False Equivalence: Going to the Source

More times than I would like, I have turned to the Washington Post's editorial page to illustrate classic "false equivalence" thinking. E.g.: one party filibusters all nominations; therefore "both sides" are to blame for jobs going unfilled. Last month I mentioned a WaPo pinnacle of this mentality.

And beyond politics, on many of the biggest challenges you're going to need ideas from Column A and Column B... [Y]ou can't solve the debt challenge without raising more revenue and controlling entitlement costs... Eventually, in other words, you're going to have to wheel and deal and compromise -- you're going to have to govern. It might as well be now.

OK. Let's suppose you believed this. What, exactly, does it mean? What does Obama do tomorrow? Or, better, "today"?

• Does he propose a budget plan modeled on ideas from revered centrists like Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, or Robert Rubin? Oh, wait, he's already done that.
• Does he propose dealing with entitlement reforms? Oh, wait, that was in the State of the Union address.

How about if you, WaPo, try setting out what you consider a "balanced" package of budget reforms -- and then, after giving the details, see if the Administration and the House Republicans agree. My money is on the administration saying, let's look at this, and the House Republicans saying, No. And then ... what? The twin reflexes of D.C. centrist thinking are assuming (a) that a president can "lead" or "govern" his way out of any corner, and (b) that [except for provision (a)] you can't ever really declare one side in a dispute "wrong." Therefore this scenario would presumably end with another plea to the president to "take control."

For more on the intractability of false-equivalence thinking, see this today from Greg Sargent in (another part of) the WaPo:

Imagine that Mitt Romney had decisively defeated Obama in the 2012 election on a platform of tax cuts for the rich and deep cuts to government as the only way to reduce the deficit, dramatically repudiating the President's call for higher taxes on the wealthy, continued implementation of the biggest expansion of the safety net in 60 years, and more government spending to boost the economy.

Then imagine that Democrats in the Senate (the only part of government they controlled) responded to this by proposing to dramatically expand health care and stimulus spending and pay down the deficit only with 100 percent tax hikes -- and not a single penny more in spending cuts -- and on top of that, then suggested President Romney has failed to sincerely try to find common ground with them.

The reassuring aspect of this signed piece is insight as to whence the unsigned editorials arise.