The Bothsidesdoitist faith isn't technically a religion, but it might as well be: it's the belief system that the Village pundits and opinionators all subscribe to. As its name suggests, its guiding tenet is that, whatever it is, Both Sides Do It.
If one party is unprincipled, has policy proposals largely unmoored from reality, only recognizes what the scientists are telling us if it happens to fit with its ideology, or is outright crazy, then the same must be equally true of the other party.
The cool thing about this, from the Republican point of view, is that no matter how great their separation from reality, the mainstream media will never call them on it, because of the MSM's adherence to the tenets of Bothsidesdoitism: those tenets stipulate that the Dems must be equally unhinged, so the GOP can't be singled out.
That's some catch, that Catch-22.
So that brings us to Ruth Marcus' latest column.
As Ed Kilgore summarizes, "Think about what that opposition has said and done on the Iran deal: they invited a foreign head-of-government to attack it in the U.S. Congress while negotiations were still ongoing; they denounced it as treason before they had even read its terms; and now the presidential candidates among them are swearing they will abrogate it at the very first opportunity."
Yet it is Obama who Marcus says is "embittered and unfair over Iran." And this is despite the fact that Marcus agrees that this is not only a good deal, but a necessary deal with no good alternative.
How the hell does Obama come out to be the Bad Guy in all this? If you put the craziness of the deal's opponents on one side of a scale and the impatience of the President with the deal's opponents on the other, which side of the scale weighs more?
If you're Ruth Marcus, and you need to make sure everything works out that Both Sides are equally irresponsible, it's apparently the President.
Being a religious sort myself, and being aware that Marcus purports to be Jewish in addition to Bothsidesdoitist, I'll close this post with a reading from the 25th chapter of Deuteronomy:
"Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly."
Like the song from Godspell says, first you've gotta read 'em, then you've gotta heed 'em.
