(Boston) Global Balance

Somewhat to my surprise, I find the Boston Globe story referenced in Michael M's post just below to be rather more balanced than I'd expected.  I would encourage all who read Michael's post to read the Globe story, to which Michael helpfully links, as well. 

I am led by my reading of the Globe piece first to make a few observations, then a tentative suggestion. 

On the observations score, first is that it seems to me not the Globe that is claiming Romnobama equivalence here, but C. J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League.  Mr. Doyle figures prominently in a large photograph accompanying the story and is quoted, quite early on, as saying that '[t]he initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration.'  Of course we hear cognate remarks all of the time from other conservatives, who routinely point to 'Obamacare's' precedent in 'Romneycare' and surely are not taken for defenders of Mr. Obama on that account.  

Second, and in keeping with that last observation, is that there seems to me no defense of Mr. Obama at all in this article.  Mr. Doyle himself indeed goes on to say, in the paragraph just cited, that 'President Obama's plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics.'  It's just that Mr. Doyle is 'not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.'  Mr. Doyle seems to me to be neither impugning Mitt Romney nor defending the Obama Administration's attack on religious freedom in the HHS decision. He's simply invoking a variant of the Clean Hands Doctrine in questioning an attack leveled by Mr. Romney against Mr. Obama, and again is far from the only conservative doing that these days.       

The third thing I note is that the Globe story also makes plain at the outset that Mr. Romney sought first to veto the legislation upon which he was acting in requiring Catholic hospitals in 2005 to provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual predation, and that he 'angered reproductive rights advocates' in so doing.  That almost reads to me like a defense of Mr. Romney in face of the all too familiar conservative line taken against him.

Fourthly the story (a) notes conspicuously that plenty of conservative Catholics as prominent as Mr. Doyle give Mr. Romney the benefit of the doubt where his positional shifts on life questions are concerned, and (b) leaves the distinct impression - surely accurate - that the weight of American Catholic opinion is very much opposed to the Obama HHS's recent decision.  If there's any 'negative focus' at work here, then, it seems to me it is fixed at least as (or more) directly upon Mr. Obama as (or than) it is upon Mr. Romney.

Finally the Globe story also, mais oui, quotes the reliably and, apparently, now likewise obligatorily quotable 'zany' new Catholic Newt Gingrich, who levels charges agains Mr. Romney more or less identical to those leveled by the Catholic Action League's Mr. Doyle and other conservatives. The only surprise occasioned by this particular quote is its not turning up until near the end of the story.  Were the story meant for a hatchet job on Mr. Romney, a puff piece on Mr. Obama, or an equivalence piece on both, one might have expected the reliably incendiary Gingrich quote to figure more prominently at the beginning of the story, perhaps under a headline announcing that 'Gingrich Denounces "Massachussetts Moderate" Romney's Hypocrisy.'  Accompanied, of course, by the mandatory photo of white-haired Newt at the podium, mouth obligingly open and brows suitably furrowed, pointing or wagging a finger toward the camera lens in the accustomed 'J'accuse' manner.       

On balance, then, it doesn't seem to me that we ought to be indulging suspicions of the Globe for this story. Indeed if anything, it is rather refreshingly more balanced than much of what we find in the more familiar news organs, and worthy of praise on that account. Certainly it rides far lighter on the oft-purportedly opportunistic Mr. Romney than most 'liberals' and 'conservatives' tend to do.

What affirmative suggestion does all of this lead me to?  Let's try this:  If we can at all plausibly, let's assume that the journalists out there on balance are trying to be fair.  Let's assume good faith in all cases save those where there's no plausible explanation save bad faith.  After all, there is no shortage of good explanations for bad journalism.  There is, for example, the all too familiar tendency to notice and play up events that play into some dopey demotically popular narrative.  That's mediocrity, to be sure, but mediocrity's seldom bad faith.  What is more, if we call journalists out on cliche and  predictability, they're more apt to try to do better; for their pride in their craft, rather than their need to believe in their decency, will be what's evoked.  Attributing bad faith, one suspects, is more apt to raise hackles and, with them, an unrepentent defiance. 

A final point on my own state of faith here, for what little it might be worth:  It happens that I am among those inclined to take Mr. Romney at his word when he speaks of his relatively recent 'life issues epiphany,' even finding the tale moving.  That is so even as I literally pray Mr. Romney be far less sincere in his professions of new faith in the 'old religion' of 1928-style economic policy, which would be  altogether calamitous for our nation and the world and accordingly must - must - be prevented.  I am also among the many who were surprised by the recent HHS decision, which I believe Mr. Obama soon will recognize for the uncharacteristically oafish and destructive blunder that it was.  I have no interest here, then, in either criticizing Mr. Romney or defending Mr. Obama.  I've little doubt there'll be occasion enough for that soon.