In other words you can, or the media can, make an unacceptable idea seem ok by comparing it to something even more outrageous.

It occurred to me that that is exactly what the post about Bushco switching off a proposed Israeli attack on Iran by saying that they were already taking ‘covert action’.
The unacceptable [covert action] appears reasonable by comparison to the outrageous [Israeli bombing whatever].

Something similar has just happened to me ,I have been given a choice between totally unacceptable and completely inappropriate options.

At the risk of length and perhaps irrelevancy here goes.

I have just been officially informed today that my River Murray lagoon may get water in it after being dry for more than two years.
Sound good?
Well yes but….
It would be as a result of the proposed building of a weir to stop fresh Murray water entering the Murray lakes [Alexandrina nad Albert] and then flooding them with [poisonous] sea water.
Not so good. In fact, near total disaster for the lakes.
[Incidentally please don't try to tell me that this has happened in the past-some people do say this- it hasn't ever, not on this scale]

There is of course a third option.

Fresh water for both.

But that is ‘off the agenda’. can’t upset the irrigators.

And there is an example of the Overton effect operating here too.

A few years ago an engineering firm was touting for a 300 million dollar plus plan to build an internal earth dam within the circumference of Lake Alexandrina several metres high and many more wide, a hundred or more kms in length, to divert the fresh water around the lake and thus save fresh water from evaporating over the area of the lake. The lake itself would be converted to sea water which was touted as a wonderful idea even though it would completely replace the ecosystem of the lake.
It was given the you beaut name “Twin Lakes Proposal’ and was seriously proposed at meetings with the SA govt., local councils along the river and relevant Murray River authorities.
I thought it was ‘outrageous’, not everybody else did however.
Anyway here we are with the essence of it actually about to happen, the Lakes to be poisoned with sea water, they have to be ‘killed’ to be ’saved’.

Sometimes I despair.

Or perhaps Groundhog Day’s been shifted forwards?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ NYT Reporter Warns Of One-Term Obama

Although

Media Matters questions the dire predictions:

Funny, we don’t recall any Times reporters suggesting Bush would be a one-term president days before his inauguration. But of course we do remember lots of reporters and pundits announcing that Bill Clinton had failed in his first month in office.

Note the double standard?