Different Taxes

Mark Kleiman seems a bit confused about this. When Hillary Clinton proposed a silly gas tax holiday during the primaries, the press widely reported the fact that every knowledgeable expert regarded this as absurd because the idea was (a) absurd and (b) endorsed by Hillary Clinton. When John McCain proposes a somewhat more pernicious version of the same bad idea, its badness must be ignored because it's being proposed by John McCain and nothing is more vital to the future of the American public than for John McCain's flaws to be covered up.

After all, if the press were to start reporting that bad ideas are bad ideas even when proposed by John McCain the next thing you know they'd be talking about McCain's repeated flip-flops on the central issues of our time, characterizing Wesley Clark's attacks on McCain correctly, etc. And we can't have that!

Comments

That's funny. I remember both McCain and Clinton being criticized for their gas tax holiday proposals. So, just now, I went to the NY Times, searched for "gas tax holiday" and what did I find? Stories criticizing both McCain and Clinton for their gas tax holiday proposals.

Posted by ostap | July 18, 2008 10:38 AM

Yep, it's a bad idea. So what does McCain want to do? Why extend it of course!

And just for a Friday laugh, here's a short video of Larry Craig talking about the gas crisis and being unintentionally hilarious. Oh, man. That poor guy is SOOOOO gay and yet he'll never be able to figure that out. If he didn't viciously attack the rights of gays to make up for the hole in his own soul, I'd actually feel sorry for him.

Posted by LFC | July 18, 2008 10:41 AM

Yep, it's a bad idea. So what does McCain want to do? Why extend it of course!

Which, if you think about it, is a key Republican approach to policy making. There's no bad policy that can't be improved by making it bigger.

Posted by Jeff S. | July 18, 2008 10:47 AM

so i went and checked in on ostap's findings, and waddya know? ostap doesn't understand a little-known phenomenon called "dates."

which is to say, when you search the ny times for "gas tax holiday" as ostap did, you find a bunch of articles from april and may in which both clinton and mccain were criticized.

you find no articles after may (at least in the first 5 pages of results) in which mccain is criticized, although you do find some things on ny times blogs (not the same, ostap) and you do find the loathsome greg mankiw writing an article about pandering to economists and rejecting mccain's holiday....

Posted by howard | July 18, 2008 10:49 AM

I'd like to see McCain's declaration "I know how to win wars" dissected by a couple of highly read (or viewed), prestigious media outlets. What wars have McCain won? Outright won, wherein his strategic vision and policy suggestions ruled the day and after the troops came home to victory parades everyone agreed McCain's influence was the deciding factor in victory? He's trotted out this claim in countless appearances in the last few weeks and I've yet to see an interview where someone framed queries such as I've suggested. And listen carefully, he doesn't say "I know how to win A war" but it's "wars" in the plural. WTF? He didn't win Korea, Nam, Bosnia, Grenada, the Falklands or any others in the past as I recall. He hasn't won Afghanistan or Iraq. George Bush did a pretty fair job in Iraq1 I guess and maybe McCain put his two cents in the pot on that one but you don't ever see him given credit for winning it. WTF exactly is he claiming and why doesn't someone ask?

Posted by steve duncan | July 18, 2008 10:53 AM

Perhaps one should recall in this context Matt's skepticism that such details as campaigns and media coverage matter in elections past and present compared to the big picture of, say, war and the economy. That McCain is even in the race at all given his platform, his flip-flops, his gaffes reflective of how little he knows, the popularity of the president, the war, and the state of the economy is testimony to what the coverage can do.

It's not about establishing truth so much as the gut feelings about trust and reliability created. Most people may not have believed Gore was a serial liar or Kerry a traitor, but trust the media to keep lies alive long enough to raise doubts as to who it's safe to have lead the country. My mother is still dead certain that Michelle Obama has said some frightening things, although she couldn't tell you what exactly. Of course, McCain is thoroughly the right kind of man to lead us.

Posted by John Haber | July 18, 2008 10:56 AM

Steve Duncan, don't you know that McCain authored "The Surge"? Ask Flip Flopney. He said so. I guess that sneaky Gen. Petraeus just followed John's plan and never gave him credit.

And of course, continuing to miss nearly all political benchmarks and allowing ethnic partitioning to be completed, killing tens (hundreds?) of thousands and displacing millions means "winning"! So does arming the militias you said you'd disarm.

Posted by LFC | July 18, 2008 10:59 AM

I noted this several weeks ago. When Clinton proposed her gas tax holiday and Obama stood firm against it, you had all sorts of in-depth reporting featuring objective economists who broke down exactly why a holiday was not a good idea. All the major networks were happy to call it what it was, a pander. It was noted many times that a gas tax holiday was tailor made for "low information voters" who didn't know better. Because of honest reporting when Clinton was the one pushing the policy, factual objective information was available to those that wanted it. Clinton was forced to defend a bad policy by publicly attacking objective experts, and the principled, honest position had a chance with voters.

Now, John McCain is pushing an even more irresponsible version of the same plan, and the critics are silent. We haven't heard from experts except from those 300 experts that McCain lied about being behind his economic plan.

This is why Republicans win elections. They aren't just expected to lie to the public, they are encouraged to lie to the public by our news media. There's undoubtedly a number of reasons behind this, but I personally believe that the biggest problem is that an unbalanced playing field is more fun for the reporters to cover. A little indignation is the spice that makes political "inside the beltway" coverage more interesting for those in the know. Whatever the reason, it's disgusting and it has hurt our country in very real and measurable ways.

Posted by dannity | July 18, 2008 11:39 AM

I fear many in the press approach McCain with kid gloves not simply because he was imprisoned in Vietnam.I think that somewhere in the back of there mind they tell themselves "he's old and gonna lose, I'll give 'em a break".

Posted by Ben | July 18, 2008 12:04 PM

The press are still shit-scared that they'll lose their White House correspondence should McCain get elected. Worked for Bush.

Posted by Joel | July 18, 2008 12:58 PM

No, Ben, the press is treating him with kid gloves because their owners have told them to do so because he's the anointed next President of the United States.

Obama is not going to win. The upcoming war in Iran will insure that.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 18, 2008 5:15 PM

Just curious... what makes the gas tax holiday (as an economic stimulus plan) a silly idea compared with Pelosi's tax rebate proposal?

Posted by S.P. Gass | July 20, 2008 10:36 PM