The Average of Yes and No Is Not Always Maybe April 30, 2012 ROLLING STONE INTERVIEWS BARACK OBAMA Kathryn Lance: “Re Friday’s post, you didn’t mention the best part — where he mentions that it’s not only important for little black kids to see him as a role model, it’s great for little white kids who will grow up thinking that a black President is normal. The way he put it brought tears to my eyes.” LET’S JUST SAY IT Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann note in this widely circulating Washington Post op-ed that if the Democrats have shifted left from the 40 yard line to the 25 (what with the departure of the conservative Southern Democrats), the Republicans have “gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.” So you can’t just split the difference. We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public. Thirty-one senators voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act last week — all of them Republicans. Yet that got less coverage than the suggestion by a lone Democratic CNN commentator that Ann Romney might not be able to fully grasp how hard it is for today’s working moms to make ends meet.* Meanwhile, Democratic leaders moved quickly to disassociate themselves from her inartful statement, even though in context it was completely fair. Contrast that with the way Republican leaders reacted to the assertion by one of their Members that scores of his Democratic colleagues are communists. It is that reaction (well, non-reaction) that leads the Ornstein/Mann op-ed. *Not least because women make less money for the same work. Thirty-six senators voted to keep it that way when they voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — all of them Republicans.