Memo to the Media

Stop automatically referring to people who refuse to take dramatic action where it is clearly needed “centrists’ or “moderates.”  It isn’t moderate to favor health insurance company price gouging.  It isn’t “centrist” to oppose a public option, which the vast majority wants.

It’s not “moderate” to want to bail out Wall Street without passing reforms to prevent past abuses from recurring.  It’s not “centrist” to deny states money they need to keep police officers and teachers on the job.

If the Congress fails to do what a majority wants or fails to take action to solve a crisis, it’s not because of “moderates” or “centrists”.  It’s because that branch of government is dysfunctional and not representative.  Moderation and centrism should be defined both the the range of real “solutions” (a loaded term, granted) and the range of public opinion.  Otherwise, we get health care lobbyists defining centrism and moderation through their members of Congress.  You know, the ones who are supposed to be listening to their constituents and facing up to our problems.

In short, Sens. Lieberman, Snowe, Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Collins, Landrieu, and Grassley are decidedly not moderates — unless you can be moderately in the pocket of corporate lobbyists who are looking to slam your constituents on everything from health care to the environment to Wall Street reform.

Failing to Appreciate the Gravity of the Situation

Don’t the pundits love the term “Obama’s (insert problem here)”?  Iraq, Afghanistan and the Af-Pak border are “Obama’s wars”, though they were undertaken by Bush.  It’s “Obama’s economy” though he had nothing to do with Wall Street malfeasance and the Bush administration’s war on the middle class in favor of corporate interests.

He’s been in office for 11 months and he bears responsibility for his actions, but don’t imply that he created these problems simply because you think (or hope) that the public will perceive things that way.  It’s factually inaccurate and implies that solutions to these problems are a finger-snap away.

As Paul Krugman says, we’re in a serious unemployment hole and the sooner people begin to understand the severity of the situation, the sooner they will embrace taking stronger action to mend the economy.  But the longer the media behaves as if “moderates” who don’t want to do anything to fix problems are the voices of reason or that Obama “owns” problems not of his own creation, the less credibility Obama and those who would take strong action have…and the less likely we’ll fix our problems.

The only way to break that cycle is for progressives to continue to refer to both the cause and depth of our problems.  The elephants ran the show for 8 years…and given what elephants leave behind, the cleanup job was never going to be easy or quick.