Republicans, Reporters and the “Balloon”

There may have never been a sillier or more pathetic display of Republican faux hysteria than their ongoing meltdown about the Chinese balloon “invasion.” An event that posed no security risk, that the Biden administration was completely on top of, and to which they have already responded vigorously – cancelling a ministerial trip the Chinese really wanted to happen. But a steady parade of Republicans head for the microphones to see who can make the more ridiculous statement. They left the country defenseless? It makes us look weak? Biden and Harris should resign? I’m expecting an impeachment resolution.

All this from the same people who spent four years grasping their ankles and saying “Thank you Sir, may I have another?” No matter how much Trump spit on the national interest? Brink of nuclear war with Little Rocket Man? Oh, now Love Notes? Not just the face-to-face meeting the Kims have desperately wanted for 70 years, but an actual crossing in to North Korea? For nothing at all in return? Hey, great. MBS kills an American journalist and we keep seeking his billions? Fine with us, sounds good. Son in law and Treasury secretary compete to see who can milk the most billions in investments for their own businesses out of the Gulf? Yawn.

But let a Democratic president follow military advice (“Woke generals,” I guess) about a balloon and you’d think the Pacific Fleet just went to the bottom of the ocean. I keep waiting for Lindsay Graham to refer to it as “a day which will live in infamy.”

But at least Republican politicians and Fox News anchors are completely predictable. We already know they will swallow anything done by a Republican president. And denounce anything done by Biden. What disappoints me is the naivete and gullibility of what they call “the liberal mainstream media.”

For about a 12-year period early in my career, working with the Washington media was a significant part of my job. I worked for a well-regarded Ralph Nader-type research organization and a powerful and respected US senator (William Proxmire) so I had good access. I came away with a real sense of their limits (another story; ask me someday) and ethical issues (same). But I also developed a respect for their expertise and knowledge. Beat reporters were real specialists and the beat reporters from the big dailies and weeklies knew as much about their subjects as the people they were covering.

Mostly, I worked on national security issues. Late in my time on the Hill, I had occasion to cross paths with the energy press and the environmental reporters. The top reporters on these beats had been covering the issue for five years or more. They knew the players and the issues.

Ah, the good old days.

It seems that all we have these days is “political reporters.” Worse, most reporters seem unaware that time didn’t begin with the 2016 campaign. Journalism is a much less secure career and it’s rare to find a reporter who’s been covering an issue for 5 years.

Here is one of the stupidest lines of reporting ever broadcast. “The Republicans are making a major issue of how long it took to shoot the balloon down and saying it’s a sign of weakness. But the Democrats agree that more information is needed.” I’m sorry, is your need to make every story a “little bit of this and a little bit of that” moral equivalence that you’re incapable of saying “These people are acting sensibly and these are just demagoguing it.”

One of the main problems with Washington is that we have conservative “news media” that, since the formation of the Washington Times, has unapologetically served as a cheerleader and advisor for the worst people in American politics. And on the other side we have a “liberal” media that continues to portray Washington as two functioning political parties contesting with equal vigor about positions that have equal merit. “One party thinks we should raise the debt ceiling, the other thinks we shouldn’t do that without big spending changes. So the gridlock in Washington continues and now back to the news desk.”

They even downplay their own work. The right claims the liberal mainstream media suppressed the horrendous “Hunter Biden laptop” scandal. Yet the liberal media tied itself into knots trying even to prove it was Hunter Biden’s laptop — and it couldn’t. Yet these sources who know the story is a nothing keep chasing the stick every time the right throws it.

That’s how we wind up people thinking Biden really hasn’t gotten anything done, or that the Biden classified documents problem is ‘about the same” as Trump’s. Or that John Durham will get to the bottom of this major scandal he’s investigating.