Of late, I've been talking a bit about the media's inability to report on policy in a judgmental manner. They know how to imply that Barack Obama has had bad friends, and Hillary Clinton tells lies, and John McCain -- well, they know how to doodle his initials inside a sparkly heart. What they don't know how to do, however, is say that one candidate's health plan, or housing plan, or economic agenda, is better than another candidate's. Which is why folks basically have to vote on grounds of flag pins and flip-flops -- they're not given much else in the way of analytical guidance.But I sympathize. Policy is hard. Lots of people come to different conclusions. Unanimity is rare. Except on this gas tax holiday. Just about no one thinks it a good idea. Conservative economists loathe it, liberal economists loathe it, energy experts loathe it...it's shameless pandering of the worst sort. So is the media going to create a scandal around McCain's pander? Around Clinton's copy-pander? Will they hound them at press conferences, run segments about the derailed "Straight Talk Express," bring on pollsters to ask whether Americans are tired of being lied to?Well, not quite. There's some evidence that the media is, at least, representing them aggregate opinion of the experts. And Tom Friedman is certainly on the side of the angels here. But that's as far as the media's been willing to take it. As of yet, there's no real effort to report on a bald-faced, shameless policy pander in the way they reported on Tuzla or "I voted for it before I voted against it." When confronted by the fact that their coverage of politics is frequently trivial and annoying, many in the media argue that they only report that way because the voters make their decisions based on trivial and annoying issues. But there's no doubt that, with proper press coverage, the gas holiday could be one of those trivial and annoying issues that comes to stand-in for broader character failures or narratives or whatever. It's just that the media doesn't like to deal with policy.(Image used under a CC license from Cindy.) WHAT THE GAS HOLIDAY COULD BE.
Of late, I've been talking a bit about the media's inability to report on policy in a judgmental manner. They know how to imply that Barack Obama has had bad friends, and Hillary Clinton tells lies, and John McCain -- well, they know how to doodle his initials inside a sparkly heart. What they don't know how to do, however, is say that one candidate's health plan, or housing plan, or economic agenda, is better than another candidate's. Which is why folks basically have to vote on grounds of flag pins and flip-flops -- they're not given much else in the way of analytical guidance.But I sympathize. Policy is hard. Lots of people come to different conclusions. Unanimity is rare. Except on this gas tax holiday. Just about no one thinks it a good idea. Conservative economists loathe it, liberal economists loathe it, energy experts loathe it...it's shameless pandering of the worst sort. So is the media going to create a scandal around McCain's pander? Around Clinton's copy-pander? Will they hound them at press conferences, run segments about the derailed "Straight Talk Express," bring on pollsters to ask whether Americans are tired of being lied to?Well, not quite. There's some evidence that the media is, at least, representing them aggregate opinion of the experts. And Tom Friedman is certainly on the side of the angels here. But that's as far as the media's been willing to take it. As of yet, there's no real effort to report on a bald-faced, shameless policy pander in the way they reported on Tuzla or "I voted for it before I voted against it." When confronted by the fact that their coverage of politics is frequently trivial and annoying, many in the media argue that they only report that way because the voters make their decisions based on trivial and annoying issues. But there's no doubt that, with proper press coverage, the gas holiday could be one of those trivial and annoying issues that comes to stand-in for broader character failures or narratives or whatever. It's just that the media doesn't like to deal with policy.(Image used under a CC license from Cindy.) 
