Media Pieties du Jour: No Facts Need Apply

There is a hidden assumption or lazy mental habit in both politics and political commentary that is usually minor but always irritating and potentially quite damaging. It occurs on an epidemic scale. Usually it is implicit in what people say or write, or if it is expressed, it is expressed so subtly as to make criticism of it seem unreasonable. Once in a while, though, someone lays it out clearly and unmistakably. Peter Hoskin, the English conservative commentator from the website Conservative Home, does exactly that in his August 17 column in the Times of London, on David Cameron.

Hoskin quotes from himself in his regular ConHome slot, and I have taken the passage below from his August 17 post there. I should make clear that this is not a general attack on Hoskin; his article is an interesting one, as his articles usually are, and my point is a narrow response to a single idea in it that is representative of a much wider tendency. Here’s the nub:

A recent speech that Mr. Cameron delivered on benefits was tough, as speeches on benefits often are, but it also had a fresh sourness to it. The welfare state, he suggested, had eroded the assumption that “people would naturally do the right thing”. This may or may not be true, but it jars against his earlier freewheeling optimism.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314423/media-pieties-du-jour-no-facts-need-apply-john-o-sullivan