Norman Ornstein at the Center for American Progress.
Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann are well-known in the Beltway. They work at big-time think tanks (Brookings and American Enterprise Institute), appear on television chat shows, and write books and op-eds that powerful people pay attention to.
Lately, though, it seems they’ve become dangerous men.
Mann and Ornstein recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post (4/27/12) based on their new book. In it, they argued that whining about increased polarization or partisanship in politics obscures a central truth: This problem is not seen in equal measure on both sides. The headline summed it up: “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem.”
They wrote:
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
And the piece pointed a finger at the media’s false balance:
We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.
Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?
The article became quite an internet sensation—with something like 200,000 recommendations on Facebook. But as Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent (5/14/12) points out, one class of people seem uniquely uninterested in the argument: Sunday talkshow bookers.
It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington—yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all.
Ornstein tells Sargent, “Not a single one of the Sunday shows has indicated an interest, and I do find it curious.”
Unfortunate, perhaps. But it’s not all that curious. As FAIR’s recent study of the Sunday shows revealed, the programs exhibit a remarkable right-wing slant, favoring Republican politicians over Democrats and conservative-leaning pundits over their more progressive counterparts. If anything, the Sunday programs serve to confirm the thesis laid out by Ornstein and Mann. It’d be hard to imagine these shows would be all that keen on inviting guests on who would challenge the extremely narrow political worldview that they attempt to pass off as reality every week.
Either that or they’re trying to get a guest who can take the “other side” in this debate. You know, for the sake of balance.
That’s not to say that nothing can be done about this—the more people speak up the better. That’s why FAIR has encouraged activists to sign a petition to the Sunday shows urging them to diversify their guest lists.
Of course, for Mann and Ornstein, “compromise” is the prescription for all sorts of “ideological extremes”.
Like universal healthcare, or trying US war criminals (which should include those currently in office).
Their lopsided notion of “balance” shows just how severely tilted the world according to the Kochs and company really is, don’t you think?
The current talk shows and the major newspapers constitute what has long been called the “Fourth Estate,” an independent, unaccountable, and unpreventable addition to the three traditional branches of government: the Clergy, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. The term was used as far back as 1580, when Montaigne applied it to lawyers “selling justice to the rich.” In “The French Revolution,” published in 1837, Thomas Carlyle identified the Fourth Estate as the press. Wikipedia quotes Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” published in 1891: “The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.”
I don’t see Bill Moyers on “The Sabbath Blather”, as Calvin Trillin called it. (Them.) Katrina Van den Heuvel once in a long while. Mostly the usual. More Republican and Tea Party than Democrats and the true left. Robert Reich? Don’t recall seeing him. And why is George the Grouch, whose wife works for Mitt, a regular? Why not Katerina van den Heuvel? This country is not as right wing as the MSM think. Obama ran on the left, for Christ’s sake. And won! Has anyone ever expressed the tiniest lack of utter support for Israel? Not that I’ve seen. I’m proIsrael and proPeace. How many J St and Americans for Peace Now people on Sunday talk shows? None I’ve seen. Just one issue.
I have not watched Sunday morning news show in years because of the reasons cited in this piece. One friend calls “Meet The Press” “Press The Meat” whcih seems more fitting. I do wonder though how one of the posters here could be pro-Israel and pro- peace at the same time, frankly, I find that stance to completely impossible. Israel is the problem and they are not about peace.
April asks: Where is Bill Moyers on Sunday mornings? Why not more Katerina van den Heuvel? Why Mitt’s employee gets more air time than, say, van den Heuvel?
The answer is simple, April (and others). The Sunday news agenda, like all other news shows, is determined by who is paying for the advertisements that fund that show. The corporations who pay for the commercials do not want to pay for a platform to voice opposing positions!
I like FAIR, and I really do support their work. But, just like our for-profit, so-called health care system cannot be fixed, neither can our for-profit, so-called commercially-funded journalism. These repugnant institutions need to be replaced by publicly-funded, publicly-overseen mechanisms that serve the needs of the public, not private profit-making.
Until commercialism is abolished from the MSM, the best you can hope to see on Sunday mornings is exactly what you see on Sunday mornings. Whether those shows are “FAIR” or not.
For a much different angle on current events, see therealnews.com. Try tuning in on your PC or laptop on a Sunday morning instead of tuning in to the same old thing on your TV. therealnews.com is funded by donations from viewers (like the original PBS/NPR), so the agenda is forthright, accurate, and highly nuanced.
Very good to notice this. The media lost their balls a long time ago. The result is pure ignorance in much of the population about what the hell is going on in Washington. My view is that the democrats have no alternative than to massively swamp this party of misfits and greedy MFs.
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there are only two red stars, and both of those fields are filled.
What, are you blind?????????
When in 2000 Nader proclaimed that there was no difference between the two parties, there wasn’t much difference, only nuisances. Twelve years later, the two parties are almost identical in practice. It’s only in rhetoric that they differ. The rich still laugh all the way to the bank and the US is still a dying empire rattling its saber around the world. Unfortunately too many smart educated good-hearted Americans fall for this sports team duality and the lesser of two evils paradigm which has been drifting us to the right. By the time they realized their folly it will be too late. We will be in full-fledged fascism.
More unfortunate is that too many organizations and prominent individuals on the so-called left (FAIR, Nation, Ornstein and Mann, etc.) still deflect the attention away from the pink elephant in the room: that the ruling elite place their wager on both sides of the isle so regardless of the winner they always win. Just look at who our so-called lefty President has surrounded himself with and instead of bailing out the already betrayed Americans, he bails out his buddies on Wall Street.
In direct (Media) relation: Organizers of TED, Which Costs Thousands to Attend, Deem Talk on Income Inequality Too “Politically Controversial” to Share http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/newsandviews/930653
My radical father called the “so-called left” in above comment “half-assed liberals”–I agree completely that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, especially now that the Democrats no longer even throw a few crumbs to the 99%. Until middle class Americans become as desperate and poor as young “occupiers” and take to the streets, at least voting for a third party that promises what they need expresses their distaste for the betrayal of the main parties.
The American Enterprise Institute is a front organization for the KKK!
Ornstein and Mann are not liberals, or on the “so-called left,” FreeSpirit. They just have principles, have noticed something that is glaringly obvious and very disturbing, and feel the need to talk about it in our failing democracy. That’s what you’re supposed to do. The nutzoid Right (one of whom we will be hearing from very shortly here at FAIR blog, I’m sure) is exactly as Ornsiein and Mann describe. Ornstein certainly knows why he and Mann aren’t being invited onto those ghastly programs, as do all of the posters here (so far). Real conservatives (and real liberals, for that matter) would never countenance the crazy, hateful shit that Right-wing Republicons traffic in every day in this country.
TimN: You pretty much nailed it, but the nutzoid right, in addition to such folks as FAIR’s babbling troll, now includes all prominent Republicans and most office-holding Democrats, lead by Mr. Wishywashy himself there in the White House.
So why would the Sunday talk shows want anyone on the panel at odds not only with all the other guests but with the moderator as well? It’s Sunday, for God’s sake. Let’s all be nice.
Lockstep anyone?
That’s right, Orville. Most of the Democratic party is bought off, though they aren’t completely mad yet, like almost all of the Republicons. Some of the ‘Cons are truly crazy; on the Democratic side we mostly have “blue dog” corporate sell-outs and sneaky frauds like the mayor of Newark, a “liberal” named Corey Booker. This clown is in league with the hefty governor and mean lying asshole of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Booker is now back-tracking on his idiotic remarks about Obama’s attacks on Romney’s vulture capital-past. Booker’s another in a long line of Democratic sell-outs. Unfortunately, the President himself is late to the party as well–I haven’t forgotten his sucking up and inexplicable caving, up ’til the election got started (good on him, though, for his gay marriage stance and plain-spoken defense of insured women’s right to birth-control). Will Obama cave and leave Romney’s very exploitable past mostly alone, so that themean old Republicons won’t call him names? We’ll see, in the months to come. I’m not optimistic.
Just turn off the TV on Sunday Morning and get everyone you know to do so too. Maybe a severe drop in the ratings would wake them up ===============I doubt it, but it may be worth a try.
And by the way, all we do here is collect injustices. Elizabeth is the exception in recommending a boycott — the most effective thing the citizenry can do to counteract the political insanity without getting maced.
For instance, the Florida Legislature has so far been totally indifferent to a rising tide of opposition to its prototype stand-your-ground law. Would it be such a friend of the NRA if a few million of us living in crowded urban areas decided not to buy Florida oranges?
Let’s keep voting the lesser of two evils in until we have nothing but the nutzoid right. The problem with the so-called left is that we have no imagination. Without imagination there is lack of ability to visualize what the future looks like. Anyone with powers of spatial reasoning can see the projectile this country has been on. Voting the lesser of two evils in will only decelerate the pace at which we will arrive at the NutzoidRightLand (Sieg Heil)!
The so-called left is also very myopic. They only care for their own narrow issues. The environmentalists care only about the environment. Labor cares only about wages and benefits. The LGBTQ block votes only for its own interest. This is quite stupid. All these issues are important but without synergy we only regress (as we have been).
The so-called left should join forces and resources in order to make two things happen: (1) publicly financed elections, (2) legally accountable media including real public stations (not the Petroleum Broadcasting System). Until that happens, this dying democracy will be at the mercy of PR firms in service of the 1% narcissistic sociopaths.
Compromise has always meant the same thing to the left.Come to their side of the fence because the right is extreme, while the left is reasoned.Now you have a right, that believes the left is nuts.Completely nuts.Get it? So Im not sure compromise is in the cards at all until some blood is shed.We are in a time where the left wants to tax their way out of this mess, and the right wants to grow out of it.Lots of light between those two views.The left had a super majority, and a president …..and failed.I think the right wants a shot at that.Im not seeing anything but intransigence- due to very principled disagreements. And that is fine and dandy.I want Tim to be a socialist.I want to be proudly Tea party.I want Americans to hear our views, and vote their conscience.So we shall duke it out at the ballot box.Bare knuckle politics.Meet you behind the barn stuff.We had a moment during the healthcare debate when we stupidly waited our turn to join the debate.Nancy P told us we would not be receiving an invitation.Obama smirked and told us to wake up…he had won after all.We had lost.Well payback is a bitch.What more can we say?
It’s all over baby–the Phillistines rule and the Ides of March are upon us. Thank God I’m not 21 and hoping to build an American dream in this oligarchy! Where are the soma pills. I’m grateful for FAIR’S truthtelling, but it’s all so depressing. Where’s Ralph Nader now that we need him?
For many many years- we on the right have known that compromise to the left occurs)in their eyes) when the right finally sees the light of the lefts studied and reasoned beliefs.Um yeah not so much…Today we have a right that truly believes the left is nuts.And a left that believes the right is uncaring and evil.Not a lot of wiggle room there.I think the last time the right believed in compromise was when the healthcare debate began.Nancy P locked the doors keeping the right out,and Obama smirked as he reminded the right that he had won,not them.That was it.Lesson taught and learned.We now move toward the brass ring and you can expect Tarelton’s quarter which is no quarter at all.Send your thanks and regards to Nancy P.If we fail we will also be out in four.