WaPo readers demand full-strength propaganda.

The WaPo columnist, Catherine Rampell offers "four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media" is: "Remember that just because the president did (or proposed) it doesn’t mean it’s bad; inversely, just because one of the president’s perceived opponents did (or proposed) it doesn’t mean it’s good."

The comments over there trash her for that, and not because it's so mild. You might think it's safely and blandly obvious Journalism 101. But commenters are demanding an actively anti-Trump point of view. Here's the highest-rated comment:

Catherine, the most important resolution should be for the media to stop this "both-sides-ism". The republicons are clearly lying, cheating and doing everything possible to stay in power. The Democrats are truly trying to govern for the betterment of the people.

Another highly rated comment:

The first three [resolutions] were good, but then I got to #4, which is simply unnecessary, at least as stated. And "whataboutism," "false equivalence," and " bothsiderism" are still very common in both the Post and NY Times....

Notice that Rampell did not even say that journalists should strive for balance and give equal weigh to both sides. She just said journalists shouldn't assume that everything from Trump is bad and everything from his opponents is good. That is, she wasn't pushing "bothsiderism," only opposing onesiderism.

The commenters speak as if anything less that onesiderism is bothsiderism! They've given up on independence and objectivity and want full-strength propaganda.

"A rash of relatively convoluted, thoroughly unsexy political scandals involving governors is moving through the country."

A reader pointed me to what he called "A very intellectually dishonest column by Catherine Rampell of the Wash Post," and I'm stuck on the second sentence. A convoluted, thoroughly unsexy rash moving through the country.

I think Rampell's point is something like: Sex scandals are attention-getting and easy to understand, and complicated, unsexy matters are not, so governors accused of nonsexual misdoings have been getting away with things. 

She ignores the alternative that governors have opponents who would like to drag them down by making accusations that will wreck the governor's momentum whether there are any real crimes in that convoluted, unsexy mess or not. And ordinary people don't want to look at the convoluted, unsexy rash anyway, so the opponents are counting on the instinctive aversion. Ick! Find someone else. This guy is tainted.

(Criminalization of politics is a new tag, and I can't go back and add it everywhere it belongs.)