on these whoppers.” Sorry—that's total nonsense.

In fact, the Washington Post and the New York Times have worked quite hard to avoid confronting Romney on his Medicare charges: His claim that Obama "robbed" $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund; his claim that this stolen money was then used for other purposes; his claim that this theft will reduce Medicare services for current recipients.

“The mainstream media” have tiptoed around these aggressive charges. Reich doesn’t know, or won’t tell.

Liberal careers work through our big mainstream news organs. Our “intellectual leaders” kiss the ass of these horrible people, lying to us in the process.

That said, why is Romney’s campaign of lies effective? Go ahead—read Reich’s whole piece! According to Reich, it’s because Romney has so much money! (That's part of the problem, of course.)

Reich is living in la-la land. But liberal leaders have played it this way for a very long time. And make no mistake: As our leaders kiss the press corps’ ass, the other side pounds away at the same people, ceaselessly working the refs.

Our “leaders” have played it this way forever. But don’t worry! Our lizard brains will quickly tell us that this can’t be the case!

When Krugman and Brooks don’t attack!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012

The essence of Congressman Ryan: Our grandmother used to say it about her sometimes-warring daughters:

“Why must they fight?”

This morning, we thought of those words as Krugman and Brooks agreed on the essence of Ryan. Let’s start with Krugman’s assessment of the courageous smart bold honest man:

KRUGMAN (8/24/12): For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people—the “job creators,” if you like—withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.

And Mr. Ryan is one of those devotees.

[...]

[C]onsider the fact that Mr. Ryan is considered the modern G.O.P.’s big thinker. What does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novels?

To Krugman, Ryan gets his worldview from a fantasy novel. And sure enough! Across the page, Brooks was drawn to the very same word.

Brooks explained why Ryan voted against the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson commission:

BROOKS (8/24/12): Ryan was betting that three things would happen. First, he was betting that Republicans would beat President Obama. Second, he was betting that Republicans would win such overwhelming Congressional majorities that they would be able to push through measures Democrats hate. Third, he was betting that a group of Republican politicians would unilaterally slash one of the country’s most popular programs and that they would be able to sustain these cuts through the ensuing elections, in the face of ferocious and highly popular Democratic opposition.

To put it another way, Ryan was giving up significant debt progress for a political fantasy.

Ryan’s fantasy happens to be the No. 1 political fantasy in America today, which has inebriated both parties. It is the fantasy that the other party will not exist. It is the fantasy that you are about to win a 1932-style victory that will render your opponents powerless.

According to Brooks, the fearless serious truth-telling fellow is steeped in fantasy too.

Grandmother would have been pleased to see the boys playing together so nicely. One complaint:

In Brooks’ column, Ryan explains why he voted no on Bowles-Simpson. Enjoying a fantasy life of his own, Brooks assumes Ryan’s story is true.

Last Collins in a nutshell!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012

The joy of non-consensual sex: Everything seems to be amusing to the high lady Collins.

We thought the start of yesterday’s column put several points in perspective:

COLLINS (8/23/12): In colonial America, conventional wisdom held that women could not get pregnant unless they enjoyed the sex.

People, who would have thought I’d have an opportunity to bring up this factoid right in the middle of a presidential race? Thank you, Representative Todd Akin of Missouri! Without you, we might have been condemned to spend today reinvestigating the Congressional Budget Office Medicare cost projections.

To Collins, Akins’ comments provided a wonderful chance for amusement! It’s the joy of non-consensual sex!

Plus, it gave us the latest excuse to skip all that Medicare crap!

We don’t think we’ve ever seen Collins summarize things so clearly. People, life is a cabaret! And Collins has excellent health care.

People, who gives a shit about everyone else and their stupid old Medicare crap?

MEDICARE MUDDLE: We had a dream yesterday!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012

Epilogue—Calmes rewritten: Last night, we had an incomparable dream.

We dreamed of a press corps which actually served! A press corps which tried to examine the charges made by our White House contenders!

Gone was the finagling, the flim-flam, the murky constructions—the various tricks by which our reporters avoid performing their duty. And sure enough!

Near the end of our dream, we saw it written!

First, we saw the actual opening to Jackie Calmes’ recent news report in the Times. In that report, “some” health care experts were said to be “puzzled” by Mitt Romney’s Medicare charges:

CALMES (8/22/12): Mitt Romney’s promise to restore $716 billion that he says President Obama “robbed” from Medicare has some health care experts puzzled, and not just because his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, included the same savings in his House budgets.

The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade. But repealing the savings, policy analysts say, would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by eight years—to 2016, the final year of the next presidential term, from 2024.

Some experts are “puzzled,” Calmes reported. Is that true?

We'll guess that quite a few of those experts aren’t “puzzled” by this bullshit at all.

Politely, Calmes rewrote Romney’s charges, omitting his most straightforward assertions. Gone was the claim that Obama has stolen that money from the Medicare trust fund. Gone was the claim that he stole the money to spend on something else.

In our dream, we saw Calmes’ report—a report which continued two weeks of avoidance by a timorous news division. But then, in our dream, the angels sang!

In our dream, we saw Calmes rewritten! We were allowed to imagine a press corps which doesn’t flee from duty:

CALMES REWRITTEN: Mitt Romney’s has repeatedly said that President Obama “robbed” $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund as part of the 2010 health care law.

Repeatedly, Romney has promised to “restore” this stolen money to the trust fund if he is elected president. His running-mate, Paul Ryan, has described Obama’s action as a “raid,” saying it “will lead to less services for current seniors.”

Despite these aggressive accusations, Ryan included the same spending reductions in his last two House budgets.

In fact, the claim that Obama “stole” a large sum from the Medicare trust fund is grossly misleading if not flatly inaccurate [see note below]. For that reason, some health care experts are using extremely harsh language as they challenge the accuracy of these charges by Romney and Ryan.

In July, one prominent health care expert called one of Ryan’s charges ''somewhere between a misstatement and a flat-out untruth.'' Some editorials and opinion columns have used the word “lie” to describe the ongoing charges. (This includes the lead editorial in last Sunday’s New York Times.)

Many observers have commented on the harsh rhetoric of the current White House campaign. But Romney’s claim that Obama “robbed” that large sum from the Medicare trust fund is unusually straightforward—and it is unusually hard to square with basic reality.

The gods who staged our dream were unsure about a few facts. For that reason, they hedged a bit at one point as they rewrote the timorous Calmes.

A messenger came to us late in our dream; she told us what the gods wanted to say. They wanted to incorporate some of the language from Gene Lyons’ recent column (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/23/12).

They wanted to incorporate some of that language. But they said they weren’t entirely sure if it’s entirely accurate:

WHAT THE GODS WANTED TO SAY: Despite these aggressive accusations, Ryan included the same spending reductions in his last two House budgets.

In fact, the claim that Obama “stole” a large sum from the Medicare trust fund is simply inaccurate. In fact, no money was removed from the Medicare trust fund as part of the 2010 health care law.

For that reason, some health care experts are using extremely harsh language as they challenge the accuracy of these charges by Romney and Ryan.

This brings us back to the basic question we have been asking all week:

Did Barack Obama siphon/steal/rob or otherwise take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?

Romney has been making that claim for two weeks. He has been making this claim for two weeks—and the press has refused to serve.

Did Obama remove $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund? You’d almost think a reporter like Calmes would want to answer that question—especially given the use to which this claim has been put by Romney’s supporters on Fox.

Night after night, Fox viewers are told that Obama stole that money from the trust fund to pay for something else. You’d almost think a reporter like Calmes would want to address those claims.

Set aside the words “robbed” and “stole.” Has Obama taken $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?

As far as we know, the answer is no. In a rational world, reporters like Calmes would be addressing such questions.

Why do we assume the answer is no? In part, because of a widely-cited assertion. Early last month, in less perilous times, Calmes put that assertion in play, near the end of a long report about this very same question.

At the time, Republicans were charging that Obama had taken $500 billion from Medicare. That dollar figure was based on an earlier time span.

If you click, get a load of that headline:

CALMES (7/7/12): Mr. Ryan, of Wisconsin, was unavailable for comment, but, pressed on the issue on ABC's ''This Week'' on Sunday, he said: ''Well, our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.''

Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, called Mr. Ryan's claim ''somewhere between a misstatement and a flat-out untruth.''

[...]

The Congressional Budget Office and the chief actuary for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, Richard S. Foster, have concluded that the $500 billion in savings would extend the solvency of Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund. Since the passage of the health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, the Medicare trustees have shifted the projected date of insolvency to 2024 from 2016.

Mr. Foster, in this year's report by the trustees, wrote that ''the Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook.''

Question: Did Greenstein seem “puzzled” by Ryan’s charge? Greenstein rarely seems puzzled by much. We’ll guess he isn’t puzzled by Romney’s recent charges at all.

Calmes turned euphemistic this week. That said, here’s our main point:

At some point, everyone and his crazy uncle has noted that assessment by the Medicare Trustees and the CBO—the assessment which says that the Affordable Care Act extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by eight years.

It’s hard to extend the life of a trust fund by removing large sums from the fund and blowing the money somewhere else. To the extent that the 2010 health care law reduced future Medicare spending, we will assume that the savings largely stayed in the trust fund, helping extend its life.

That is what we would assume. Having said that, the gods said they weren’t perfectly sure. But they said they have an excuse:

They read the Post and the Times!

In the past two weeks, Candidate Romney has paraded about, making extremely serious charges. People like Calmes have busted their keisters, looking for ways to avoid saying whether those charges are accurate.

Paul Krugman has gone out of his way to praise Calmes for this refusal to serve. David Leonhardt, who runs the Times Washington bureau, has been busily wasting his time, writing an (uninformed) article about the way the Washington Nationals should use Stephen Strasburg, their young star pitcher.

As his reporters were stumbling about, Leonhardt's silly, waste-of-time piece graced last Friday’s sports section.

The clowning has been general, as always! That said, you can’t really blame a reporter like Calmes for following her newspaper’s policy. For all we know, Calmes submitted the very copy the gods revealed to us in our dream! But it’s her name which appeared on the piece which said that folk like Greenstein are “puzzled.”

That said, we had quite a dream! In our dream, the New York Times tried to tell readers whether Romney’s charges are accurate!

The charges have been spewed all over the land. In our dream, the Times tried to say if they're true!

Did Obama take money from the trust fund? Did he spend the money on something else? Did current seniors lose Medicare services in the process?

Romney has been saying those things. Are those charges accurate?

In our dream, the New York Times fully reported those questions. It did so in a sharp, explicit manner.

We know, we know! Our dream is an impossible dream. We use an expression from baseball history, hoping to interest Leonhardt.

Our dream is very unlikely. The Times is an imitation of life—and the liberal world lets this go on.

The liberal world lets this go on: For more on that problem, see coming posts. But back in 1995, the GOP fought hard about Medicare coverage—and the GOP won.

Today, we liberals laze about, happy to accept whatever the great famous newspapers give us.

Were we teleported from Hee Haw’s front porch? After it answers our Medicare questions, the Times might want to probe that.

First Niall Ferguson, then Bob Shrum!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2012

The breakdown never ends: Just remember who warned you first about them Harvard perfessors!

Niall Ferguson’s Newsweek piece is really quite a document. For Paul Krugman’s reaction and links, click here.

That said, Ferguson executes a type of hat trick within our press corps elite: He’s conventionally handsome, he's Harvard-employed—and he speaks with a British accent! In the broken world of American journalism, that’s all the “evidence” anyone needs to back up any assertion!

(Question: Will any other Harvard professor stand to oppose his dissembling colleague? Can anything on the face of the earth make these slackers speak?)

Ferguson’s piece represented a gruesome new low. In a much more ludicrous way, consider this embarrassing piece at the Daily Beast by the hopeless Bob Shrum.

Shrum is a frequent presence on MSNBC; he’s also a Beast contributor. That said, do liberal intellectual leaders have to know anything at all at this late date in the breakdown?

No, Shrum’s piece doesn’t matter that much—but in our experience, he executes a totally new type of belly-flop.

The highlighted passage is truly astounding. On the writing and the editing end, how do you get this clueless?

SHRUM (8/22/12): While dissembling about his own position, Romney counterfeited Obama’s, alleging in a hastily edited spot that the president “cut $716 billion from Medicare...[t]o pay for Obamacare.” Haste, and the taste of impending political doom lay waste to the truth. Obama didn’t cut one dollar from Medicare benefits, but payments to providers like hospitals with a poor record of patient care and insurance companies that have inflated the cost of Medicare Advantage, a Bush-born private supplement that suggests how inefficient and expensive for seniors Ryan’s vouchers would be. Moreover, the accurate figure for the savings is $500 billion; Politifact was moved to ask where Romney the vaunted numbers man found Obama cutting another “$200 billion while no one was looking.” Undeterred and determined to lie his way out of trouble with seniors, Romney doubled down. The president, he said, has “robbed” Medicare.

It’s amazing that Shrum could have written that highlighted passage. It’s sad that the Beast gave it life.

Good God. That Politifact piece, to which Shrum links, explains how we got from the earlier figure of $500 billion to the current figure of $716 billion—$716 billion in spending reductions over the next ten years.

There's no mystery about this change in the numbers. For the record, the earlier figure was perfectly accurate. So is the current figure, which deals with a new time frame.

Romney is wrong about everything else—but his dollar figure is accurate. Indeed, Politifact explained this point on August 15, in the very post Shrum cites in that passage—a post to which he links!

Politifact explained the change in numbers on August 15. A full week later, Shrum still seemed to think Romney’s number was wrong, although he linked to the very report which explained that the figure was right!

We’ve seen a lot of dumb mistakes, but we’ve never seen that type of swan dive before! Or maybe Shrum was just giving us rubes a thrill, telling us Romney was “determined to lie his way out of trouble with seniors.”

Romney’s dollar figure is right. It’s his claim about theft from the trust fund that's wrong. Needless to say, Shrum is too dumb to explain that point with anything resembling sufficient clarity.

Unless we're just pleasing ourselves!

Wow! That highlighted passage represents truly clownish incompetence. But then, over here in the pseudolib world, is there anything else?

MEDICARE MUDDLE: Jackie Calmes refuses to speak!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2012

Part 4—Krugman praises her ways: Why does Mitt Romney keep saying those things about the Medicare program?

Why does he keep saying that Obama has “stolen” $716 billion from the program’s trust fund—that he has used this stolen money to fund Obamacare?

Last night, Dick Morris answered that question on the O’Reilly Factor. There was nothing new in what Morris said. By now, a million Fox pundits have answered that question in the same (accurate) way.

Morris’ statement was clear and concise—and his statement was accurate. This is why Romney keeps saying those things about the Medicare program:

MORRIS (8/22/12): The reason the economy hasn't been the number one issue is because Medicare has been the number one issue. And Ryan has done a spectacular job of using the piggy-bank metaphor. You're robbing—you're using it as a piggy-bank, Medicare as a piggy-bank to fund Obamacare.

And that metaphor makes everybody understand it really well. And it takes a Republican vulnerability and makes it into a tremendous strength. And it takes the aspect of Obamacare that is most offensive, that it's going to lead to rationing of healthcare to the elderly, and it puts it front and center.

Duh. As a million Fox analysts have explained, Romney is painting a very unhappy picture. This is his damning portrait:

Middle-class people have paid into Medicare all through their working lives. In this way, they thought they were funding their health care as seniors. But Obama has taken a big sack of that money—$716 billion! He has used that money to provide health insurance to 30 million other people.

Because Obama has taken that money, Medicare services will be reduced to current recipients—to the people who paid into the program all through their working lives.

That’s the picture Romney is painting. In last Thursday’s Washington Post, Rosalind Helderman quoted Batman and Robin as they kept making those charges:

HELDERMAN (8/16/121): On Wednesday, Romney accused President Obama of siphoning Medicare dollars to fund his 2010 health-care law, and he promised to restore that money if elected.

[...]

Romney promised that if elected, he would restore the money to the program as a way to bolster it for current retirees.

"My commitment is, if I become president, I'm going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided," Romney said on CBS News's "This Morning.”

[...]

"We're going to have this debate, and we're going to win this debate," [Paul] Ryan said. "It's the president who took $716 billion...from the Medicare program to spend on Obamacare. That's cuts to current seniors that will lead to less services for current seniors. We don't do that. We actually say end the raid and restore that, so that those seniors get the benefits today that they organize their lives around.”

If true, those would be serious charges. That would be serious stuff.

But are those charges actually true? Did Obama take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund? Did he use that big sack of cash to pay for something else?

Those are blindingly obvious questions. But all across the mainstream press corps, news reporters have worked quite hard to avoid giving you answers. Yesterday, Paul Krugman went out of his way to praise one of those scribes. Details below; just click here.

Romney has made a serious charge—but is it actually accurate? Did Obama take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?

That charge by Romney is very straightforward. There’s nothing murky about it at all.

And omigod! Yesterday, a major journalist finally spoke to that charge! We refer to Gene Lyons, who published his weekly opinion column for The National Memo.

Romney’s charge just isn’t true, Lyons directly said. According to Lyons, Obama hasn’t taken a dime out of the Medicare trust fund:

LYONS (8/22/12): Romney’s also smart enough to know that not a single dime has been robbed, stolen or otherwise removed from the Medicare trust fund. Indeed, its life has been extended. Nobody’s benefits have been altered in any way.

That’s a lie so craven and demagogic you’d think even Mitt Romney would be embarrassed.

What the Affordable Care Act does do is something conservatives have long clamored for: It cuts, not benefits, but Medicare’s future costs by roughly 10 percent (or $700 billion) over a ten year period by a) Reducing corporate subsidies to insurance companies administering Medicare Advantage plans, and b) Slowing the rate of growth in payments to hospitals.

Furthermore, the health care industry agreed to these changes during negotiations over the new law: Insurance companies because they’re gaining millions of new customers; hospitals because Obamacare virtually eliminates their huge problem of non-paying patients.

As an opinion writer, Lyons called Romney’s charge a lie. A reporter for a major newspaper couldn’t (and shouldn’t) do that.

That said, Lyons made a direct statement: Obama didn’t rob, steal or otherwise remove that money from the trust fund. Obama hasn’t taken a dime from the fund, Lyons directly said.

Indeed, Obama has extended the life of the Medicare trust fund, Lyons directly said. It’s hard to know how Obama could do that if he’s been stealing the trust fund's money.

Because we aren’t economists here, we can’t vouch for the perfect accuracy of every syllable Lyons wrote—although it’s our general assumption that he’s basically right. But good lord! At long last, someone addressed that serious charge—the basic charge Romney keeps making!

At the Washington Post and the New York Times, reporters have been working hard for two weeks to avoid that onerous task. Consider the journalist Krugman praised—Jackie Calmes, his New York Times colleague.

For what it’s worth, we think of Calmes as one of the press corps’ decent, sane reporters. But in our view, she began her report with some familiar slip-sliding:

CALMES (8/22/12): Mitt Romney’s promise to restore $716 billion that he says President Obama “robbed” from Medicare has some health care experts puzzled, and not just because his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, included the same savings in his House budgets.

The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade. But repealing the savings, policy analysts say, would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by eight years—to 2016, the final year of the next presidential term, from 2024.

In our view, Calmes was refusing to serve—refusing to tell you the truth. This seems to be New York Times policy.

Calmes began by quoting Romney’s charge: Obama has robbed $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund!

Is that claim accurate? Calmes didn’t say. Instead, she said the claim has “some” health care experts “puzzled.”

In Calmes’ second paragraph, we’d say the avoidance continues—and you have to read with considerable care to figure out what she is saying. She says Obama cut reimbursements to health care providers by the amount Romney cites. He didn’t cut benefits to Medicare recipients, she says at this point.

Does this contradict Romney’s claim—his claim that current retirees will lose benefits because of Obama’s act of theft? Calmes didn’t cite that second charge. This lets her avoid this question.

What does it take to make these people address Romney’s basic charges? As she continues in paragraph 2, Calmes presents a jumbled, confusing form of a very common assertion: Obamacare has extended the life of the Medicare trust fund by eight years.

True or not, that’s a simple statement; Calmes jumbles it up. According to Calmes, policy analysts say the insolvency of the trust fund will be hastened by eight years if Obama’s cuts in reimbursements are repealed. That’s a convoluted version of what Lyons said in clear direct simple speech:

Lyons: Obamacare has extended the life of the trust fund.
Calmes: Some analysts say the life of the trust fund will be reduced by eight years if Obamacare is repealed.

Does this mean that Romney is wrong in alleging the theft of that money? Calmes still hasn’t said! And sure enough! She never does say, not at any point in this piece.

Neither did the timorous Helderman, refusing to serve at the Washington Post last week.

It seems like the world’s simplest statement: Barack Obama took $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund! As presented by Romney, it’s a serious charge. Last night, Morris explained what many people think that serious charge really means.

That said, is the charge by Romney true? Did Obama take that money? Did he spend it on something else?

That first question is quite simple; yesterday, Lyons answered quite directly. But go ahead—read the Post and the Times! Read Helderman, Calmes and Pear and Nagourney and the rest of our major “reporters.” Did Obama steal that money?

Romney has made a serious charge. It's a very straightforward charge. See if you can find even one of these servants saying if his charge is accurate.

Has Obama taken that money out of the trust fund? Calmes avoided that question again. Krugman praised her ways.

Tomorrow: Why would Lyons say that?

The mother of all offhand comments!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2012

Todd Akin becomes a big star: Todd Akin made a very dumb comment last week. In some quarters, it has produced some very dumb commentary, a topic we expect to explore next week.

(Your lizard brain is already angry about all the moral equivalence!)

In one way, Akin seemed to be saying something very dumb which he actually believed. In another way, he seems to have made the latest unfortunate offhand remark.

To the extent that Akin made an injudicious remark, it has surely turned out to be the mother of all such offhand comments! This morning, Rep. Akin dominates the front page of the New York Times.

He’s the focus of two front-page news reports. They share the page’s upper right-hand corner.

Inside the paper, Akin rates a third report. (It’s teased out on the front page.) The formerly unknown back-bencher rules pages A16 and A17, a double-page spread.

Three huge news reports eat those pages. All three reports concern the new mouth of the near-south.

We’ll comment on John Eligon’s report, which appears on A16 but is teased on the Times front page.

“Mr. Akin is no stranger to incendiary comments,” Jonathan Weisman writes, on the Times front page. At this point, Weisman directs us to page A16—to Eligon’s report.

Is Akin “no stranger to incendiary comments?” Incredibly, this is all Eligon has on that partiuclar topic. This short and rather pathetic passage rated that front-page tease:

ELIGON (8/22/12): Outspoken and blunt—too blunt, some might say—Mr. Akin, 65, is no stranger to incendiary comments. He has criticized federal spending on things like school lunches and student loans and has been quick to equate government spending to socialism.

“ ‘God called me to run’—that’s the way he thinks,” said Jeff Smith, a former Democratic state senator in Missouri, said of Mr. Akin, a six-term congressman who represents parts of eastern Missouri. “I think he thinks it’s his destiny, and so you’re going to have to get somebody pretty high up there—or, in his mind, pretty close to God—to push him out.”

Is Akin “no stranger to incendiary comments?” We don’t know, but that highlighted passage is all Eligon has—and you’ll note that he presents exactly zero quotations by Akin! According to Eligon, Akin has “criticized federal spending on things like school lunches and student loans,” in some unspecified way. He has also “been quick to equate government spending to socialism,” though again no quotations are given.

Is there a Republican in the land who hasn’t made that equation? This is all Eligon had—and yet it's excitedly cited today out on the Times’ front page!

(For the record, the Times lists five other journalists who "contributed" to Eligon's report. Including Rebecca Berg!)

With the rise of talk radio and the web, we’ve all gained the ability to see how crazy and dumb we Americans are—to see how many ludicrous things we’re prepared to believe.

It used to be hard to learn how crazy we are. Now it’s a click, or a talk show, away.

Or a glance at the New York Times?

Akin made a deeply ridiculous comment last week. But then, to a somewhat lesser extent, so does Journalist Weisman, on the Times front page.

Out on the Times front page, the excitable Weisman piles on today. Just a guess:

This reaction from our sillier journos will help make Akin a star. Are you sure this will lead to Akin's defeat?

We don't think that's clear.

Quick note: Your lizard brain may be angry by now. Have you noticed that your lizard tends to react that way?

Rucker and Gardner, one day before!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2012

Here too, the Washington Post refused to serve: In all likelihood, it isn’t Rosalind Helderman’s fault that she refused to serve.

Last Thursday, Helderman reported Romney’s Medicare charges—and she made no attempt to say if his “fierce” charges were accurate! That constituted a journalistic failure to serve. See our earlier post, diectly below.

In all likelihood, it wasn’t Helderman’s fault.

In her refusal to serve, Helderman was almost surely enacting her newspaper’s policies. Consider this earlier news report, which appeared in the hard-copy Post last Wednesday.

The report was written by Philip Rucker and Amy Gardner. As Helderman would do the next day, the scribes included Romney’s charges about the Medicare program:

RUCKER AND GARDNER (8/15/12): Throughout the summer, Romney has taken umbrage at the tone of the Democratic advertising barrage, but this week he ratcheted up his criticism. He and his advisers wrote much of the speech Tuesday on his campaign bus riding between stops in Ohio.

His campaign is also airing negative television advertisements. The latest, released Tuesday, accuses Obama of diverting more than $700 billion from Medicare to pay for his health-care overhaul.

[...]

Since Ryan's selection, Democrats have celebrated the chance to use his controversial budget plan to alter the Medicare program to hammer the newly minted Republican ticket.

The Romney campaign launched a preemptive strike on Tuesday to embrace Ryan's idea and say that it is Obama who is "actually damaging Medicare for current seniors."

In a new television ad and in remarks delivered across the critical battleground state of Ohio, Romney accused Obama of raiding $716 billion from Medicare to pay for his health-care overhaul.

"He is taking your money to finance his risky and unproven takeover of the health-care system," Romney said in Chillicothe. "He is putting Medicare at greater risk. He is putting health care at greater risk. He is putting your jobs at greater risk. We will not let Obamacare happen."

One day later, Helderman reported these charges in more detail, including charges by Paul Ryan and RNC chairman Reince Priebus. But in this earlier report, Rucker and Gardner reported Romney’s basic charge about the Medicare program:

Obama has “raided $716 billion from Medicare to pay for his health-care overhaul.” So Mitt Romney had said.

In a country where seniors rely on Medicare, that sounds like a very serious charge. But go ahead—read the full report! See if Rucker and Gardner made any attempt to evaluate the accuracy of Romney's assertion.

If you search, you’ll search in vain. Rucker and Gardner made no attempt to evaluate the accuracy of those charges. They had a different focus this day—a focus which was reflected in their headline and their opening passage:

RUCKER AND GARDNER: Romney calls Obama ‘angry and desperate’ as campaign turns uglier

Mitt Romney lashed out at President Obama with some of the harshest rhetoric of his campaign at a Tuesday night rally here, accusing Obama of leveling “wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.”

The already divisive presidential contest took on an even uglier tone after Romney seized on the latest campaign-trail skirmish—a comment at a Virginia rally by Vice President Biden that Romney’s plans to loosen Wall Street regulations would “put y’all back in chains”—to go after his opponents.

The journalists focused on the fact that the “rhetoric” was getting “ugly.” But were these ugly charges true?

That wasn’t their concern.

The next day, Helderman took the same approach to her more detailed report about the Medicare charges. According to Helderman, experts were concerned that Romney’s charges were “fierce.” But she made no attempt to say if his charges are accurate.

Your nation’s intellectual processes are almost completely broken by now. But your favorite fiery liberals tend to keep their traps tightly shut. As the Post and the Times keep behaving this way, the well-paid children of the “press corps” know what they’re paid to do

MEDICARE MUDDLE: The Post takes its turn!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2012

Part 3—The Post refuses to serve: It isn’t hard to repeat Mitt Romney’s charges concerning the Medicare program.

There is little confusion or murk about what the candidate says. Last Thursday, in the Washington Post, Rosalind Helderman reported his charges in a 1200-word news report.

To this day, Helderman’s piece constitutes the Post’s main attempt to report Romney’s charges. The scribe had little trouble reporting what those charges are:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigns-fierce-rhetoric-on-medicare-dims-hope-for-a-solution-experts-say/2012/08/15/65cd679a-e6f1-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html

HELDERMAN (8/16/121): On Wednesday, Romney accused President Obama of siphoning Medicare dollars to fund his 2010 health-care law, and he promised to restore that money if elected.

[...]

Romney promised that if elected, he would restore the money to the program as a way to bolster it for current retirees.

"My commitment is, if I become president, I'm going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided," Romney said on CBS News's "This Morning."

According to Romney, Obama had “siphoned” $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund. He had used the money “to fund his 2010 health-care law.”

Romney said he would restore the money if he reached the White House. He seemed to say that current retirees were being harmed by Obama’s “raid.”

These charges were quite straightforward—though we’ll guess that many Post readers would have a hard time explaining the way “the Medicare trust fund” works. (Helderman made no attempt to help those readers out.) But just in case there was any confusion, Helderman also quoted Romney’s running-mate.

He made an additional charge:

HELDERMAN: "We're going to have this debate, and we're going to win this debate," [Paul] Ryan said. "It's the president who took $716 billion...from the Medicare program to spend on Obamacare. That's cuts to current seniors that will lead to less services for current seniors. We don't do that. We actually say end the raid and restore that, so that those seniors get the benefits today that they organize their lives around."

According to Ryan, Obama’s “raid” of the $716 billion would lead to fewer services for current senior citizens. According to Ryan, Obama took the money “from the Medicare program to spend on Obamacare.”

The charges by Romney and Ryan seem to be quite straightforward. In a country whose seniors rely on Medicare, they sound like serious charges.

Now we reach the part of our story which is truly remarkable:

In her 1200-word news report, Helderman made no attempt to say if these charges were accurate! And good lord! She even quoted RNC chairman Reince Priebus, who said Obama has “blood on his hands" because of this conduct. "He's the one that's destroying Medicare,” Priebus was quoted saying.

Astonishing, isn’t it? Even as she reported those charges, Helderman made no attempt to say if the charges were accurate! Helderman wrote a long news report—and she refused to serve.

In fairness, Helderman wasn’t alone in her refusal to serve. By publishing this news report, the Washington Post refused to serve, from its money-grubbing ownership right on down.

Helderman’s editor also refused to serve—and it’s likely that he or she ordered the focus of this piece. As a result, readers read a list of aggressive charges—but they were never told if the charges were accurate. Just for starters, Helderman made no attempt to address these obvious questions:

Did Obama take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?
Did he somehow use that money to pay for Obamacare?

Those are blindingly obvious questions. But go ahead—read the full report. Helderman made no attempt to answer those blindingly obvious questions. Instead, she built her report around a fatuous theme:

Budget experts are concerned about the campaign's "fierce rhetoric."

In even a slightly more rational world, the Washington Post’s refusal to serve would seem completely astounding. Sadly, we don’t live in that world. In our world, elementary intellectual procedures have almost completely broken down. Consider:

In this case, the Post reports that Romney’s charges are turning fierce—so fierce that experts are concerned. But the Post doesn’t make the slightest attempt to say if his fierce charges are accurate!

As we have noted, the Washington Post’s refusal to serve is being matched by the New York Times. Today, the Times presents a lengthy, jumbled report about that $716 billion. But go ahead! Read the whole thing—and study its graphic! See if reporter Jackie Calmes attempts to answer these questions:

Did Obama take $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund?
Did he somehow use that money to pay for Obamacare?

Romney, Ryan and Priebus have been making clear charges against Obama. But with very few exceptions, major American news orgs have refused to examine the accuracy of these charges. And of one thing you can be sure:

Sargent and Capehart won’t say a word about the Post’s refusal to serve. Neither will Ezra Klein, slipping Post bucks in his pocket.

Your darling Rachel won’t name-call the Post, although she’ll clown for you all night long. The millionaire children of the “press corps” do not discuss their own.

(Even your darling Chris Hayes won’t go there—and we know how pure he is! Do you think Jonathan Chait will tell you? Please don’t mention that child!)

The Post and the Times are refusing to serve. They're helped in this remarkable task by a large group of well-paid enablers.

Tomorrow: What Sarah Kliff (and others have) said

Friday: When Romney appeared on “This Morning”

Brainwash si, skinny-dip no!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2012

Our culture’s long walk through the desert: Finally, we read Politico’s report about the skinny-dip in the Galilee.

At the end, we came upon the funniest formal correction in journalistic history:

CORRECTION: The Sea of Galilee is a lake. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized it.

The Sea of Galilee is a lake. That’s what the correction said!

(We know. The correction is accurate.)

That said, there’s almost always a laugh to be found as our culture sinks into the sea. Before we hit that amusing correction, we marveled at the values defined in Politico’s report.

In his rather lengthy report, Jake Sherman described the kind of organized bribery which rules our political culture. Good news! The tax-payer didn’t have to pay for this “congressional fact-finding trip!”

Barely batting an eye, Sherman explained the trip’s provenance:

SHERMAN (8/20/12): The American Israel Educational Foundation, a group related to AIPAC, the prominent pro-Israel advocacy group, sponsored the trip, which ran from Aug. 13 to Aug. 21, 2011. The trip cost AIEF upwards of $10,000 per person, according to records filed with the House Ethics Committee. More than 60 people took part in this AIEF trip.

These trips to the Holy Land are a rite of passage for members of Congress, as they visit the most sacred sites in the Jewish and Christian faiths–while their Israeli government hosts drive home the huge importance of U.S. support of Israel.

[...]

On the Israel trip that included the late night swim, the group of lawmakers on Aug. 18 departed the posh David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem for Tiberias, a historic seaside town located on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. On the night in question, the GOP group checked into Scots Hotel, where rooms could run up to $1,000 each night. At 8:45 p.m., they headed to Decks, a popular restaurant located on the sea, according to an itinerary filed with the House Ethics Committee.

Forget your particular view of AIPAC. You may agree with their policy views. You may think they too are all wet.

Forget whether AIPAC is right or wrong; this isn’t all about AIPAC. In those passages, Sherman was describing an obvious form of bribery, in which a private entity spends oodles of money on members of Congress and their grasping families.

Other entities run junkets too. But in this particular instance, AIPAC was spending giant sums to brainwash members of Congress. (If we may use the old George Romney term.) Sherman was describing obvious bribery. But the point which has caused the concern is the lack of one congressman’s swim suit!

Needless to say, Rachel was clowning about this last night. Truly, our brains are thoroughly fried. Our culture is thoroughly lost.

MEDICARE MUDDLE: Gupta’s explainer!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2012

Part 2—O’Brien and "expert" stage fraud: When Medicare came center stage in the White House campaign, so did a series of charges.

Mitt Romney began saying that Obama “stole” $716 billion from Medicare, using the money to pay for Obamacare.

In turn, Obama said that seniors would pay $6400 more per year under terms of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan.

Are these charges accurate? In a rational world, journalists would be busting their butts to help you get clear on that question.

You don’t live in that world! In your world, the New York Times avoids such tasks like the plague (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/20/12). On TV, actors are paid millions of bucks to impersonate competent journalists.

They spend their days in make-up and hair. By night¸ they stage utterly useless pseudo-discussions—the kind of discussion which occurred on Anderson Cooper 360 last Tuesday night.

Soledad O’Brien sat in as guest host. As she started, she played videotape of two party spokesmen repeating the claims about Medicare which have come center stage.

Then, she introduced one of CNN’s "policy experts." Please don't let the kids watch:

O'BRIEN (8/14/12): Social Security turned 77 today. But it's Social Security's younger cousin, Medicare, that's been getting all the headlines. Medicare's not so healthy. And there's a political battle over how to fix it. You probably heard of some of it.

WASSERMAN SHULTZ (videotape): Actually, if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan became president and vice president of the United States, they'd be able to end the Medicare guarantee, shred the health care safety net that Medicare has provided for more than 50 years, and turn Medicare into a voucher program. Leaving seniors really out in the cold.

SUNUNU (videotape): Medicare has had $760 billion taken from it and put in Obamacare and with all due respect to your analyst that said some of it went back to Medicare, a very small amount went back to Medicare. About $700 billion was taken away which reduces payments to providers and reduces services.

O'BRIEN: So tonight, we're setting aside the partisan back and forth. Instead, we've called in a specialist, 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta, to help make sense of President Obama and Mitt Romney's medicine for Medicare.

Hurrah! Dr. Gupta was going to help us make sense of the candidates’ plans! On the down side, he and O’Brien were going to “set aside the partisan back and forth!”

Why would they want to do that? For ourselves, we would have liked to see Gupta evaluate “the partisan back and forth.” How accurate are those dueling charges? Surely, CNN viewers could use some help in working that out.

Instead, O’Brien said that Gupta would “help make sense” of the two candidates’ plans.

Unfortunately, nothing of the sort occurred as Gupta spoke with O’Brien. O’Brien was thoroughly useless this night. Gupta was much worse.

O’Brien distinguished herself this night by asking largely useless questions. Her first question was quite imprecise. This occasioned a sprawling reply:

O’BRIEN (continuing directly): Hey, Sanjay! First, let's talk Medicare. Compare the president's plan to the Ryan plan.

GUPTA: The latest iteration is the Ryan-Wyden plan—there was a Ryan plan, but then he co-authored this plan with the senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden—and basically, I think the best way to describe this is that, for people who are 55 and younger, this is who it's going to impact. So about 10 years from now, when those people start getting to retirement age, there's going to be a different sort of option. People can opt to get a stipend, which right now is projected to be about $8000, and use that money to buy into the private health care industry. So they can say “Look, you know, I want to do Medicare, instead I want to use this money and buy my own insurance.” Before, there was no Medicare option as part of that. Now you can still opt to stay in Medicare. So that's an important point because they're not saying they're getting rid of Medicare, they're just making other options available, believing that that competition will drive down prices.

People talk a lot about these “cuts.” And what they're really talking about is capping the amount that Medicare can grow over the next 10 years. And when they figure, when they do the projections, they figure that they cap the growth at just a half a percent over normal Gross Domestic Product, that will be about $700 billion in lost money. Both the Ryan-Wyden plan as well as the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, do the same thing. They both have those sorts of caps in place. So there's a similarity there as well, Soledad.

If you choose to watch the tape, you will see that Gupta’s rapid-fire delivery adds to the confusion inherent in this sprawling reply. Trust us: Very few viewers had any idea what Gupta was talking about in this sprawling address. But then, he had been given a very general question to work with.

As he started, Gupta tried to describe the Ryan-Wyden plan, which he described as “the latest iteration” (of something). Watch the tape, and see if you can follow what he is saying. Indeed, do you even understand what Gupta means as you read his words today? Even with all the time in the world, do you understand what he says?

One specific question:

Will seniors be able to continue in traditional Medicare under this latest iteration of the Ryan plan? Gupta certainly made it sound that way in the highlighted passages, if you could follow his rapid speech. But is that what he actually meant? And would that statement be accurate? O’Brien made no attempt to clarify this point, although Gupta seemed to suggest that Ryan’s plan will force no change on anyone at all!

If true, that’s a very significant fact. O’Brien let it go.

Back to that sprawling response: In the second part of his rambling answer, Gupta gave a jargonized account of what he called “those cuts.” Trust us: No one had the slightest idea what he was talking about—and if our own understanding is correct, what he said just wasn’t accurate. As he continued, he made a statement about “lost money,” a statement which may have sounded a bit scary—but very few viewers had any idea what he was saying in this long, rambling, rapid-fire answer.

After Gupta completed this ball of confusion, O’Brien was forced to speak again. At this point, she could have tried to ask a more specific question. She could have asked this, for example: Did Obama really take $700 billion from Medicare? Did he really use that money to pay for Obamacare?

Those are the charges Romney is making. Why not ask if these charges are accurate, using them as the framework for explaining Obama’s plan?

Alas! Instead, O’Brien adopted a form of halting speech, seeming to signal how hard she was thinking. Out of this mental struggle, she produced a halting second question, and Gupta blathered again:

O'BRIEN: So where, then, does that money come from? That $700 billion that everybody's been talking about?

GUPTA: Well, it's interesting. So as part of the Affordable Care Act, and this has been one of those things that has been very controversial, but people talk about this thing known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board. And essentially this is a 15-member board that looks at Medicare costs, health care costs overall, and says, “OK, we're projected to go over now, so we got to figure out some places to make cuts.”

As far as the Ryan-Wyden plan, it really has more to do with this belief that if you engage the private sector, it's going to bring the Medicare costs down overall and they're going to be able to accrue those, you know, $700 billion or whatever the number is finally after 10 years, as a result of that.

O’Brien’s question was halting, but relevant; Gupta’s answer was awful. An actual expert could have told O’Brien how the Affordable Care Act reduces future Medicare spending by that $716 billion. Indeed, to see Sarah Kliff explain the basics of this point, just click here.

There are serious problems with Kliff’s rhetoric. But she answers that question with ease.

Please note: Kliff’s rundown appeared on Wonkblog on that same day, August 14, three hours before Gupta went on the air. Simply put, Gupta didn’t seem to be well-informed about this point, or about much of anything else. Nor was he clear or coherent.

In her third and final question, O’Brien continued to struggle and strain. By now, she was barely speaking English—and Gupta continued the bafflegab which defined this useless segment:

O'BRIEN (continuing directly): If you get that money, then if it's coming from that direction, where does it go eventually?

GUPTA: With regard to the Affordable Care Act, if you look through it and I've read through this a couple of times now, all 2000-some pages, you find that, you know, the idea of providing preventive services, for example, for free, meaning no co-pays, no additional charges, completely free, all that costs money. And a lot of the money that they, you know, get as a result of the cap in Medicare growth actually goes back to provide some of those services, to provide some of those services under the Affordable Care Act.

We don't see that in the Ryan-Wyden plan. You don't see where that money goes. But the idea that that money would go back into Medicare, back into the safety net, back into the federal entitlement to protect people who are 65 and older, there's not evidence of that right now in the Ryan-Wyden plan.

Presumably, O’Brien wanted to know what is done with the $700 billion “that everyone’s been talking about.” She may have been wondering if Obama spend that money on Obamacare, as Romney has been charging?

The answer is actually rather simple. There’s no sign that Gupta knew it, although he praised himself for having read the entire health care law.

Might we return to our starting point? Some basic charges were being advanced about the candidates’ Medicare plans. Most specifically, Romney was charging Obama with “stealing” $716 billion from Medicare, then using the money to pay for Obamacare.

A competent TV star would have known how to examine the truth of that high-profile charge. But O’Brien wasn’t competent this evening, and Gupta was massively worse.

Alas! You live in a world where TV performers of this type are paid millions of dollars to go on the air and pretend to stage discussions. In truth, O’Brien is on the air because she’s pleasant and likeable. Gupta is on the air because his title and his appearance give the impression that he must be very smart.

In fact, O’Brien’s work was hapless this evening; Gupta’s performance was worse But nothing would stop the charming host from declaring her mission accomplished. The garbled session ended with this Kafkaesque exchange:

O'BRIEN (continuing directly): All right. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for walking us through that explainer. Appreciate it greatly!

GUPTA: You got it, Soledad! Any time, thank you.

O’Brien pretended that an “explainer” had occurred. Gupta threatened to do it again. But none of their viewers had any idea whether those charges were actually accurate—the charges which had started this segment, presented on videotape.

We’ll be discussing the Medicare muddle all week. Tomorrow, we will start to discuss the accuracy of Romney’s charges against Obama. That said:

In a rational world, O’Brien and Gupta would be long gone, fired for transparent incompetence. But you don’t live in that world.

In your world, O’Brien is suitably perky and likable; Gupta seems like he’s smart. Night after night, you’re handed their cons. They get rich in the process.

O’Brien and Gupta should be off the air. We liberals are too weak to say that.

Tomorrow: Kliff enables Mitt

What happens when you get paid by the Post!

MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2012

Greg Sargent doesn’t know what big news orgs should do: In the future, if there is one, historians will record the way the liberal world gave up a string of political advantages during this political era.

All so fiery young liberal journalists could get good jobs at good pay!

We thought of that when we read Greg Sargent writing about the falsehoods which lie at the heart of the ongoing Romney campaign:

SARGENT (8/20/12): The folks working at the big news organizations know Romney is lying with abandon. What should they do about it? I’m sympathetic to political journalists—it’s not easy to keep up with all the falsehoods, and at a certain point, the same lie told again and again loses its news value. But perhaps Obama’s comments today will prompt at least a bit of media discussion about what it means that one candidate—yes, far more than the other—is running a campaign of such epic dishonesty.

Gag us, right now, with your foot. This is Chris Hayes and Jonathan Chait and all the rest of the fiery liberals who want good jobs at good pay.

What should “big news organizations” do about Romney's misstatements? For starters, they should report them! For the past two weeks, Romney and them have been saying that Obama “stole” $716 billion from Medicare. Have you seen a big news org explain the obvious problems with this assertion?

We’ll be discussing this topic all week. But just to help Greg figure this out, the first thing his paymaster should do is report the facts of this matter, at the top of the paper's front page.

Report this in appropriate detail, on the Post's front page!

Sargent implies that the big news orgs have gotten tired of correcting Romney. In fact, they've barely tried to do so. And they are enabled by people like Sargent, who draws his paycheck from the Post and says he sympathizes with the very hard task they face.

Never have so many people given away so many political advantages for so very little. Never have so many ditto-heads sat around watching them do it.

In fairness: In fairness, the “liberal” voices on TV are in fact getting big money. They refuse to challenge the slumbering big news orgs too.

If you doubt that, read the Hayes book. Page after page about baseball players. Big news orgs are barely mentioned, apologized for when they are.

"There's nothing nefarious" about what they do! They're victims of "cognitive capture!"

Sargent adds to this sad story, desperately trying to answer a question: What should our big news orgs do?