FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

Most journalists make my teeth itch. They have a bias that is thicker than Mitt's hair gel. It isn't a left-right political thing, except for the Murdock hirelings. It is a bias toward laziness and equivalence.

The equivalence is just a presentation of effortless balance. If one candidate draws bold policy contrasts and the opponent lies like a Trump hairpiece, the false balance leads to a blanket condemnation. They are both just too negative. Every fault on one side demands the journalist find some fault on the other, so both can be reported jointly.

The laziness is infuriating. I suppose I tend to overreact to easy inaccuracies. I don't see ignorance as an excuse. It does not mitigate. It is not a cause. Ignorance makes the offense worse because it is a symptom of the laziness.

Last night I surfed by just long enough to hear a broadcast anchor talk about President John Adams' habit of swimming in the Potomac River in the nude. The anchor pronounced "Potomac" as a rhyme with "atomic." He swam in the P-atomic. How much effort would it have taken to read the script through with someone? Maybe rehearse it with his wife or girlfriend or boyfriend? A quick education is, I suppose, harder than just mindlessly spouting whatever copy is placed in front of you. Mispronounce what you will.

The lack of research is sometimes astonishing. Paul Ryan keeps reminding me of that.

The presumptive Republican nominee for Vice President is now being examined with some skepticism. Before he became a Serious Young Man, he was just one of a large gaggle of Republican Congressional representatives who reflexively voted against anything President Clinton wanted, then reflexively voted for anything President Bush wanted. Cultural issues were an exception. He was at war with gays and was on the Pat Buchanan side of civil rights issues, even more than was President Bush.

But, for the most part, he was for tax cuts for the wealthy. During lean years, he was for tax cuts for the wealthy because tax breaks for job creators would boost the economy and we could always make up deficits later. During surges in the economy, as when President Clinton produced a surplus, he was for a tax cut for the wealthy because the federal government shouldn't be taking in more than necessary. With Republicans in general, there was a pattern that began to be discernible, even to those of us who liked to bowl with friends instead of watching the news. Tax cuts were the cure for everything, even opposite things.

Paul Ryan was just one of many names in that following.

There eventually came a time for number crunching. Pundits liked tough choices. And it was undeniable that Medicare and Medicaid costs were soaring. Deficits were getting higher. The economy tanked in 2007.

So really successful pundits, the journalists that lesser journalists hoped to become, the pundits who made a lot of money, looked at the numbers and pronounced a time of tough choices. They instructed their followers that, even though some might object, unpopular things needed to be done. Especially to poor people, to sick people, to the elderly, and, finally, to the middle class. Restoring the tax cuts on the wealthy was off the table. The really successful pundits were not only personally well-to-do, they rubbed shoulders with wealthy people every day. They knew what real Americans, serious Americans, grown up, adult, mature Americans were thinking. After all, they talked with them every day where they hung out: in country clubs.

Tough choices had to be made. And that is when Paul Ryan became a really Serious Young Man, the original SYM. He turned out to be the toughest of the tough when it came to society's takers: Those struggling to get out of poverty, those living on pensions, those depending on Medicare or Medicaid, those who ride buses to work, or those who suddenly found themselves unemployed. When this SYM proposed a budget that would make Tough Choices, top pundits pronounced the discovery of a miracle. A SYM more SYM than any other SYM. He would lead the way to a city of Serious people. A SYM City. (See what I did there?)

This Serious Young Man was, in the end, betrayed by a conglomerate of those not so Serious about getting tough with those in need. Democrats conspired with a handful of Senate Republicans of lesser spine. Not many Republicans, but just enough. Something to do with a hostile reaction among the electorate.

But the miracle remained. Paul Ryan was the Serous Young Man, fighting against all odds for a rational approach. Social Security, and Medicare, and a host of other programs could not survive unless Tough Choices were made. And certainly the horrible and growing deficits had to be addressed.

Only recently has a new skepticism emerged. Journalists are examining the earlier record the man who would be Vice President, the record of voting for larger and larger Bush deficits. His Pre-Serious days.

I don't much care about his pre-pre days. Those days strike me as a sort of Mitt Romney in High School story. If he got religion later, that's okay by me. But let's make sure it's the right religion, and that it's for real.

The budget that made Paul Ryan a Serious Young Man is still regarded as a kind of tough elixir. Not exactly a miracle. Not anymore. But a sort of magic, anyway. It's just contradicted by his earlier, wilder days. Before he became Serious.

Journalists love a good story. They have a bias toward laziness and equivalency, but they do love a good story. And the grown up adult budget, the budget senior, successful, pundits tell them about, still carries enough magic to be told around newsroom campfires.

Just don't look at the numbers. Sure, seniors would suffer, at least soon-to-be seniors, those 55 and younger. Their Medicare would be replaced with a voucher system. Coupons in place of care. And Social Security would be privatized over time. Medicaid would be slashed. Breakfast programs for little kids would be eliminated, care for Veterans would be cut. All pretty serious stuff. Tough.

At least that's what was reported, and believed by journalists who found it easy to believe in, and report, pixie dust as if it was fact.

Medicare would be saved. Right? Well no. None of the savings would be put back into Medicare.

Social Security would be salvaged, right? Well, no. Not that either.

Not one penny of the savings would go back into those programs.

The other programs? Nope.

All of the savings would go to additional tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. The job creators. You know: the deserving.

But what about the deficit? The numbers did add up to a significant deficit reduction. There was still some magic in that.

Well. No. Not really.

There was a substantial deficit reduction. The reduction in the deficit was entirely due to savings generated by President Obama's taking military forces out of Iraq, and the reduction of forces he planned for Afghanistan. Republicans at the time were condemning the President for both moves. Soft on terrorism, they said. At least that what they said, up until most of al Qaeda was destroyed and bin Laden found a new home under the sea.

So the Ryan plan shifted the budget away from the poor, away from the middle class, and toward making the extremely wealthy more wealthy.

He claimed a deficit reduction that matched, dollar for dollar, President Obama's pulling troops out of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Ryan plan that made him a Serious Young man:

• Take from the poor and middle class

• Give every dime to the extremely wealthy

• Claim President Obama's deficit reduction as the Paul Ryan deficit reduction

You won't hear or read much about it from journalists. It offends their laziness bias. The magic of Paul Ryan turned out to be that of a stage magician. Not so much magic. More like sleight of hand.