Real American Jobs Act

Over at the Plum Line, Greg Sargent makes an earnest plea for the media to examine the two competing job plans -- the White House's "American Jobs Act" and the Senate GOP's "Real American Jobs Act" -- and ask if each is seriously contributing to the debate to the same degree. This certainly would be nice, but it probably won't happen. I think that the press sincerely believes they are already serving their customers well; it's just that they believe their customers want to passively sample horse-race political stenography, as opposed to informed conclusions about how distinct policy alternatives impact the lives of ordinary people. They believe that their "consumers" want "the view from nowhere," and this is how that works.