This is their genius: They purport to want to fix things, but conservatives aren't looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint.Republicans don't critique climate science because of its methods - they hate it because its conclusions reveal the limits of their free-market ideology. If the invisible hand can't solve carbon pollution and government regulations are needed, what's next? Once you admit government can be a force for good, don't you need to admit you also need some taxes to pay for those good things?
Because in their minds, the opposite of bad isn't good. The opposite of bad is conservative. The opposite of wrong isn't right ... well, OK, but you get my point. It's right wing.
They judge solely on the level of conservative content. In everything. It's their only litmus test. [...]
Let's stop pretending that concessions to the right will, at any point, sate the beast.
But instead, reporters constantly look to satiate, pretending Republicans are "skeptics" - merely looking for the best science! - when even denier-in-chief Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) admits the fight is really about his hatred of the solutions.
Because "objective" journalism means you can never directly tell your audience that the emperor has no clothes - that would imply you're drawing conclusions when "objectivity" prizes the View From Nowhere. Instead, you must artificially create a he said, she said perspective, such as, "The emperor denied charges by environmentalists that he has no clothes. We'll have to leave it there."
