Okay. There’s no way to do justice to Washington Post centerist columnist Dana Milbank’s column today about Obama’s “presser” yesterday by just summarizing it or quoting a sentence or short paragraph from it. And justice for that column, titled “President Congeniality talks tough,” is what I want. So here are the first six (blessedly short) paragraphs of it:
I agree completely. The president should never summon White House reporters to the White House press room in order to hold a press conference. Or at least not to bait Republicans.
And, I guess, not even to respond to Republican daily baiting of him by falsely telling the public that a quirk in the law, requiring Congress to authorize the Treasury to pay the government’s already-incurred bills and bond interest, and pay such things as salaries to military personnel, air traffic controllers, Agriculture Department food inspectors, and Homeland Security airport marshals–not to mention not-yet-but-about-to-be owed Social Security payments, Medicaid payments to nursing homes, and Medicare payments to physicians and hospitals–is instead a request by the president and the Democrats in Congress to increase spending appropriations.
No, sir. Much better to allow the Republicans to prey on the public’s misunderstanding of the phrase “raise the debt ceiling.”
Pass the ransom note, Republicans. Just do it through the mainstream media, as you have been doing. They’ll happily repeat your message, complete with disinformation, without adding their own: a brief explanation of what the debt ceiling actually is. Apparently, congressional reporters, unlike the White House press corp, don’t mind being summoned as bait. Nor do the Sunday talk-show folk.
Worms, all.
Milbank does allow that:
Actually, not even just arguably, Milbank conflates statements of fact–in this instance, fact about what the debt ceiling is–with politics. Certainly, correcting the opposition’s campaign of disinformation, and educating the public about a critical but technical statute that almost no one other than Washington pols, fiscal-policy wonks, and journalists who cover these people and subjects are familiar with, is damn good politics. It is, in fact, absolutely necessary politics. It’s dereliction-of-duty-for-failure-to-do-so politics.
But statements of fact, and statements of policy based on the statements of fact, are not themselves mere politics. They’re statements of fact and statements of policy based on those facts.
What’s most disturbing about this column is not that one high-profile political columnist confuses these things, but that he says that the entire White House press corp in attendance at the press conference yesterday does.
So I suggest that they get out more. Milbank, for example, might consider stepping out of Washington and into, maybe, Baltimore. Not a long drive, really. There, he could stop in at a coffee shop or mall and maybe ask people whether they had heard or read of Obama’s comments yesterday and, if so, whether they understood more now about the what debt ceiling statute is than they did a day before.
Then he can report his findings to the rest of the White House press corp. And offer a different theory about the reason Obama summoned them to the press room yesterday.
Or he could just start reading Angry Bear.
Seriously, I hope Paul Krugman and other “names” will expose Milbank’s argument for what it is. Obama has that tendency to cower whenever a media meme takes hold on fiscal-policy issues. Milbank and the White House press corp don’t read Angry Bear, but they might read Krugman’s blog.
Nah; probably not. It’s not like Krugman’s a centerist, or anything. Still, it’s worth a shot, especially since what matters most is that Obama or someone close to him might.
This Bear is really ANGRY today.