Newsweek's Evan Thomas visited Germany recently, and came away thinking the United States is headed for some serious trouble. The country is falling apart--polarized, susceptible to populist demagoguery and so on. Forces on both sides are to blame; they're not all bad ("I think the Tea Partiers, despite their contradictions, are not all wrong about Big Government," he writes), but some should be singled out for criticism:

Cable-TV and talk-radio personalities and bloggers have risen up to speak for the people. But as they pander for clicks and ratings, their standards of factual accuracy are often low. This is not by any means just a right-wing phenomenon. As my friend Charles Krauthammer points out, it was an article of faith on the left that George W. Bush deliberately lied about WMD to get us into the Iraq War. Never mind a complete absence of evidence.

Wait--did he just cite Charles Krauthammer in an appeal for rigorous factual analysis? Because that would be funny!

The idea that Bush never "lied" requires one to adhere to a weird definition of lying. By any reasonable standard, Bush made an array of charges about Iraq that were false;  some he should have known were false, since the administration was rejecting intelligence that did not conform to its desired conclusion. And the Downing Street memo revealed that the British thought the Bush administration was determined to go to war no matter what: "The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," as the memo put it.  But that's not a lie, right?

Thomas thinks that what is needed is less of this Internet-fueled inaccuracy and more old-fashioned, Evan Thomas-style journalism--though he worries it may be too late:

But the old and weary (and increasingly cowed) mainstream media, of which I have been a charter member for more than 30 years, may not be as successful as it used to be at exposing the sort of distortions that can fuel mindless rage. Whether those distortions come from the far right or far left, the consequences could be disastrous: a protectionist who sets out to shield workers from foreign competition and wrecks the free-trade regimen that has made America prosper; a law-and-order vigilante who comes to office after a terrorist attack with a program to suspend cherished individual liberties to keep America “safe”; a soak-the-rich populist who kills economic growth in the name of helping the little guy.

Set aside for a minute the idea that a "protectionist" who critiques "free trade" agreements or a populist who raises taxes on the wealthy are disasters in the making (unless the media summon the power to stop such creeps). Let's talk about something already happened--like, say, the Iraq War. A reckless administration, determined to invade another country no matter what, cited false intelligence; surely old-fashioned reporters like Evan Thomas rose to stop this madness? Nope. They wrote things like this:

Saddam could decide to take Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of "the green mushroom" over Baghdad--the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all time.

Well, at least he's not a blogger accusing Bush of lying. That'd be really irresponsible.

The cover of Newsweek (4/26/10) proclaims: "Don't Mess With Texas: What Governor Rick Perry's Hard-Right Creed Tells Us About America."

I can't say I learned much about America, but I guess I learned something about Newsweek:  They really like Rick Perry.

The story, by Evan Thomas and Arian Campo-Flores, begins with the observation, "The myth of the once and future king is as old as Camelot, as ancient as the Bible." Perry, it seems, is a living example of such a "redeemer":

In Texas, his name is Rick Perry. Raised in a ranch house with no running water in the West Texas town of Paint Creek, yell leader at Texas A&M, Air Force pilot, longest serving governor in Texas history. Ruggedly handsome in a Marlboro Man sort of way, with a rich mane of brown hair, slightly tinged with silver gray. Perry, 60, stands for less government and more growth, for freedom and against bureaucracy, for Texas and against Washington. It's a message that has made him a very popular politician in Texas, particularly among conservative white males. As the Tea Party movement gains momentum, as more Americans are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, Perry is their kind of hero.

Newsweek goes on to wonder if Perry might really be "the second coming of Ronald Reagan, the plain-spoken man from the West who presided over a new 'Morning in America' by cutting taxes, reducing government (well, promising to) and standing tall against the nation's enemies?"

Well, gee, maybe they should just skip the election? Would anyone be foolish enough to run against this handsome savior? Yes, it turns out--an uninspiring bald guy:

Perry's Democratic opponent in November will be Bill White, the popular three-term mayor of Houston. White couldn't be more different from Perry. He went to Harvard. He speaks fluent Spanish. He's pasty white, with a bald pate and big ears. He talks in an even, slow monotone and refrains from gunslinging rhetoric. He's kind of like President Obama without the good looks and charisma--a cerebral man who craves consensus and relishes tackling problems by gathering a roomful of smart people with diverse views to hash things out.

What a bore.

After the story's fourth paragraph tells us that under Perry, "Texas somehow avoided the worst of the Great Recession," the second-to-last sentence discloses that the Texas economic miracle might turn sour in a hurry:  "Economic experts are predicting a shortfall of at least $15 billion in the coming year." This after the state got $16 billion in stimulus money from the federal government last year. (Perry, you see, thinks Obama "is hellbent on taking America towards a socialist country.")

And you wouldn't know this from reading Newsweek's puff piece, but Perry and his pasty, uncharismatic Democratic challenger are in a pretty tight race, with Perry holding a four-point lead. Newsweek doesn't have time to mess with such nuance.

Newsweek devotes several pieces this week to public schools. But the lead piece, "Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers," by Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert, lays out the magazine's skewed vision: Teacher unions protect the worst performers, while charter schools offer an easy solution. ("In the past two decades, some schools have sprung up that defy and refute what former president George W. Bush memorably called 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'") Newsweek even finds the silver lining in Hurricane Katrina:

It is difficult to dislodge the educational establishment. In New Orleans, a hurricane was required: Since Katrina, New Orleans has made more educational progress than any other city, largely because the public-school system was wiped out. Using nonunion charter schools, New Orleans has been able to measure teacher performance in ways that the teachers' unions have long and bitterly resisted.

The decision of a Rhode Island superintendent to fire every teacher at one low-performing high school is called a "notable breakthrough."

Many of these ideas are the subject of intense debate--research on charter schools has generally not shown substantial improvement over conventional public schooling, for example. Experts and advocates disagree with the notion that New Orleans is a success story. But Newsweek presents little debate--sticking with the right-leaning narrative version of "school reform" that is primarily about bashing teachers.

An accompanying article pitting teachers union president Randi Weingarten and anti-union D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is presented on Newsweek's home page under the headline "The Union Boss vs. the School Reformer." It's not hard to imagine which option is supposed to be more attractive (unless you're the pro-boss, anti-reform type).

Back to the Thomas article, though, with its subhead: "In no other profession are workers so insulated from accountability." This is particularly ironic to see under Evan Thomas' byline. One only needs to recall his contribution to the pre-Iraq War propaganda effort summarized below, and wonder what sort of accountability exists at Newsweek.

March 17, 2003
—Newsweek's cover story is entitled "Saddam's War," and the cover features a close-up of Hussein's face on fire. At the top of the story, Newsweek reports from the scene of a Baghdad military parade, describing as jarring the sight of Iraqi fedayeen fighters "garbed in the familiar tan camouflage of the United States Army. Saddam has ordered thousands of uniforms identical, down to the last detail, to those worn by U.S. and British troopers. The plan: to have Saddam's men, posing as Western invaders, slaughter Iraqi citizens while the cameras roll for Al-Jazeera and the credulous Arab press." The article closes with this call for war:

"One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of 'the green mushroom' over Baghdad—the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all time."

A headline over an Evan Thomas story in this week's Newsweek (3/8/10) tells us:  "We the Problem: Washington Is Working Just Fine. It's Us That's Broken."

Thomas blames, among other things, "our 'got mine' culture of entitlement," adding:

Politicians, never known for their bravery, precisely represent the people. Our leaders are paralyzed by the very thought of asking their constituents to make short-term sacrifices for long-term rewards. They cannot bring themselves to raise taxes on the middle class or cut Social Security and medical benefits for the elderly. They'd get clobbered at the polls. So any day of reckoning gets put off, and put off again, and the debts pile up.

Now that's the problem--the middle class needs to pay more taxes, and everyone should get less from Social Security. These are very familar "hard truths" you hear from corporate pundits. Thomas goes on to finger "the college hookup culture," and suggests that Obama should give in to Republican demands on "tort reform" in order to make progress on healthcare--an offer Obama has actually already made, with no discernible response from Republicans.

The blame-the-people narrative was echoed in Jon Meacham's editor's note, where he advised that we should "own up to the reality that Washington is not an abstraction but a mirror. Our political life is a reflection of who we are, no matter how unattractive we may find the image looking back at us. Washington is an expression, not a thwarting, of the will of the people."

It's odd for journalists to conclude that Washington politics is a perfect expression of Americans' political views. If it were, one would have to think that Congressional approval ratings would be somewhat higher, and that political outcomes would be very different. The public consistently favors higher taxes for the wealthy, for example--but don't hold your breath waiting for pundits to take up that cause.

Meacham goes on to illustrate this misguided notion by comparing Obama's healthcare reform drive with George W. Bush's push to privatize Social Security. The two are apparently similar in that they were both about reforming the system, and Americans prefer the status quo. It's hard to know what to say about that, though one could point out that the threat to the country's fiscal well-being posed by the rising costs of healthcare are  significantly greater than anything having to do with Social Security.

Meacham also warns readers not to idealize the past, though, since urgent political problems weren't solved back then either:

The first report predicting a crisis in Social Security was released 35 years ago, but the fabled bipartisanship of ages past produced only incremental fixes. If more had been accomplished, it would not be an issue today.

That crisis was handled with tax increases that created a multi-trillion dollar surplus for Social Security. The only reason Social Security remains "an issue today" is due to journalists like Meacham making it one, usually by misleading people about the program's imminent collapse.

It's to self-described "establishment" journalist Evan Thomas' credit that he calls attention (Newsweek, 4/6/09) to economist Paul Krugman's progressive criticism of the Obama administration's financial bailout plan; corporate media generally pay much more attention to critics from the right.

But the same shallowness that renders most media policy discussions virtually useless infects Thomas' article, which seems more interested in analyzing Krugman's personality than his economics. "A lot of what he says is wrong and not considered," asserts George Mason economist Daniel Klein. Such as? Thomas doesn't say (nor does he allude to Klein's right-wing politics). "In areas outside his expertise he sometimes gets his facts wrong," Thomas asserts--without offering examples.

In a rare glimpse of substance, Thomas cites some unnamed administration officials' specific criticisms of Krugman's bank-nationalization proposals. Thomas' summary of the economist's counter-argument: "Krugman swats away these arguments, though he acknowledges he's not a 'detail' man."

One suspects that Krugman had more to say than that, and including his response might have helped readers determine whose policies might better address the economic crisis. But Thomas needed to save room to describe his subject's "lovely custom-built wood, stone and glass house by a brook in bucolic Princeton."