Pundit Boxscore for Tuesday 10 June 2003

STEVE SHEPHERD RESPONDS: After posting reader Steve Shepherd's views on partisanship and then Dean Esmay's criticism of them, I feel obligated to also print Mr. Shepherd's full response:

I suppose it's a tried-and-true-method for assaulting an idea one doesn't much like, to distort it by oversimplification and imbue it with inappropriate moral judgments that were never implied. When Dean Esmay claims that I must believe, "that one of America's two major parties is thoroughly corrupt and evil...[and] If only--if only!--the people would learn the truth, this evil party would be cast from power forever," because I suggested that the Republican party tends to advance the interests of an elite minority of the electorate and therefore must be particularly dishonest in public to garner public support, he creates the straw man that helps him avoid a reasoned argument.

I suggested no such moral dimension nor did I speak with the sort of absolutism that would indicate the zealotry that Mr. Esmay presumes. Both political parties are guilty of over presenting the interests of thoroughly self-sufficient Americans and many Democratic-supported policies secretly favor moneyed interests that support them in office. What I suggested was that a complete and honest reading of the factual record of neo-conservative statements and policy-making, as practiced predominately by the Republicans over the past generation, demonstrates (for one thing) an intentionally hidden agenda to starve the government of revenue to limit it's ability to act in the public interest as a counterweight to corporate (elite) power. Further, the fact that this over-arching agenda is not widely discussed by mainstream media or generally understood by the public (and may actually be dismissed as "arrogant" partisanship), is the product of a bias in favor of the idea of non-partisanship that works against truthful and enlightening journalism.

The two obvious ironies here are: 1) as a rhetorical device, using character attack and moral imperative to deflect reasoned debate is the hallmark of neo-conservative policy "argument" and 2) Mr. Esmay's counter-argument isn't an argument at all; it's a technique for avoiding the real debate [who's interests do Republicans generally represent and how accurately is that portrayed by them and the mainstream media] which suggests fear or ignorance of the facts and both reflects and is the exact product of "non-partisan journalism".

Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Esmay have continued the discussion in the comments at Dean's World.