I enjoy Jon Margolis’s work a lot, but he does suffer chronically from that journalistic beyond-left-and-right-itis. What I mean is, he rarely misses an opportunity to assert that “the left is saying ‘x'” while “the right is saying ‘y’,” and that he – as an objective journalist – can see that neither are correct, and reality is in the middle. On some particularly egregious cases where a Republican has done something untoward, his obligatory Dems-do-it-too counterpoints have at times been rather strained.
In the case of his commentary on the Till survey, where we at GMD are once again IDed as the fringe lefties, he doesn’t offer a strained counterpoint per se, but to strike his middleman ground, he is forced to ignore a key documented fact.
Here’s Margolis from vtdigger:
On the other side of the political spectrum, the liberal Democratic web site Green Mountain Daily accused Till of “trying to derail” the bill.
This seems unlikely. Dr. Till voted for the bill, though he has been critical of some aspects of it.
It seems unlikely only if you choose to ignore the email from Till that was forwarded to GMD. Again, that was an email clearly sent by Till to his fellow ideological opponents of the heart of the proposal: the modified Hsiao single-payer model. A reminder; in it, Till said:
Thanks to all who have answered my survey. Anyone who has not yet completed it please do so. If you need the link please email me directly.
[…] I want to make it clear that the single payer religion is very strong in Montpelier as is the magical thinking that it will cure all problems with our health care system.
I want to make you all aware that next Thursday, April 7 at the State House there will be a public hearing for providers. I’m pretty sure the single payer crowd plans to pack the room and witness list. The more of you that can come to Montpelier and testify the better.
Best wishes,
george till
So Till set up an open-ended, unscientific, unverifiable “poll.” Then he sent a rallying email to those of a certain ideological bent to be sure and take advantage of that “poll” in order to muster a rhetorical defeat of those he identified as the opposition. Frankly, it is unreasonable not to assume that the poll’s very intent was to scuttle the fundamental mechanisms of the bill. Certainly that’s what supporters of the legislation – both inside and outside the legislature – concluded. 1+1=2. No “liberal” math needed, just math.
I suppose the argument could be made that “fundamentally changing its very essence” is not the same as “derailing,” but it would be a naive argument, or at the least a real reach. Bills of this magnitude and complexity are houses of cards. They don’t get fundamentally reworked without virtually collapsing. Catamount Health passed over the complete collapse of the House bill in the Senate. That both the original House bill and the Senate’s ultimately triumphant Catamount alternative were about “health care” doesn’t alter that fact.
Till did vote for the bill, as we noted. And in the context of his full engagement with the bill – before, during and after its passage in the House – its hard to see that vote as anything other than cynical, even craven.
Never once did Till say “derail” in that e-mail. Nor did he say that Iraq was reponsible for 9/11.
The Left must do it because the right is doing it. The Left must, I tell you, because… well there is no evidence the Left is doing it, but they simply MUST because the Right IS doing it, and Fox ‘News’ says Fair AND Balanced, therefore the Left is doing it too, even though they aren’t and there is no indication that the Left is actually doing it.
Obama called it: “If I said fish live in the sea, they’d say no!”
The Republicans decreed that the Moon is made of Swiss Cheese and only a Liberal would dare deny that!
Till’s email is practically a blueprint of his intention to derail the bill.
To ignore the evidence does not speak well of Margolis’ analytical skills. The kindest impression one can take away from this is that he is a little clueless.
Too many (almost all at this point) journalists, within major media,** engage in lazy centrism under the misapprehension that they are being objective.
Centrism is not objective. Neutrality is not objective. Objectivity means 2+2=4. Journalistic neutrality looks like this:
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** When I refer to the corporate major media outlets, I do not include ideological infotainment “news” such as Fox style outlets. Rather I mean the usual suspects among the corporate cheerleaders: CBS/NBC/Washington Post/Gannet etc.