Jenkins: Don't let partisans determine your reality
Sunday, November 2, 2008 9:03 AM PST
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E-mail this articleColumn by Don Jenkins
The Daily News
More than two decades ago, I went to the Capitol Campus in Olympia as a reporter for the first time and met Rep. Joe Tanner, a Ridgefield Democrat who represented the 18th District. He scurried from place to place and acknowledged he didn’t have time to think. It appeared to me that a lawmaker’s job was to stay in motion and sound sure of yourself while doing it.
After interviewing Tanner, I had an appointment with the district’s other House member, Hazel Dell Republican Linda Smith, who was early in her career as a conservative hero and equally hyped up with confidence.
I planned to get her views on the same issues (whatever they were, I don’t remember) that I talked to Tanner about. The plan didn’t work well, however. Tanner, the Democrat, and Smith, the Republican, didn’t just have different views — they had different facts.
For each, their positions flowed logically from those facts. I didn’t know enough to challenge either Tanner or Smith’s facts.
I was at their mercy.
It was a good lesson: Be informed enough so that partisans can’t determine reality for you.
I was reminded of that experience this week by a story written by Associated Press television writer David Bauder.
Bauder reported on the election-year popularity of cable TV political commentators Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann. O’Reilly on Fox News and Olberman on MSNBC attract huge audiences. And, Bauder wrote, “you’ll swear they’re talking about two different presidential campaigns.”
Olbermann gleefully mocks John McCain and praises Obama. Meanwhile, O’Reilly impugns the motives of Barack Obama supporters, saying, for example, that Colin Powell endorsed Obama merely because the Democratic candidate was “respectful” to him. “That’s what’s really going on,” O’Reilly said.
Bauder quoted a producer of BBC’s “World News America” stating the obvious: It’s bad for people to retreat into their own cocoons. They should be exposed to and challenged by different views.
But when people hold themselves hostage to bloviators who present everything through an ideological filter, weirdness ensues:
People stubbornly believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. A proposal to adjust the tax burden gets equated with Marxism. Being born in the Panama Canal Zone becomes a disqualification for the presidency.
Worse, some people (not you, the newspaper reader) can’t distinguish between news and opinion.
They see their favorite commentators as telling the objective truth while others spew unAmerican filth.
In the public arena, the one that takes place offline and in real America, they marginalize themselves. They can’t find common ground with others because they can’t have civil discourse. In fact, they can’t talk at all with somebody who isn’t like-minded.
After considerably more experience in Olympia, I realized that much of the differences between Democrats and Republicans is posturing. Lawmakers fulminate in public and make deals in private.
Yes, they have strong opinions. Nothing wrong with that. But the sensible ones understand the take-no-prisoners approach is antithetical to the legislative process. They find allies on the other side of the aisle to craft compromises with. They know when to quit fulminating and start governing.
In this matter, the people would be wise to follow the politicians.
Originally published Nov. 2, 2008.
Other recent Don Jenkins columns:
New era of sacrifice bears down on the U.S. (Oct. 19)
Illustrious, industrious past and a bailout in our future (Sept. 29)
Getting the facts is hard, crucial work (Sept. 14)
Party lines aren't drawn in the sand (Aug. 24)
Our leaders can teach us how to get out of jams (Aug. 3)
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