Never select a political reporter for jury duty

That’s not semantics. That’s meeting evidence with nothing. Even if one were to credit the proposition that the Romney tax plan would “spur economic growth” and “add [an unspecified amount] to tax collections” as Gabriel does, a reporter looking for truth-value would write, “Leaving aside the unspecified tax revenues that Mr. Romney asserts would be generated by his tax plan, an assertion about which economists strongly disagree, his plan would yield a revenue loss estimated at $5 trillion over 10 years.” Or, “Despite findings that his tax plan would mean the loss of $5 trillion in revenue, Mr. Romney, without putting forward evidence to the contrary, continued to assert that his plan would be revenue-neutral.”

But Mr. Gabriel’s powerful conclusion? “The issue is not going away.”

And then there is Mr. Romney’s “move to the center.” Neither a juror nor even the most junior detective would readily accept the notion that the views expressed in connection with the New Romney genuinely reflect the candidate’s thinking.

The more varied and varying a party’s statements or justifications come to be over time, the more vigorous the scrutiny that the statements deserve. Which statements are to be discounted as covering up the candidate’s unvarnished views? Does the candidate have an incentive to cover up his actual views? Which are consistent with the candidate’s underlying philosophy? Does the candidate have an underlying philosophy?

Those are very different inquiries from “has the candidate successfully recalibrated his course?” and “has the candidate successfully reset the dynamic of the race?”

All of the basic evaluative techniques familiar to jurors, of course, apply just as much to statements made by President Obama. After he said at the debate, “I suspect that on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position,” the main lines of reporting concerned whether the statement was a gaffe and the consternation the remark caused among his supporters?

But why shouldn’t the President be believed on this point? He has repeatedly placed Social Security into the mix in connection with the supposedly “tough-minded” decisions that “must” be made on entitlement programs. He has consistently failed to address the simple long-term tweak to Social Security — elimination of the cap on the earnings that are subject to payroll tax — that even the Wall Street Journal has acknowledged (in its news reports, not its editorial page) would ensure the full solvency of the program for 75 years. It makes no sense simply to treat the statement as a gaffe and move on.

So why is it so hard for so many reporters — including those who insist, apparently sincerely, that they don’t think that truth is irrelevant — to use the tools of jurors? Maybe because they fail to understand what kind of case they’re trying. 

Like civil case jurors, all they need to do is to decide what is more likely true. Even if reporters can’t bring themselves to say, “He lied,” maybe they can start saying, “It seems more likely than not that the candidate actually believes something other than what he’s now telling you.”

Or maybe they still think it was ok when their predecessors in 1968, docile and compliant, transmitted to the nation the news that Richard Nixon had a secret plan to end the war.