Conservative Columnist Brooks: Spending Freeze is 'Insane'

clipped from yglesias.thinkprogress.org David Brooks on ABC’s “This Week” shows he has the guts to go where the MSM dares not tread and observes that whatever you may think of the Obama administration’s plans, the main alternative coming from the dominant conservative wing of the GOP would be laughable were it not so dangerous: BROOKS: The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan. They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane. But they are thinking the way they thought in 1982, if we can only think that way again, that is just insane.

The problem here is the media, as Matthew Yglesias points out.

"Obviously, it’s appropriate for the press to devote more scrutiny to the powers that be than to the opposition party’s ideas," he writes. "But virtually none of the coverage I’ve read of Republican criticisms of Obama’s economic strategy is taking note of the fact that the alternative being offered us is insane."

This is the "two sides of the story" reporting again. They'll report both arguments to any question as if they were equally sound, even when one is completely irrational. The job of a journalist isn't to provide balance, the job of a journalist is to inform.

And they routinely fail in that simple task.