Right-wing pundits have come out vociferously against the idea that they, their colleagues and the political movement they identify with have anything to answer for in the wake of the Tucson massacre.

David Brooks (New York Times, 1/11/11) asserted that "the evidence before us suggests that [shooting suspect Jared] Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it," rejecting as "vicious charges" the notion that the gunman "unleashed his rampage because he was incited by the violent rhetoric of the Tea Party, the anti-immigrant movement and Sarah Palin." George Will (Washington Post, 1/11/11) bitterly denounced the "political opportunism" of "charlatans" who subscribe to the "superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment." Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, 1/12/11) insisted that "there is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head," marveling that those who suggest otherwise would make a charge "so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence."

It's comforting to think that evil-doers exist in a vacuum, and the evil that they do has no relation to anyone else.  Dismissing Loughner as a lone nut, however, is much more difficult when one considers the startling number of incidents of political violence in the last few years. From a lengthy list of violent events and reckless rhetoric compiled by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, I've excerpted the cases that involved gunfire or other overtly deadly acts; the complete timeline includes numerous other episodes in which police disrupted violent plans before they were carried out:

July 27, 2008--Jim Adkisson shoots and kills two people at a progressive church in Knoxville, Tennessee, wounding two. Adkisson calls it "a symbolic killing" because he really "wanted to kill…every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book," but was unable to gain access to them....

April 4, 2009--Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski shoots and kills three police officers responding to a 911 call to his home in Pittsburgh. His friend Edward Perkovic tells reporters that Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on its way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Perkovic also commented that Poplawski carried out the shooting because “if anyone tried to take his firearms, he was gonna stand by what his forefathers told him to do."...

April 25, 2009--Joshua Cartwright, 28, a member of the Florida National Guard, shoots and kills two Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies attempting to arrest him on a domestic abuse charge. Cartwright is killed in an enusing gun battle with police. Cartwright's wife reports that he was "severely disturbed" that Barack Obama had been elected president. Okaloosa County Sheriff Edward Spooner states that Cartrwight was "interested in militia groups and weapons training."...

May 31, 2009--Scott P. Roeder shoots and kills Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. The FBI lists Roeder as a member of the Montana Freemen, a radical anti-government group. In April 1996, he had been pulled over in Topeka, Kansas, for driving with a homemade license plate.  Police found a military-style rifle, ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder, and two 9-volt batteries in his car....

June 10, 2009--James W. von Brunn, a convicted felon and a “hardcore Neo-Nazi,” walks into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and shoots and kills a security guard. Von Brunn believed that Western civilization was going to be replaced with a “ONE WORLD ILLUMINATI GOVERNMENT” that would “confiscate private weapons” in order to accomplish its goals....

July 13, 2009--Gilbert Ortez, Jr. kills a police deputy in Chambers County, Texas, with an assault rifle. Police were responding to reports that Ortez or his wife had fired shots at utility workers in the area. Police searching Ortez's mobile home after a 10-hour standoff find more than 100 explosive devices; Nazi drawings and extremist literature; and several additional firearms....

December 23, 2009--Warren "Gator" Taylor takes three people hostage at a federal post office in Wytheville, Virginia. He is armed with four guns, including a .40-caliber Glock pistol, despite a criminal record that includes convictions for lewd and lascivious behavior with a 13-year-old and attempted second-degree murder (Taylor shot his ex-wife three times in a parking lot in 1993). Taylor fires at least three rounds before the stand-off ends, including one at the station's fleeing postmaster. One of Taylor's hostages reports that he was angry about taxes and "the government taking over the right to bear arms."...

February 18, 2010--Joseph Stack of Austin, Texas, flies a single-engine plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, killing one and wounding 13. In a suicide note, Stack lays out his grievances with the federal tax agency, stating, "The law 'requires' a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that's not 'duress' than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is ... Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."...

March 4, 2010--John Patrick Bedell, a California resident, travels to Arlington, Virginia, and opens fire on police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon. Bedell is armed with two semiautomatic firearms and "many [ammunition] magazines." Bedell injures two officers before he is killed by return fire. Reports reveal Bedell to be a Truther who believed that the U.S. government had been taken over by a criminal organization in a 1963 coup. In an Internet posting, he writes, "This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens, in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control."...

March 23, 2010--After Mike Troxel of the Lynchburg Tea Party and Nigel Coleman of the Danville Tea Party post the home address of the brother of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and urge supporters to "drop by," someone deliberately cuts a propane gas line at the house. Rep. Perriello is targeted by the Tea Party activists because of his vote in favor of health care reform. Perriello's brother and his wife have four children under the age of eight....

April 7, 2010--Brody James Whitaker, 37, is apprehended and arrested on charges including two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, aggravated fleeing, and attempting to elude. The charges stem from an incident on March 25, 2010 in which police attempted to pull Whitaker over for a traffic violation on I-75 in Sumter County, Florida. Whitaker led officers on a high-speed chase, fired shots at them from a 9mm handgun and escaped capture. During his arraignment hearing, Whitaker questions the authority of the judge and states, "I am a sovereign. I am not an American citizen." ...

May 20, 2010--Jerry Kane, Jr., 45, and his son Joseph Kane, 16, fatally shoot two Arkansas police officers with AK-47 assault rifles during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40 in West Memphis. The Kanes are killed during an exchange of gunfire with police in a Walmart parking lot 90 minutes later. Jerry Kane, an Ohio resident and anti-government activist, had a long history with police and had recently spent three days in jail for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt. Kane considered himself a "sovereign citizen" and ran a business that centered on debt-avoidance scams....

July 18, 2010--California Highway Patrol officers arrest Byron Williams, 45, after a shootout on I-580 in which more than 60 rounds are fired. Officers had pulled Williams over in his pick-up for speeding and weaving in and out of traffic when he opened fire on them with a handgun and a long gun. Williams, a convicted felon, is shot several times, but survives because he is wearing body armor. Williams, a convicted felon, reveals that he was on his way to San Francisco to "start a revolution" by killing employees of the ACLU and Tides Foundation. Williams' mother says her son was angry at "Left-wing politicians" and upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items."...

July 30, 2010--Camp Hill prison guard Raymond Peake, 64, is charged with robbery and the murder of Todd Getgen. Peake allegedly shot Getgen to death at a local shooting range and stole Getgen's custom, silenced AR-15 rifle. Investigators follow Peake to a storage unit when they find three firearms: Getgen's AR-15 rifle, a scoped Remington rifle that had been reported stolen from the range in May, and a second AR-15 rifle. Thomas Tuso is also arrested and charged with conspiracy, receiving stolen property and other crimes. Peake tells police that he and Tuso had been stealing guns "for the purpose of overthrowing the federal government."...

August 17, 2010--Patrick Gray Sharp, 29, opens fire on the Department of Public Safety in McKinney, Texas, and unsuccessfully attempts to ignite gasoline and ammonium nitrate in a trailer hitched to his truck. Sharp is armed with an assault rifle, a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and a 12-gauge shotgun. He is killed after an exchange of gunfire with police arriving on the scene. Miraculously, no one else is hurt. Sharp's roommate, Eric McClellan describes him as "a great guy" and states, "We're Texans. We have a right to bear arms."...

September 1, 2010--James Jay Lee, 43, takes hostages at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Maryland, while armed with two starter pistols and four improvised explosive devices. After pointing a gun at one of the hostages, he is shot and killed by police. Lee, a radical environmental activist, had previously issued 11 demands through a webpage that Discovery was to meet "immediately." The demands involved the content of programming on the Discovery Channel. Lee had also declared on his MySpace page, "It's time for REVOLUTION!!!"...

October 22, 2010--Texas Department of Corrections officers searching for a missing person, Gill Clements, 69, are confronted by a neighbor while on Clements' property in Henderson County. Howard Tod Granger, 46, points an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle at one of the officers, who recalls, "He told us to get off the property or he would kill us all." Later that afternoon, officers return to Granger's home with a search warrant and an armored vehicle filled with 13 SWAT members. Granger opens fire on the vehicle, discharging at least 30 rounds before authorities shoot and kill him. Police find guns and "many rounds of ammunition" in Granger's house. They also find the body of Clements, buried in a shallow grave on Granger's property....

January 8, 2011--Jared Lee Loughner, 22, shoots U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others at a "Congress in Your Corner" event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. He kills six, including federal Judge John Roll, and wounds 14, including Giffords, who is shot in the head. Loughner has an extensive history of mental illness and substance abuse, yet is able to purchase two handguns and a high-capacity ammunition magazine legally at Sportsman's Warehouse on November 30, 2010. In a YouTube video posted in December 2010, Loughner states, "You don’t have to accept the federalist laws.... Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

These individuals no doubt have a range of relationships to reality, and their ideologies may likewise vary from Tea Party orthodoxy to idiosyncratic conspiracy mania. (One person on the list appears to be a genuine ecoterrorist.) But it's hard to deny that this seems like a remarkable amount of political violence in a little more than two-and-a-half years. (This impression is bolstered statistically by reports that the Secret Service has had to deal with a 400 percent increase in threats against the president, that U.S. Marshals are facing double the number of threats against judges and prosecutors, and that Capitol Police found that threats against congressmembers tripled in the first quarter of 2010.)

Even more strikingly, this violence corresponds to a period that has seen a major change in the boundaries of political rhetoric from both pundits and politicians. A major media figures like Glenn Beck (Fox News, 2/20/09) can now fantasize about "citizen militias in the South and West taking up arms against the U.S. government"--and he could declare that government officials bent on forcibly vaccinating his children are going to "meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson." People with regular slots on major networks didn't use to talk this way. Nor did major-party Senate candidates declare that "people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies." (See the Coalition's complete list for many other examples of media and political figures evoking violence in explicit, non-metaphorical statements.)

People who insist that the Tucson massacre has nothing to do with any of this are engaged in a desperate and dangerous denial.

Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson writes an important column today (1/12/11) about right-wing rhetoric and the Tucson shootings.

Meyerson's point is that discussing certain symbols--like the Sarah Palin "cross hairs" map--makes little sense without understanding the paranoid worldview that is advanced by right-wing leaders and commentators like Glenn Beck. When folks like Beck and Erick Erickson use threats of violence in discussion flu vaccines and Census workers, it's an articulation of their worldview.

The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites violence per se. It's that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and conservatism's domestic adversaries.

Much of the culture and thinking of the American right--the mainstream as well as the fringe--has descended into paranoid suppositions about the government, the Democrats and the president. This is not to say that the left wing doesn't have a paranoid fringe, too. But by every available measure, it's the right where conspiracy theories have exploded.

A fabricated specter of impending governmental totalitarianism haunts the right's dreams. One month after Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, Beck hosted a show that gamed out how militias in Southern and Western states might rise up against an oppressive government. The number of self-proclaimed right-wing militias tripled--from 42 to 127, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center--in 2009 (and that doesn't count those that are entirely underground).

Meyerson adds that "the imputation of lurking totalitarianism, alien ideologies, and subversion of liberties to liberals and moderates has become the default rhetoric of the right.... That doesn't make Beck, Erickson, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk responsible for Tucson. It does make them responsible for promoting a paranoid culture that makes America a more divided and dangerous land."

From the end of a New York  Times story headlined "Gates Warns of North Korea Missile Threat to U.S.," readers saw this:

Predicting missile capabilities is notoriously difficult. Documents released last year by WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy organization, revealed sharp disagreements between American and Russian experts on Iran's missile technology.

Of course, some readers might remember that once upon a time (November 29, to be precise) the Times told a very different story about those cables--in a story headlined "Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea," which warned that the country now had "the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe." An important thing to remember, given that the story today features U.S. officials warning that North Korea might soon have weapons that could strike the United States.

The Washington Post headline over a story about Joe Biden's remarks that U.S. military forces would stay in Afghanistan after the supposed 2014 withdrawal deadline "if the Afghan people want it" is:

 Biden Promises Long-Term Aid to Afghans

Of course, if the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan came down to what the "Afghan people want," it might end sooner than that.

A New York Times profile (1/8/11) of author/economist Robert Reich was headlined "Obama the Centrist Irks a Liberal Lion." It's hard not to see where reporter Michael Powell comes down in the debate over Democrats moving to the right:

Mr. Reich sees a parallel with his former boss, Mr. Clinton, and draws no comfort from the comparison. Confronted with a muscular Republican majority in the House in 1994, Mr. Clinton mastered triangulation, which is to say he sailed into a sea neither Republican nor Democratic. It was a strategic masterstroke, but he threw overboard some liberal founding stones.

It's hard to know what is meant by a term like "strategic masterstroke." Obviously Bill Clinton was re-elected; whether voters were responding to Clinton's supposed drift to the right is much more debatable. (The economy improved from 1994 to 1996, which is likely to have been more important.) In any event, Clinton-style centrism did the Democratic Party no favors. As FAIR founder Jeff Cohen wrote (L.A. Times, 4/9/00):

While Clintonism may be good for Bill and Hillary and Al--all of whom seem willing to say or do anything to win the next election--it's worth asking whether Clintonism is good for the Democratic Party.

Let's do the numbers. When Clinton entered the White House, his party dominated the U.S. Senate, 57-43; the U.S. House, 258-176; the country's governorships, 30-18, and a large majority of state legislatures. Today, Republicans control the Senate, 55-45; the House, 222-211; governorships, 30-18, and almost half of state legislatures.

The Democrats under Clintonism resemble a house of cards, with the Clintons and Gore inhabiting the White House atop a party structure crumbling because of an ever-shifting foundation.

Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources (1/10/11), Time's Joe  Klein denounced the "crap"  on the Fox News Channel. And as many pundits are prone to do, he found the need to balance that by citing a comparable example from the "other" side:

Well, that brings me to point number two.... Cable news chooses not to really deal with complicated issues with the level of complexity that they deserve. I was on Ed Schultz's show to discuss Afghanistan. I was just back from there. It is the most complicated issue imaginable.

And the guy writes on a piece of paper, "Get out now," and holds it up on the screen. That's so stupid and it's so unworthy.

That's right--a TV host expressing the viewpoint held by approximately half the public is "stupid and unworthy"--and comparable to the murder fantasies peddled by Fox.

Rethink Afghanistan has a video response to Klein's remarks that is worth checking out.

Last night (O'Reilly Factor, 1/10/11), Bill O'Reillytalking to Brit Hume:

O'REILLY: We have a network, an entire network that's built around attacking Fox News and right-wing people. That's all they do at MSNBC. They have nothing else.

HUME: How's that working out for them?

O'REILLY: It's not working out for them. But it does mean that I have to have 24-hour security. That I have to worry about my children being assaulted. OK? That's what it means. You talking about nuts? These people ignite those nuts all day long.

I don't see the equivalency of talk radio. I said that there is some of that and there is. Some of those right-wing people go way overboard and they shouldn't. But I don't see the equivalent of it.

It goes without saying that O'Reilly's reading of other media is, shall we say, selective. Here' s the New York Times editorial yesterday:

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.

The version as edited by O'Reilly (O'Reilly Factor, 1/10/11):

So let's begin with the New York Times. In an editorial today, that far-left newspaper said, quote, "It is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced a vast majority of these death threats. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants or welfare recipients or bureaucrats," unquote.

That is flat out reprehensible and every American should condemn that New York Times editorial. Republicans had nothing to do with these murders in Arizona.

Which is, you know, exactly what the paper said--in the part just before O'Reilly started reading.

On CBS's Face the Nation (1/9/11), host Bob Schieffer declared:

Democracy's arguments have never been pretty, but technology has changed the American dialogue because we can now know of problems instantly. We expect answers immediately and when we don't get them, we let everyone know in no uncertain terms. We scream and shout, hurl charges without proof. Those on the other side of the argument become not opponents but enemies. Dangerous inflammatory words are used with no thought of consequence.

Schieffer singled out one exceptional political leader: "In an eloquent statement, the new Republican House Speaker John Boehner said yesterday's attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve."  To which Schieffer added, "We must change the atmosphere in which this happened and we can begin by remembering that words have consequence. Like all powerful things, they must be used carefully."

While Schieffer sings Boehner's praises, Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone (1/5/11)  recalled a different type of Boehner moment:

Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.

"I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'"

Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work."

Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."

One theme in the coverage of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords concerns whether the tone of the political debate will change. That's probably going to happen in the short-term. A long-term shift is unlikely. There have been frequent allusions to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the national discussion that ensued at the time about violent rhetoric on right-wing talk shows. See Extra!'s 1995 article "AM Armies" for more background.

Roughly 10 years later, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough convened a panel (4/27/05) to discuss talk radio extremism, in the wake of incendiary comments made by Air America's Randi Rhodes. As FAIR noted at the time, one of Scarborough's guests was Watergate criminal-turned-talk show host G. Gordon Liddy--a purveyor of violent talk:

On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough turned to Liddy for his response to this incident, asking: "G. Gordon Liddy, are conservatives guilty of similar hate speech on their shows?"

Liddy's response: "Well, if they are, I certainly haven't heard of it."

That would mean that Liddy has not listened to his own program. On August 26, 1994, Liddy told his radio listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." Liddy's advice that day was explicit: "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

This was far from an isolated incident. On September 15, 1994, for example, Liddy told his listeners: "If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head." The theme was repeated so often that Liddy's callers began to exclaim "head shots!" to express their agreement with the host, the way Rush Limbaugh's callers say "megadittos."

To his credit, Scarborough responded to FAIR, explaining that he had no awareness of Liddy's history.

Let's hope that when someone convenes a civility in media discussion in 2020, they don't ask Glenn Beck to weigh in.

Today in the New York Times Paul Krugman (1/10/11) suggests that we not pretend that "both sides" are responsible for toxic political rhetoric:

Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let's not make a false pretense of balance: It's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It's hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be "armed and dangerous" without being ostracized; but Rep. Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the GOP.

...Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you'll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won't hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at the Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly, and you will.

Unfortunately, that false balance is not just coming from the right, but appears all across the media. On Meet the Press (1/9/11), NBC's David Gregory rounded up examples of demonizing rhetoric:

Let's be honest, there is a demonization.  It happens amongst all of you, it happens in the public, it happens in the polarized aspects of the press, a demonization of the other side.  Whether it's a congressman saying, "You lie," from the House floor, whether it's a Democrat who literally shoots the cap-and-trade bill in a campaign advertisement.  Or your former colleague, Alan Grayson from Florida, compared Republicans to the Taliban.  I mean, this kind of vitriol on both sides does contribute to that, that demonization.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post (1/10/11):

Politicians in both parties have said this is not a time for one side to try to score political points against the other over who bears responsibility for these conditions, though there is plenty of finger-pointing in the blogosphere and on Twitter. The reality is everyone bears some responsibility, from politicians to political operatives to the media to ordinary Americans.

New York Times (1/10/11):

Not since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 has an event generated as much attention as to whether extremism, antigovernment sentiment and even simple political passion at both ends of the ideological spectrum have created a climate promoting violence.

New York Times' Matt Bai leads off with examples from "both sides," and in so doing equates one of the most prominent national figures in the Republican Party (and a regular contributor to the GOP house organ Fox News Channel) with some unnamed diarist from Arizona who didn't support a recent Gifford vote:

Within minutes of the first reports Saturday that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and a score of people with her had been shot in Tucson, pages began disappearing from the Web. One was Sarah Palin's infamous "cross hairs" map from last year, which showed a series of contested Congressional districts, including Ms. Giffords', with gun targets trained on them. Another was from Daily Kos, the liberal blog, where one of the congresswoman's apparently liberal constituents declared her "dead to me" after Ms. Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi in House leadership elections last week.

To his credit, Bai spends significant time recounting violent rhetoric from Republican and conservative leaders--likely because there is just a lot more of that to write about. But he offers an excuse for their behavior:

It’s not that such leaders are necessarily trying to incite violence or hysteria; in fact, they're not. It’s more that they are so caught up in a culture of hyperbole, so amused with their own verbal flourishes and the ensuing applause, that--like the bloggers and TV hosts to which they cater--they seem to lose their hold on the power of words.

Bai adds:

None of this began last year, or even with Mr. Obama or with the Tea Party; there were constant intimations during George W. Bush's presidency that he was a modern Hitler or the devious designer of an attack on the World Trade Center, a man whose very existence threatened the most cherished American ideals.

Yes, there are people who called Bush a "modern Hitler," or believed he had some role in the 9/11 attacks. Those people are generally not given talkshows, and cannot be found in positions of power in the Democratic Party.

Obama's selection of conservative Democrat William Daley as his new chief of staff didn't surprise anyone. So reporters were left to explain the political shift behind the move. Some saw little movement at all, since Daley's political views would seem more or less in line with his predecessor Rahm Emanuel. The Washington Post (1/7/11) offered this somewhat confused explanation:

His moderate views and Wall Street credentials make him an unexpected choice for a president who has railed against corporate irresponsibility and tried, with limited success, to appease restive liberals who think he has not been tough enough on bankers.

Actually, the opposite would seem more accurate; the choice of a right-leaning banker with deep ties to corporate America would suggest that Obama doesn't really "rail" against corporations, and certainly has done little to "appease restive liberals." Daley's selection is more evidence of this general trend. Tell that to USA Today, which headlines its piece "Daley Choice Puts a Moderate in Play"--as if there weren't many "moderates" around to begin with. The piece leads with this:

President Obama's choice of Chicago business executive William Daley to run his White House operation is the clearest sign yet that he intends to move toward the political center as he approaches a likely 2012 re-election campaign, members of both parties say.

And over at the L.A. Times, "Obama Chooses Former Clinton Staffers in a Move to the Center" is the headline; readers are told that these moves are "a signal to business leaders and independent voters that he is resolved to steer a more centrist course after two years of intense partisan clashes."

The obvious point here is that Obama "intends to move" towards the center--meaning that he's not there already. The media preference for a Democrat is one who continuously moves to the right. In order to convince readers that Obama isn't already there, reporters magnify certain political disputes in order to prove this point. Today's Wall Street Journal headline, "President Revs Up Campaign to Make Peace With Business," is a perfect example: Obama's been too tough on corporate America, and now he's moving the other direction by hiring a businessman to run the White House.

The Washington Post's account (1/6/11) of John Boehner's first day as Speaker of the House could have been a press release from Boehner's office. The headline was "A Modest Boehner Takes Congress's Most Powerful Office." Post readers learned that "Boehner tends to shun big moments such as these. He's more at home on the golf course with his rank-and-file buddies." He's just one of us! The Post adds:

About 500 of Boehner's constituents, including family friends from the Cincinnati area, came to see him sworn in. Many of them, as well as some D.C. lobbyists, came through his office late Wednesday morning for coffee and to pay their respects.

How did those lobbyists sneak in to say hello to this Man of the People!?

Boehner's perhaps best known in Washington for being extraordinarily tight with corporate lobbyists. Even the recent Time cover story admitted that Democrats' critique of him as cozy with lobbyists is true:

Many of Boehner's closest personal and political friends really are lobbyists for banks, insurers and other corporations. Ever since he first joined the House leadership 15 years ago, he has been a leading Republican ambassador to K Street.

Maybe those are his "rank-and-file" golf buddies? Time adds:

He drinks his share of Merlot and hangs out with a crowd of influence peddlers in what's known as Boehnerland. He's a frequent flyer on corporate jets and successfully fought a ban on privately funded congressional travel in the 2007 ethics-reform bill. This election cycle alone, special interests have paid for him to take 40 trips worth $158,000. Just hours before his victory speech, he held court at his favorite Washington restaurant, Trattoria Alberto, with his 40 closest friends and advisers, the bulk of whom are corporate lobbyists.

And:

To Democrats and many in the media, "tireless fundraiser" is just a nice way of saying "bagman for K Street." Boehner received $32,000 from clients of corrupt GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He's raked in $2.6 million from the financial sector. When he chaired the Education Committee, Sallie Mae gave him $122,500--and his daughter a job. His lavish parties--an annual beach bash, golf tournaments in four states--are practically lobbyist conventions.

But, you know, he's also "modest."

There's been a spate of reporting and commentary attacking public workers for having lavish pensions that are bankrupting various states. CBS's 60 Minutes got into the act in December with a report (12/19/10) that was criticized for lionizing Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (obviously this came before his snow troubles) for his attacks on public workers (particularly school teachers).

The New York Times featured an article by Michael Powell on January 2 headlined "Public Workers Face Outrage as Budget Crises Grow." The piece focused primarily on these pension plans, some of which "dangle perilously close to bankruptcy." The article doesn't adequately explain why this is so, but from the headline and focus of the piece readers are left with the impression that unionized workers are getting cushy benefits. This is somewhat undercut later in the article, when it is noted, "A raft of recent studies found that public salaries, even with benefits included, are equivalent to or lag slightly behind those of private sector workers." That left one Times letter writer puzzled about why the focus was on workers' supposed perks.

One of the main criticisms of this kind of reporting, from CEPR's Dean Baker, is that it fails to account for the impact of the recession. Pension funds are invested in the stock market; a major downturn in the stock market would obviously affect the health of those funds.

When Baker made this point about the Times article, Powell wrote a response on his Times blog, chiding Baker for making an "easy" argument:

The economist Dean Baker of the liberal Center for Policy and Economic Research takes greater issue with my report. He argues that the financial crisis was the original sin, as it caused the stock market to plunge, which in turn upended public pension finance. This, he argues, is the "major cause" of the pension problem.

Mr. Baker is a careful follower of the economy, but this argument may be too easy. In New Jersey, California and Illinois, to name three states, Democratic and Republican legislatures and governors repeatedly ignored their obligation to pay into the pension systems.

Which brings us to today's papers. The Washington Post and the New York Times both have articles based on a new Census report showing that pension funds experienced huge losses due to the stock market downturn.  The Post explains that states' revenue drops "resulted largely from the big investment losses experienced by state pension funds during the worst period of the downturn."  The Times says much the same, in a piece headlined "Pension Fund Losses Hit States Hard, Data Show."

Which is another way of saying that critics like Dean Baker were right.

Reporting on various White House personnel changes, specifically the idea that Clinton administration veteran Gene Sperling will soon head the National Economic Council, the New York Times explains (1/6/11):

Mr. Sperling, much like Mr. Obama, is a liberal but with a pragmatic bent.

"Pragmatic," in corporate media code, means "centrist," because it's an article of faith in journalistic circles that smart Democrats move away from their progressive base.

The Times adds:

Some liberal activists have opposed his becoming the director because of his openness to compromise with Republicans, and because he once was a well-paid consultant to Goldman Sachs, managing a charitable program to teach skills to poor women in Africa and elsewhere.

If a piece is supposed to explain what "liberal activists" think of Sperling and others, a reporter should go ahead and ask some of them. Instead the Times makes it sound like progressives dislike Sperling's work to help poor African women.

For an actual critique of Sperling's record, check Dean Baker's blog:

The primary issue is not that Sperling got $900,000 from Goldman Sachs for part-time work, although that does look bad. The primary issue is that Sperling thought, and may still think, that the policies that laid the basis for the economic collapse were just fine.

Sperling saw nothing wrong with the stock market bubble that laid the basis for the 2001 recession. The economy did not begin to create jobs again until two and half years after the beginning of this recession, and even then it was only due to the growth of the housing bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the growth of that bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the financial deregulation of the Clinton years which, by the way, helped make Goldman Sachs lots of money. And he saw nothing wrong with the over-valued dollar which gave the United States an enormous trade deficit. This trade deficit undermined the bargaining power of manufacturing workers and helped to redistribute income upward.

In short, Sperling has a horrible track record of supporting policies that were bad for the country and good for Wall Street.

I always enjoy Andrew Tyndall's year-in-review report, which tallies the minutes each network newscast devoted to the important stories of the year. His 2010 report is worth a look. The most newsworthy woman of the year? GOP Senate hopeful and Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell from Delaware. Tyndall notes that the BP oil disaster was the most-covered story of the year, but that it "prompted no follow-up spike in coverage of energy policy, or global warming." Coverage of the economy stalled: "Unemployment may still be stubbornly high, yet the newshole for the economy has reverted to the mean. So apparently growth has resumed."

The differences between networks are somewhat interesting; NBC devoted substantially less time to covering the Afghan War: 91 minutes, versus 150 at ABC and 174 at CBS. They also lagged behind in their coverage of the debate over the healthcare law.

But they were way out in front on one story: the Winter Olympics. NBC gave the Games 84 minutes of coverage, versus 17 and 18 minutes for ABC and CBS. Of course, NBC was broadcasting the Olympics, and the company with those rights generally turns their newscast into a promotional vehicle.

Another way of looking at it: NBC talked more about the Olympics than about healthcare or unemployment; the Afghan War was just slightly more important to their newscast than the Olympic Games. And they wonder why people aren't watching the network newscasts like they used to....