Today In "Both Sides Do It": The American Prospect

Thanks to Alert Reader "Richard" for calling my attention to further evidence of how far into the political groundwater this poison has spread.

From The America Prospect:

The Politics of Frustration

PAUL STARR OCTOBER 5, 2015
Frustration is driving voters on both sides of the partisan divide toward radical make-believe

Republican primary voters, we are told, are furious about the failure of their party’s elected leaders to deliver on their promises. Despite controlling Congress, those leaders have done nothing about illegal immigration and have failed to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, or prevent the agreement with Iran from going through. Fed up with career politicians and fearing dire changes in American society, the party’s rank and file have instead gravitated to candidates who have never held public office—Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina. At least, that has been the story in the early going of the presidential race.

On the left, there is an analogous impatience. Just as Republicans are frustrated with the Republican Congress, so progressives are frustrated with the Obama presidency...

On and on Mr. Starr goes,

To some extent, both the conservative and progressive frustrations have the same origin—limited power in a divided government

backing up his little truck

But there is an additional parallel. Both conservatives and progressives say the parties’ agendas aren’t radical enough.

to fly dump one more load of toxic nonsense  on top of the reeking garbage heap of the Biggest Lie in American politics. 

 Until, way down in paragraph six, the author meekly blows up  his own fucking argument --

On the Democratic side, the candidates are unlikely to race to the left in a way that’s comparable to the Republican race to the right. But the idle talk about adopting single-payer health care and emulating a Scandinavian welfare state has a similar air of unreality about it.

-- and then spends the remainder of the article touting the successes of the Obama Administration and calling on Democrats to be "realistic".

If this Frankenstein dreck had been turned in to me as a writing assignment I would have asked Mr, Starr which story he wanted to write: a Both Siderist dirge or a paean to the Affordable Care Act and various other Obama Administration accomplishments.

If the latter, I would have given him a provisional "D", red penciled the first half of this paper and told him that to raise his grade he should quite trying to be David Brooks and just write the that article.  

If the former, I would have advised him to immediately drop my class and apply for a job with the New York Times, the Washington Post or (apparently, sadly) The American Prospect.