Glenn -

It was a small point I was making, even hair-splitting. However, your reply caused me to re-read the critical part of the update. I now realize that you weren't citing the USA Today story, per se, as an example of journalists "reflexively spout[ing] government claims", but you were instead referring to the "fact" that so many Americans believe(d) Saddam was personally responsible for 9-11 as providing a vivid illustration of where such lazy journalism can lead.

Shoulda known better to try to take on such a subtle point so late on a Friday. Your detailed response is very much appreciated (but I'm kinda feeling bad for having wasted your time) as is all of the clear-headed and thought-provoking analysis you provide. Have a great weekend.

You're right: I was lazy about "lazy." Mea culpa :-(

Your enlightenment comment reminded me of a commentary I heard on the radio—I wish I could remember the author who was speaking!—talking about how the approach of this administration and the right-wing media was nothing less than a backlash against the Enlightenment itself. Bush, et. al., seems to believe that since he is in power, God wants him there; he therefore has a divine right to make whatever decisions he finds best. He feels justified in ignoring pesky scientists and others who complain about misrepresenting reality.

Shortly afterward, I read these paragraphs in a Sidney Blumenthal column (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/12/book_excerpt/print.html)

Near the end of the campaign, a senior White House aide explained the "faith-based" school of political thought to reporter Ron Suskind, who wrote in the New York Times Magazine: "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

The method described by the Bush aide was an updated version of the insight of the philosopher Francis Bacon, who, in 1625, wrote in his essay "Of Vaine-Glory": "For Lies are sufficient to breed Opinion, and Opinion brings on Substance."

This power-determines-reality, might-is-right kind of thinking—the same kind of thought that drove pharoahs to obliterate each other from obelisks, as if that somehow changed reality—chills me deeply.

Small note: I would like to say that I wasn't discussing the ability to understand opposing views, but the ability to change your mind about them. People tended to end up thinking their personal beliefs had been validated, even when they understood the opposition.

I missed your second response whilst typing my reply (above), but thanks for clarifying. But it didn't come across as obnoxious 'cuz I had, in fact, lost touch with the "reality" of what you were saying about the USA Today piece (again, see my reply, above).

Thanks again.

The, er, Mostly-Reality-Based Kid

Glenn:

I'm not semantic re-shaping the word "partisan." I'm saying that Republicans (much more at the top than among everyday people) have become increasingly divorced from reality over the past half century, and that being reality-based now has a definite partisan edge to it as a result.

The "commonsense" notion that the truth lies between the two parties on either extreme is belied by the fact that so much of what Republicans "know" simply isn't true.

I think the role of the media is to uncover and disclose important facts that the Government is concealing.

That's certainly one role. But informing people about the actions of other powerful actors--such as corporations, political parties, etc. is also important, as is reporting on the world at large, not simply in a naive way, but with the aid of the best scientific understanding one can muster as well.

I think they ought to behave exactly the same way whether the government is run by Democrats or Republicans. In what possible sense of the word "partisan" would that fit?

Well, for one thing, Democrats generally--though often reluctantly--tend to declassify more, and open up the process voluntarily on their own. So taking the same attitude toward Dems and Reps alike will run into more opposition in a GOP administration, all other things being equal. Therefore, to have an equivilent effect may take more vigorous action. The GOP is quite aware of this, and tries (rather successfully, IMHO) to wear the media down.

But more generally, the partisanship enters into the broader description of the media's role that I offered. A media that broadens its focus, and pays attention to as wide a range of inputs as possible is necessarily going to tilt to the left, precisely because this goes against the authoritarian tendency that favors the right. (This would not have been so in Soviet Russia, of course, as Altemeyer makes clear.)

A media that depends only on insitutional leaders to define the acceptable limits of debate will necessarily exclude the gathering forces that will move society forward in unexpected ways in the future. It will be a conservative media in this regard, and will favor the more conservative party, just in terms of broad systemic effects. A media that takes a decidedly broader view will have the contrary effect.

Since all instutions, by their nature as institutions, tend to have a conservative effect (a revilutionary who has to make a payroll is automatically less revolutionary), it seems to me a good idea to encourage the press to tilt the other way. The official branches of government will generally not do so, so the Fourth Estate should, to counteract their conservative tendency.

It's that the Bush administration did all sorts of things to create the impression in the minds of most Americnas that Saddam was connected to, even involved in, the 9/11 attacks, and the media completely failed to make clear how false that was. In fact, they often passed along the statements which created that impression.

As a Part of the duty of the press is to simply get govt. officials on record. So when Cheney continued to push the Saddam/Qaeda connection, even after Bush himself had dropped the meme, the press continued to cite Cheney's BS. And that is valid, as far as it went.

But at some point, and this is where I completely agree with GG, the press had an obligation to DEBUNK Cheney's assertions. Because they were not FACTUAL. They then needed to ask him why he continued to make such assertions, etc. This should have occured every time Cheney brought this up. But the press did not do that. They simply continued to get his untrue assertions, record them, without taking any further action. I especially remember an occasion where Russert had a real opportunity to confront Cheney on this, but simply waved Cheney through the interview.

That is how the American people were, and continue to be, misinformed.