The Great Unmentionable

(updated below)

Less than two weeks ago--but what seems like an eternity ago--Barack Obama said the following in his acceptance speech:

[I]f you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.

If you watch the news today, you can see how unquestionably true that statement is.

We've reached the point in every election cycle where the Republicans launch a seemingly endless barrage of scurrilous attacks and try to gin up one inane "controversy" after the next, all in the hopes of turning an important election into a referendum on small things.

While this happens every election cycle, the people in our society who follow politics the most closely--the members of our esteemed mainstream media--do absolutely everything they can to avoid pointing out what they all know to be true: that both sides are not equal offenders, that the Republicans lie, smear, and trivialize our political discourse to a degree that their Democratic rivals simply do not. As I put it two years ago:

There's a long tradition in America--one reinforced by our prevailing journalistic norms--of seemingly reasonable people insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Republican and Democratic politicians are equally guilty of deception and demagoguery. Those who wish to remain above the fray and avoid being labeled as partisan are quick to criticize both sides, even when one side is a far worse offender. Indeed, this rhetorical imbalance is 'The Great Unmentionable' in American politics today.

This honesty gap is the elephant in the room, the reality which everyone who follows politics is aware of but which almost no one in a position of influence is willing to acknowledge. Here, for instance, is Marc Ambinder's attempt to grapple with the issue this morning (which, to his credit, is more than most of his colleagues are willing to do):

Perhaps it's the Republicans who lie more and the media fails to note this; perhaps it's the Democrats who lie more and the media fails to note this. (Has anyone figured out how to figure out whether Democrats lie more often or more consequentially than Republicans? Republicans more often or more consequentially than Democrats?)

Ambinder throws up his hands here and asks rhetorical questions that he very much knows the answer to. He just doesn't want to go there. Just because there's no way to quantify this honesty gap in a way that would satisfy Republicans doesn't mean it isn't readily apparent. Anyone who has paid attention during the last few presidential elections knows that there are major differences between the tactics used by each side. But Ambinder and others are content to insist--despite all the evidence in front of their face year after year--that these are unknowable, imponderable questions. And, as a result, the Republican party continues to successfully turn big elections into referendums on small, inconsequential things.

UPDATE: Okay, the McCain camp wins. I watched their new ad and my head just exploded. Mission accomplished.

It really is amazing. What do you do when you have been brazening lying for weeks? You run an ad that shows your opponent's picture and accuses him of making claims that are "completely false." Of course, the story you're quoting wasn't referring to Obama or his campaign, but that's okay, people are dumb. Obama is the real liar, you see.