The news media under President Obama has been proving that it’s not going to be very much protection against tyranny, unless it comes in a retro fascist costume from the early Twentieth Century.  A man targeted by the Obama Administration as a fall-guy for Benghazi disappears into prison for a year? Not much noise.  The administration drives people off federal land, even out of their homes, to prove a political point? Hardly worthy of note.

The one-sided perspective extends even to poll results about blame for the government shutdown. Tom Kludt phrases it in the terms of the media’s common wisdom: “Republicans continue to absorb the bulk of the blame.”

That’s not an accurate statement. The poll in question didn’t ask respondents to pick a side; it asked about approval and disapproval. Yes, 74% disapprove of the Republicans’ handling of the issue, but 61% disapprove of the Democrats’.  Much of the difference, I’d propose, has simply to do with the skewed way in which current events are presented to the population.  (How many Americans know, for example, that Republicans in the House have voted eleven times to fund the government?)

Much of it also has to do with the lack of specificity for “approval.” The “liberal” category’s view of the Democrats is comparable with the “very conservative” category’s view of the Republicans. It would be difficult for the Democrats to take any harder line, however, while many conservatives disapprove of the Republicans because of a presumed weakness and likelihood to cave.

Most people don’t desire to swim against the tide, especially when complicated subjects blend with overheated rhetoric, as in politics.  It would be more accurate to say, of the poll, that Americans are blaming both sides for the shutdown, but that wouldn’t serve the political ends of the people doing the reporting.