Letters to the Editor
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Honesty, Good Faith, and Serious Political Analysis
Praising whomever appears to be the loser at the expense of the winner -- while issuing "advice" designed to exacerbate tensions and wedges -- is one prong in that strategy. Why would anyone take any of that seriously, as though it's some sort of serious political analysis being offered in good faith?
Excellent, excellent question. My opinion is that these one-time power brokers have never been held accountable--that is, called on their b.s. It's like the absurd construction of objective journalism = one person spouting one extreme so-called rightwing position and the second guest spouting an argument from the "opposing" side. This flawed model makes no space for truth, honesty, or good faith in the discussion. When anchors/editors are passive and allow the back-and-forth without any challenge, the almost inevitable conclusion is that both "sides" have equal merit and the viewer must sort them out.
But many news watchers don't view the media as a subject of critical deconstruction, and if they do many don't have the time and resources to thoroughly vet each contributor and his or her history of positions.
This if-we-say-things-are-A-then-A-must-be-true-or-at-least-have-merit, the "Heckuva job, Brownie" mentality, is very corporate CEO: everything's great, nothing to see here, move along. If the folks in power say it's so, then they "speak the truth" and are above questioning because they are the good guys. They, in the words of Charlie Rose, "can't [be] accuse[d]...of not having good intentions."
To posit that perhaps nefarious motivations are at play is somewhat sacriligious, or at the very least, paranoid, liberal, and extreme. Yet the military analyst story PROVED that the administration performed Psych Ops on it's own populace, that Rummy paid for misleading coverage. In terms of accountability, however, the story has generated merely the chirps of crickets.
Not to be so gloom and doom: I believe individuals can transcend these narratives and can take creative agency against the dominant narratives. But if we continue to look at those who have had power as "right" only because they had power or have connections, then we can loose that individual ability to perceive nuance and dare we say it, honesty, and good faith in presenting political arguments within these broadly labeled forums.
I'd like to think of Salon.com this way--a place for debate and dissent, and a place for calling out accountability and further discussion. I'd pay for someone in traditional media to say to Rove, however, "I don't think you're being completely honest here" (with evidence), or "Are you honestly trying to help Obama here, or do you have an agenda?" Oh, the scandal that might generate!