![]() A BIT TOO KIND TO DIONNE! Steve Benen was too kind to Dionne, who blamed it all on the Tea Party: // link // print // previous // next //
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2011 Why our fascination continues: The Michelle Rhee story neatly captures the way our discourse works. Rhee rose to prominence trailing a story which was, on its face, almost surely absurd. But journalists didnt question or challenge her tale as she rose to national prominence. They didnt even try to examine that studythe study which now seems to reveal her foundational claims as a joke. For years, the press corps drifted along, helping Rhee tell her grand tale. Increasingly, this is the way our national discourse works. In one area after another, our national discourse is really a novela novel the press corps agrees to repeat in service to billionaire preferences. That said, lets be clear on why this matters in the case of Rhee: Its isnt so much a matter of character, or even a matter of basic competence. (Would you want someone to run a school district if she believed the ludicrous tales Rhee has repeated for years?) Instead, there have been two major societal consequences to the pimping of Rhees glory tale: First, there has been an educational consequence. Theres no need for serious education reform if you believe such miracle tales. Low-income children deserve intervention from the earliest years of their lives. They also deserve to go to schools with careful, well-designed instructional programsprograms carefully designed for kids who may be years behind traditional grade level. But why bother planning piffle like that if you believe Rhees miracle tales? Its so simple! You just wait till the children are in the third grade! At that time, you give them a teacher from Cornell and watch all the flowers bloom! A serious search for real reform is undermined by Rhees glory tale. The second major societal consequence involves Rhees endlessly noxious message about teachers and teachers unions. Were sure that such unions have been wrong many times, as almost everyone else has been. Beyond that, we would agree that some of Rhees basic ideas make perfect sense; if some teacher cant or wont teach, he shouldnt keep his job for the next forty years. But few people have aimed so much venom at teachers and their infernal unions as Rhee has done in the past few years. Rhee is weirdly unbalancedunhingedon such matters. She has helped advance a noxious attitude about unions in general, a message which extends well beyond the narrow educational focus. (Liberals have stood by and stared, of course. The lives of black children are boring.) Simple story: You simply cant run a modern nation on the basis of ludicrous tales. Increasingly, though, thats how our discourse works. Youll rarely see a more fascinating example. Al Gore never said he invented the Internetand Rhee never churned those miracle test scores. In each case, the press corps agreed to pretend. You cant run a nation that way. A BIT TOO KIND TO DIONNE (permalink): Steve Benen is a bit too kind to the Washington Posts E. J. Dionne. On Monday, Dionne wrote a piece in the Washington Post which made some accurate points. Digby said Dionne was half right (click here). By contrast, Benen fell all over himself praising Dionnes acute wisdom. Steve is too kind to Dionneand a bit too hard on himself. Note the way Steves own post beganthe post in which he would soon shower praise on Dionne:
Right out of the gate, Benen named the name of a major player in the establishment press corps. He seemed to criticize that major player for his narrow, crabbed issue focus. But thats exactly what didnt happen when Dionne wrote his halfway-accurate column. E. J. spoke in wide-ranging terms about the nations broken debate. And of course, he blamed the Tea Party for all the nations current problems, including that crabbed issue focus. He didnt blame high-ranking colleagues like Gregory. It was the Tea Partys fault. Everything is the Tea Partys fault, if you believe Dionnes column. By the end of his piece, he was making a valid observation about some of Washingtons major political players. But for us, this passage made us think of the other places Dionne had refused to go:
Even here, Dionne doesnt name any namesbut he criticized major Dems for the apparent focus of ongoing budget talks. Only a gang of millionaires would think this way, he complains, perhaps correctly. But how strange! While blaming the Tea Party for even this matter, Dionne says he cant imagine why Democrats would come near such a narrow agenda. Does anyone really believe that? Right in that same paragraph, Dionne had already suggested one possible explanation for such conduct by Dems. Many Big Democrats are themselves millionaires; they may share the narrow class focus of other such lucky duckies. But beyond that, many Big Democrats are funded by corporate and billionaire interests; this could explain this issue focus, and this isnt the Tea Partys doing. Nor is this reported focus especially new, even for Democrats. There is no obvious reason to blame the Tea Party for the conduct of these Demsother than the desire to pander to liberal readers. That was the part of his piece where Dionne discussed the political class. Earlier, though, he had discussed his own journalistic classand no names were mentioned there either. In the following passage, he describes a long-standing focus of his own class, while blaming the TP again:
In this pandering column, everything seems to be the Tea Partys fault or doing! But Dionnes own journalistic class has long advanced the agenda he describes in that passageand the most influential of them are all multimillionaires too! In the spring of 2000, for example, all elements of the high pundit class sided with Candidate Bush over Candidate Gore about the desirability of privatizing part of Social Security; the National Journal attributed this striking consensus to the wealth of the High Pundit Class. And of course, the late Tim Russert preceded Gregory as host of Meet the Press; he built a substantial chunk of his massive career around factually-bungled, billionaire-friendly claims concerning the need to cut Social Security. At the time, Russerts employer and mentor was the conservative, near-billionaire mogul, GE CEO Jack Welch. Dionne has never said a word about these decades-old preferences and alliances. Theres little chance that he ever will. (Since Dionne himself mentioned the problem, Russert became a multimillionaire during his press corps career. This little cottage on Nantucket served as his summer house.) In our view, Dionne was largely hustling us liberal rubes with this column, while protecting his own comfy place in DCs inner circle. Everything is the Tea Partys fault, he said, over and over againas he described familiar old conduct from his own high class.
Dionne is a regular guest on Meet the Press; Gregorys name will not pass his lips. Its a basic rule of Washington journalism: Youre allowed to be right on the issues, as Dionne is. But you mustnt discuss your own class.
|