Last night WaPo editor E.J. Dionne and Ezra Klein, who sat in for Rachel Maddow spoke on how the use of false equivalency breaks the system for any one who wants to compromise. It only dilutes the issues, which the media and the talking heads have been using adnausem pre and post 2012 elections.
False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none.
A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result. The pattern of the fallacy is often as such: If A is the set of c and d, and B is the set of d and e, then since they both contain d, A and B are equal. It should be noted though that d existing in both sets is not required, only a passing similarity is required to cause this fallacy to be able to be used.
Watch as Klein and Dionne illustrate the point of how the Democrats, particularly President Obama and House GOP are not equal when it comes to the pending manufactured “fiscal cliff” fiasco: