Goldilocks gets a bad case of salmonella
by digby
Everything you need to know about what's wrong with the Village press and out politics is in this paragraph:
"I spent a couple of days last week talking to Social Security experts across the ideological spectrum. Some, mainly those on the left, didn’t like the story, while those on the right did. But some in the middle, like Jonathan Cowan of the Third Way, declared it realistic and on point."
That's the ombudsman of the Washinton Post explaining why their egregious story about the Social Security trust fund last week-end was correct.
For the record, Third Way is not "in the middle" just because it's a centrist organization. It represents elite interests within the Democratic Party. But their function in the Village is to create the illusion of a moderate, "middle" position for the Democrats which constantly moves the debate further to the right. It's rare that you see it demonstrated so clearly.
In the case of Social Security their "analysis" dovetails nicely with the conservative position, as it always does.
Dean Baker responds and tartly concludes with this:
One need not have a PhD in a policy field to take part in public debate, but being in the middle of the political spectrum (by the Post's standards) does not make one expert on an issue.
And in fact, there are many situations where the truth most definitely does not lie in the middle (e.g. the Civil War). The Post's ombudsman has substituted finding the middle ground for finding the truth. This might be the way the Post conducts itself, but it is not the way a serious newspaper carries through its business.
And again, just because it calls itself "third way" doesn't mean it's in the middle. But it's clever marketing, you have to give it credit for that. But being the servants of Big Business and Wall Street as it is, one would expect them to be very good at "branding."
Update: And the beat goes on. The Washington Post vomits up an editorial this week-end calling AARP "thuggish" for defending its memebrship from this wrecking crew. Dean Baker responds and concludes with this:
[T]he Post wants to use the deficits created by the mismanagement of its friends and associates as a pretext to take away a substantial chunk of the Social Security benefits. (The preferred cut du jour is a 0.3 percent reduction in the annual cost of living adjustment. This would be cumulative so that a retiree would see their benefits fall by roughly 3 percent after 10 years, 6 percent after 20 years and 9 percent after 30 years. It would be a much larger hit to the income of the typical retiree than ending the Bush tax cuts would be to the typical person affected.) Given that most retirees and near retirees have just seen their wealth devastated by the collapse of the housing bubble, leaving them little other than their Social Security, this seems a particularly cruel one-two punch.
Just to be clear, this is the deal the Democrats have reportedly put on the table, which is being backed up by the Washington Post's ongoing misinformation. Apparently a bunch of 90 year old women (it will be mostly women) getting progressively poorer is just fine with these people. I guess they figure the old bags can always get a job to supplement their incomes.
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