The Democrats’ Political Game
(which they can play only with full cooperation of MSM)

Wondering about the absence of media scrutiny on why “our esteemed lions of the Fourth Estate toiling in the White House Press Corps” have failed to ask the president about his opposition to a “constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget”, Mark Tapscott finds this to be. . .

. . . an illustration of why so many journalists covering the White House, Congress and national politics so frequently end up functioning like “Homers.” No, I’m not referring to the ancient author, but rather the derisive term for sports reporters who never write anything critical of the home professional teams.

Whether they intend to or not, too many journalists are little more than Homers for the Big Government team.

Via Instapundit.  But, this, as we’ve noted is not the only question they’re not asking. Yesterday in WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription), Paul A. Gigot wrote about one Democrat whose obstructionist tactics have generated little interest in the mainstream media:

His [Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)] role has been obvious for some time, but a revealing and generally laudatory article by Meredith Shiner in Roll Call this week lays out the Schumer strategy of assailing House Republicans as radical, in particular demonizing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in personal terms, and opposing any Democratic concessions on entitlements. Mr. Schumer also led the internal fight against releasing a Senate budget, though Democrats control that body and are supposed to pass a budget resolution under the 1974 budget law.

This is cynicism squared, but Mr. Schumer has been getting away with it because the press pack has fixated on the political narrative of House Republicans vs. President Obama. This gives Senate Democrats up for re-election next year a free pass to hide under Mr. Schumer’s brand of attack politics while pretending to favor spending cuts and debt reduction and to oppose tax increases.

Emphasis added.  With folks like Schumer guiding their efforts, the Democrats are playing a political game, demonizing Republicans as extremists, while not offering a plan of their own.  Indeed, as Gigot points out, Schumer has made it a political strategy for his party not to do their job, not to release a budget, all in the interest of attacking the opposition.  That’s rich.  Not doing your job as a means to criticize the job the opposition is doing!

Jennifer Rubin also notes the media’s disinterest in Schumer’s obstructionist tactics, writing that where “there is fighting, name-calling and paralysis, [he]  is in the thick of it“:

The mainstream media, willfully or not, seem oblivious to this problem, inevitably casting the House Republicans or general “dysfunction” (as if it were a cloud hovering over the Capitol) as the culprits responsible for the partisan sniping and the stalemates. It’s not that hard to figure out who disproportionately contributes to this situation. Reid is emasculated by Schumer, and Obama is incapable of leading on policy. It’s a miracle anything at all gets done.

A lot more might get done if the mainstream called such Democratic obstructionists as Schumer to account, or, at minimum, reported their failure to offer a plan or pass a budget.

Democrats know they couldn’t play their game without the full cooperation of those “Homers” in the mainstream media.