Balancing Act

Here's a lovely example of the "need" for opposing, balanced coverage.

The catastrophic earthquake in Haiti has already elicited a number of controversial statements from some of America's best-known talking heads. Rush Limbaugh, the Rev. Pat Robertson and Keith Olbermann generated outrage, from the left and the right, for comments that variously tied the massive tragedy to President Obama, the Devil and the need for health-care reform, respectively.

Cue the outrage! From both sides!

Except... Let's see. Limbaugh said

"This will play right into Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for him."

And

"Would you trust that the money is going to go Haiti? But would you trust that your name's gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes? Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."

Robertson said

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.' True story. And so the Devil said, 'Okay, it's a deal.' . . . But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."

Olbermann said

"I don't want to turn this into something about domestic politics, but I think it's a good frame of reference in terms of the health-care issue that we always talk about. We could easily have a natural disaster, if not quite on this scale, at least in the same broad ballpark. . . . I was thinking about this -- and maybe it's inappropriate, and tell me if I'm inappropriate in asking it -- but how would survivors of something like this here fare in terms of getting on their own feet economically afterwards, with the health-care system we have in place right now?"

Yeah. Those are the same category of comment, sure enough.