I admit that I was stunned to see Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein on the guest list for Reliable Sources this week. Mann and Ornstein's book placed very pointed blame on the media for failing Americans in presenting the truth of the extremism of the Republican Party. So how could the king of the false equivalency, Howard Kurtz, handle having on such dead-on criticism on his show?

By pretending that he isn't part of the problem, natch. And then a little blaming-the-messenger suggestion to dismiss the allegations:

KURTZ: Well, this is a striking message coming from the two of you, because you've both been around Washington a long time. You do have a reputation as being kind of centrist, even though you're different kinds of think tanks.

But at the same time, I just have to wonder, maybe you just don't like where the Republican Party has gone. I mean, after all, the people who represent the Republicans here in D.C. were elected by constituents who want them to do what they're doing. And so this is more of an ideological message on your part as opposed to calling out the press for supposed bias.

MANN: It could be, but I don't believe it is. We don't do that kind of analysis and --

KURTZ: You do it right here. The Republicans are extremists. Republicans are radicals.

MANN: But look to see how we back it up. I mean, we really look at arguments made and there's no truth content to them.

Wait...facts backed up by evidence? Thems alien concepts to Kurtz. And to the rest of the Beltway media, which Kurtz never internalizes. In fact, I've never seen him more invested in not internalizing what's being said or following up on questions in an interview. Clearly, Mann and Ornstein have hit too close to home.

It seems fitting to look back on the election from a distance and see someone besides bloggers tell the tale of how the mainstream media completely missed the boat on their Election 2012 reporting. Fortunately, Dan Froomkin has done exactly that.

Sparing no one, Froomkin interviews Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, personas non grata on Sunday shows since they spoke of Republican lunacy aloud. They call out the ridiculous reporting that passed for election coverage by the mainstream while pretending the emperor had clothes.

But according to longtime political observers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, campaign coverage in 2012 was a particularly calamitous failure, almost entirely missing the single biggest story of the race: Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth.

[...]

The 2012 campaign further proved their point, they both said in recent interviews. It also exposed how fabulists and liars can exploit the elite media's fear of being seen as taking sides.

"The mainstream press really has such a difficult time trying to cope with asymmetry between the two parties' agendas and connections to facts and truth," said Mann, who has spent nearly three decades as a congressional scholar at the centrist Brookings Institution.

"I saw some journalists struggling to avoid the trap of balance and I knew they were struggling with it -- and with their editors," said Mann. "But in general, I think overall it was a pretty disappointing performance."

"I can't recall a campaign where I've seen more lying going on -- and it wasn't symmetric," said Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who's been tracking Congress with Mann since 1978. Democrats were hardly innocent, he said, "but it seemed pretty clear to me that the Republican campaign was just far more over the top."

The indictment is pretty severe:

So, Ornstein concluded: "If you looked at where the scales should have been, and where they were, they were weighted. And they weren't weighted for ideological bias. They were weighted to avoid being charged with ideological bias."

The backlash was even more swift.

"It's awkward. I can no longer be a source in a news story in the Wall Street Journal or the Times or the Post because people now think I've made the case for the Democrats and therefore I'll have to be balanced with a Republican," Mann said.

Neither Mann nor Ornstein have been guests on any of the main Sunday public affairs shows since their book came out. Nor has anyone else on those shows talked about the concerns they raised.

Why am I not surprised? They're right. Let you doubt, have a look at the dive we're all taking into Wonderland this week over Medicare eligibility. What part of winning do Democrats have so much difficulty with?

Here's a perfect example: They won't put Mann and Ornstein on these shows but in one single day they have Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich on? Because they now represent mainstream Republican thought? Not only have they missed the boat, they jumped into the harbor and are swimming away from it.

So I guess we grind on and on and on, waiting for the next act of wingnuttery for the Village to neutralize so we can live forever and ever in ignorant bliss. Or something.

Let me know when you find that liberal media bias, would you?

So bonafide conservatives Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein published a new book out that blames Republicans for Washington's legislative gridlock, saying that despite conventional media wisdom to the contrary, it's “asymmetrical polarization.” Surprisingly enough (yeah, I'm being sarcastic), Chris Hayes is the only cable news person to date who's had them on to talk about the book - this, despite them being past of a regular stable of Sunday TV guests. Wonder why? Via Raw Story:

The book describes the Republican Party as “an insurgent outlier … ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

The authors of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, who have found themselves ostracized by the Sunday morning shows where they had always previously been welcome, appeared Sunday on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes to discuss the book.

Mann explained that the separation of powers provided for by our Constitution deliberately creates a situation in which that Congressional majorities are unable to act without some degree of cooperation with the other party. Now that “one of those political parties has veered off the tracks” and become “aggressively oppositional,” it has many tools available to prevent legislation from being passed or enforced.

Ornstein singled out the filibuster as a large part of the problem, because it is being “used routinely,” even on non-controversial legislation. However, he also pointed to Republicans voting even against their own bills in order to avoid giving President Obama anything that would look like a victory.

“Problem-solving used to be the name of the game,” he continued. “But problem-solving now — partly it’s the era of the permanent campaign — has taken a back sea to short-term victories.”

Mann added that any Republicans who were interested in problem-solving have left the party over the years, while those who remain are “vehemently ideological” and consider themselves to be “engaged in a holy war.”

It cannot be overstated in American politics that he who frames the debate wins the argument.

What does it tell you when the media continually frames the debate into a false equivalence of "both sides do it" when talking about finding solutions to America's problems?

The fact of the matter is that both sides AREN'T doing it, and the media is perpetuating this lie over and over.
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein--neither of whom could be accurately described as bleeding heart liberals--wrote a book on just how extreme the Republican Party has become and tellingly, not one of the mainstream Sunday shows would book them to discuss it, although Mann and Ornstein have numerous previous appearances to their credit. Oh, but they have room to book John McCain over and over.

Mann and Ornstein point out something that won't be said on any other show: the Republicans are vastly abusing the filibuster, for no other reason than to reflexively obstruct anything that might be perceived as a victory for the president:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

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.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

We have big issues facing this country and major choices that must be made on the kind of country we want to collectively be. But those desperately needed conversations aren't going to be had until the media stops pretending that this isn't a problem overwhelmingly caused by one party for their own short term political gain.

Yeah, I especially enjoyed the part in Citizens United's "Hillary: The Movie" where Obama says Clinton had no diplomatic experience. Thank God he won and she doesn't have anything to do with the State Department, huh?

Anyway, how amazing that not only do corporations get to pour unlimited amounts of money into the political system, they don't even have to disclose it, thanks to this new FEC ruling. Here's hoping some of those famous "Hollywood liberals" start putting some product together to counterbalance the expected flood of similar right-wing tropes:

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed Federal Election Commission ruling that expands the definition of “media" to include a partisan film production group is the latest in a series of actions eroding legislative limits on the influence of money in politics.

“We’re really returning, seemingly inexorably, toward an entirely deregulated system," said Thomas Mann, who studies campaign finance at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “It was a rather breathtaking decision."

The commission voted June 10 to designate the filmmaker Citizens United a “press entity," equating its often highly partisan work — including films attacking Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama — with the work of nightly newscasts.

The result, analysts say, is that the group is not required to disclose its role in sponsoring political projects or activities, or reveal the source of its funding. Thus, it becomes impossible to discern its influence in the political process.

No FEC commissioner would agree to be interviewed, according to a spokeswoman. But in defending the commission’s 4-to-1 vote, the panel’s vice chairwoman, Cynthia Bauerly, said in a statement that traditional images of the press no longer apply.

“We all used to know that ‘press entity’ meant something like ABC News," she said in prepared remarks to the commission. “Today, however, technology has changed nearly everything about media."

The FEC ruling has alarmed advocates for campaign finance rules, who say it sets a troubling precedent.

“If a self-proclaimed political advocacy group that has made some very, very slanted so-called documentaries to influence elections constitutes the press, it’s difficult to imagine what types of political advocacy groups would not qualify," said Paul Ryan, an election law specialist at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog.