If you only judge these things by what you hear in the "mainstream media," then you almost always get the impression that both sides are roughly equally valid, because the mainstream media doesn't want to appear partisan. The GOP has taken advantage of this reluctance by the media to call a spade a spade for years. That's why people think there honestly is a roughly even dispute within science about global warming, when in fact there is nothing like that. That's why people don't know that most economists understand that cutting spending now will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and threaten the recovery. I'll be curious to see if the mainstream media even bothers to cover the outrage in Wisconsin the next few days. Maybe a few minutes here and there, then back to coverage of Charlie Sheen.