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- It shouldn't surprise anyone that the reaction from the Tea Partiers to financial regulation legislation has largely been "no comment." The glue of the Tea Party movement is protest against redistributionist government that unfairly taxes the hard-working and then gives handouts to the undeserving. The only relationship in this model is a single powerful institution, government, oppressing free individuals. There is no mention in this model of the other powerful institutions that exist in the private sector, "Wall Street" among them, and thus no concern about how those institutions (other than being the recipients of bailouts) might wield influence over freedom-loving Americans.
- Radley Balko clarifies that he doesn't root for government failure; rather he expects it. Fair enough. It is not fair to state, however, that "when government fails, people like Dinauer and, well, the government claim it’s a sign that we need more government." I take it this is a retelling of the "bureaucracy defends its own turf" argument, but I'd like to see some specificity here. For instance, I consider the decision to invade and occupy Iraq to be a government "failure," but this has not made me want to expand the national-security apparatus of the federal government. And in places where I have supported government expansion, say, in health care, it has been to correct market failure. It's just not true that I (or most liberals) believe that government is capable of solving all our problems.
- I tend to think that this trend among political reporters to deny that their job is to inform and educate their readers is rooted in an internalization of the notion of media bias. As the conservative movement has taught us lo these past several decades, liberal elites condescend to Real Americans through their elite institutions in the media, the academy, and government. Because of this wise insight, some reporters now consider facts and context to be the sole responsibility of self-empowered individuals who will not allow biased reporting to tell them what to think. This is what passes for "objectivity" these days.
- Remainders: This investigation of Marco Rubio and the Florida GOP is clearly a Nixonian abuse of government power; Michael Steele admits that the GOP has done little to make itself more appealing to African American voters; obviously, the best argument against a 2010 piece defending the TVA is a 48-year-old video attacking the TVA; and of course, National Review's definition of "liberal" is identical to how Americans in a poll sample define "liberal."
--Mori Dinauer
