Who's Pandering to Whom?

Steve Benen at TPM pointed out an interesting article by Joel Achenbach that is probably interesting not for the reasons Achenbach wanted it to be. Decrying the candidates of both parties pandering to their bases, he has any number of specific examples from the Republican side, but this is what he comes up with for the Democrats:

On the Democratic side, the sneaking suspicion is that front-runner Hillary Clinton may be a neocon, as opposed to what the Republicans believe she is (Madame Mao reincarnate). John Edwards, who four years ago positioned himself as the "positive, upbeat" candidate, has transmogrified into a red-meat partisan, firmly camped to the left of the Bush-collaborating Clinton and Obama. And then there's Mike Gravel, a former senator from Alaska, who last week had some USDA Choice words for anyone who voted to give Bush authorization to go to war:

"We have killed more Americans than was done on the 11th of September," he said. "More Americans died because of their decision. That disqualifies them for president. It doesn't mean they're bad people. It just means that they don't have moral judgment."

Are we reaching a bit, to be fair and balanced? How about being honest? That would work for me.

Benen notes this:

During one campaign event not too long ago, a voter in Iowa noted the record budget deficits generated by Bush's fiscal recklessness and asked Edwards to respond. An easy one for red-meat politics, right? Wrong. Edwards said domestic programs, not deficit reduction, would be his top priority. He insisted that politicians should be "honest" about the "common sense in the math."

Hillary Clinton is routinely offered opportunities to denounce her 2002 vote on the Iraq war resolution. Under Achenbach's model, the senator would quickly pander, telling progressive audiences what they want to hear. She hasn't. Obama seems to reflexively reject pandering altogether. Said one constituent, "Obama tells you the hard truths, and other politicians, particularly from Chicago, they tend to tell you what they think you want to hear."

In light of the K Street story from yesterday (was it only yesterday? How time flies), it appears that, NYT and WaPo (not to mention Right Blogistan) notwithstanding, we're faced with choices between a group of candidates on the right who will say anything no matter how extreme to get past the primary, and a group of candidates on the left who are trying to focus on rational discussions of the issues (in spite of the press). In other words, it really starts to look as though the Republican party is composed of the intrinsically dishonest, while the Democrats are at least making an attempt at some sort of civilized standard. I mean, that's what I get from what I'm hearing and reading, and that's certainly what comes out of Achenbach's article. It just seems as though Achenbach can't bring himself to say it, so he runs this two-party hit piece with all the evidence drawn from one party.

Now that's responsible journalism, isn't it?