Liberal pundit and Obama-chronicler Jonathan Alter received a "Sacred Cat" award last Friday from the Milwaukee Press Club, and while in Brew City, Alter complained that "one of...the limitations of journalism is that straightforward descriptions of reality are seen as being biased." To Alter, one somehow-disputed reality is that Obama's a flexible dealmaker and Republicans are rigid obstructionists, and another seems to be that the current GOP is an extreme-right party, while the Democrats are barely left of center.
From a story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Bill Glauber (emphasis added):
[Alter] remains fascinated by politics even when he is discouraged about how the game is played in Washington.
"This is not your father's Republican Party," he said. "These guys are different. Paul Ryan is smart, attentive, hard working, but he believes in a pre-New Deal vision of America. And he is enormously powerful."
Alter said the country now has a center-left party, the Democrats, and a far-right party, the Republicans.
"Obama was willing to compromise and Republicans were not," Alter said. "That's not a biased statement. One of my problems with the limitations of journalism is that straightforward descriptions of reality are seen as being biased."
