Media high points

[Amelia]

I have a thread for media malpractice. Here's a thread to give kudos.


Ruth Marcus: Democrats' equal-pay demagoguery - The Washington Post

Here’s a radical notion: It is simultaneously possible to believe that women are entitled to equal pay and to not support the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Not that you’d know it from the rhetoric President Obama and fellow Democrat are happily flinging at Republicans who dare to oppose the measure.

“I don’t know why you would resist the idea that women should be paid the same as men and then deny that that’s not always happening out there,” Obama said Tuesday. “If Republicans in Congress… want to show that they do care about women being paid the same as men, then show me…They can join us, in this, the 21st century and vote yes on the Paycheck Fairness Act.”

....

Before you start checking the byline at the top of this piece and emailing the editor that there’s been a terrible mistake, let me be clear: I support ensuring that women receive equal pay for equal work — I have a bit of a vested stake in that issue myself. Unequal pay remains a problem, although not at the women-earn-77-cents-on-the-dollar level of Democrats’ sloganeering. Most relevantly, I’d vote for the Paycheck Fairness Act in the unlikely event that someone elected me to Congress.

But the level of hyperbole — actually, of demagoguery — that Democrats have engaged in here is revolting. It’s entirely understandable, of course: The Senate is up for grabs. Women account for a majority of voters. They tend to favor Democrats. To the extent that women — and in particular, single women — can be motivated to turn out in a midterm election, waving the bloody shirt of unequal pay is smart politics.

Fairness is another matter. ....


The Paycheck Fairness Act presents more complicated questions about proof and damages. ....


As I said, I’d vote “yes” on the bill. But I can understand the concerns of those who worry about floods of litigation and business decisions second-guessed by federal judges. There is a difference between opposing the Paycheck Fairness Act and opposing paycheck fairness. Politicians who choose to confuse the two may score a cheap political point, but it’s not a fair one.