False Equivalency: Both Sides Do It! And Other Campaign Eye-Rollers

Image from source, MSN

In this ridiculous--and ridiculously long presidential campaign--there are still some old-school rules of thumb that are still in play. There is the media fascination with and desperation to maintain the horse race over substance. And in service to that, there is the need for "balance," accomplished by boiling everything down to "both sides do it," even if it takes a false equivalency to get there. Rarely are we dealing with apples and oranges. In fact, often, it's just Bad Analogy Theater.

Here's how it works. The media, naturally, will focus on whatever has just exploded into the news cycle, this time it's usually something outrageous that Donald Trump either said or did. Often, that something occurs at a time when something negative has happened to Hillary (or at least, the media thinks it ought to be a negative for her). The Trump story has more oomph, and gets more attention, and then Right Wing World starts squawking that the media is "in the tank" for Hillary, and only focusing on Trump's woes (ignoring, of course, the countless hours of free press Trump gets in that same media.

In an effort to try to balance things out though, the media will often play up the Hillary thing. Right now, one of those non-equivalent things is The Clinton Foundation vs. Trump Inc. One is a multi-billion dollar charity that helps poor people, and which has disclosed its donors. The other is a multi-billion dollar for-profit multi-national corporation, that pointedly does not disclose its business ties.

The Clinton Foundation has attracted scrutiny to the point of absurdity over its donors, with so far baseless accusations of pay-for-play access between the charity and the State Department, when Clinton was Secretary of State. Meanwhile, the Trump business has attracted far less focused attention, even though it is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and has even bigger financial ties to foreign entities, including the Bank of China. But it's the Clinton Foundation getting clobbered by innuendo, while Trump's businesses get passing mention.

That's par for the course this go-around though. There is so much going on in Trumpland that no one thing tends to stick, or get enough traction. With the Clinton side, it's a one-two-three punch of 1) Clinton Foundation, 2) E-mail "scandal," 3) Benghazi. Throw in a little "Mrs. Clinton has mystery diseases" rumor mongering, and you've basically got the counter-weight to the blizzard of Trump dumps. Donald calls group X a bunch of losers? Pick one of the above about Hillary, and pick at that as a counterpunch. Doesn't matter if it's baseless, pointless, or barely worth mentioning, just make sure it sounds bad for Hillary.

It's really no wonder that Hillary is keeping a relatively low profile these days. I wouldn't give a press conference either, when these old, stale topics keep getting dusted off and asked again. Everything has been asked and answered. Why risk giving a slightly different wording in an answer to have that dissected for three days, when Trump does something obnoxious daily? I'd keep my head down too. Though I'd be mightily pissed off at the double standard. And here we have--again--15,000 more emails. Doesn't matter what's in them, the insulation is that they were bad, and they were hidden. At this point, I really couldn't care less if one or six out of 15,000  maybe, could be interpreted as being classified after the fact. Sick. Of. It.

[Excerpt]

FBI uncovers 14,900 more documents in Clinton email probe

The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned. . .

Read more at: MSN

Right Wing World: Outrage Over Obama's Down Time

People are always trying to say that "both sides do it" whenever there is an argument with a political divide. Of course, there is often also false equivalence, where the preponderance of wrongdoing is on one side or the other. But there is one place where we have some similarity, and one of those would be: presidential vacations. At least for this and the previous president, opponents have bitched about how much downtime they take, what else might be going on, what else they should be doing, and how much it all costs.

Let 'em eat cake!

Did I complain about Dubya's vacationing, and traipsing around? Sure. I really, really, really disliked George W. Bush, and a high percentage of his administration (though I saved my hatin' for Dick Cheney). I don't even like seeing video of Bush, or hearing his or Darth's voice. Ugh. But I'm pretty sure it was fairly low on my list of grievances at the time. The only one that really stands out is the time Dubya was having cake with John McCain, and learning how to play the guitar with country singer Mark Wills, while Hurricane Katrina was bearing down.

So, yeah, I complained. But as far as I know, I didn't make shit up about it. I didn't exaggerate to a ridiculous degree, and then start to believe my own exaggerations. I thought Bush was a dolt, I thought little positive or negative of Laura, but I don't think my rancor--public or private--came anywhere near where the right goes on President Obama. The thinly veiled or openly naked racism, laced with pure hatred is really quite stunning. So, there is an area where "both sides do it," but one side does it much, much worse. Bush Derangement Syndrome may have been over-the-top, but Obama Derangement Syndrome is oh-so-very-low.

It ought to be pointed out that a) all presidents and their family get perks like travel, lodging, fine food, and other niceties; b) Obama's vacation and leisure time is not out of scale (and is actually less) than his immediate predecessor and most other presidents; and c) Michelle Obama has been trashed by the right--for no real (non-racist) reason--far more than any other first lady ever has.

Image from Wonkette

Here's an article from Wonkette, because a story this rancid can only be tolerated with a heaping helping of humor. This is proven often by The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and on a good day, Saturday Night Live. The article focuses on right-wing world's insane reaction to the Obamas' Valentine's Day, and is a prime example of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

[Excerpt]

Americans Very Angry King Barack And Ugly Wife Did Not Have Mac And Cheese With Cut-Up Hot Dogs For Valentine’s Dinner

. . .Yes, Barack Obama flew home from Atlanta in time for his dinner date with the beautiful First Lady, and Yahoo News commenters went full Victoria Jackson. (Because Barack Obama was not supposed to fly home from Atlanta, we guess, but should have either taken a Greyhound bus or stayed in Atlanta forever.) There are your usual comments about monkeys and heaping platters of baby back ribs and buckets of KFC, but those are to be expected, because “postracial. . .”

Read more at: Wonkette