Following up on our item earlier this afternoon, while the right-wing media are very, very sure that SEIU president Andy Stern should not be serving on President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission, they seem to be incapable of putting together a coherent explanation for why they feel that way.

Their problem with him seems to be that he is a labor leader, and thus his appointment makes the panel a “joke” because he won't be willing to balance the budget entirely on the backs of the poor and middle class. But they have no explanation for why the interests of the poor, the middle class, and labor shouldn't be represented on the panel.

Stern leads a union with 2.2 million members. More than 15 million Americans belong to a union. Why shouldn't they have a voice?

Unless, of course, the right-wing media don't just want to reduce the deficit, but want to do it in a way that will burden the lower and middle class workforce Stern represents. Unless they want to do it solely by slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, rather than with a package that includes, say, tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. Then, I suppose, their opposition to Stern makes sense.

Even then, it's not like the panel is going to be dominated by Big Labor. Heck, Obama himself balanced Stern with two corporate representatives, Republican and Honeywell CEO David Cote, and Ann Fudge, former CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands and executive at General Mills and Kraft. Republican congressional leaders will get to appoint 6 members -- you can bet they'll be diametrically opposed to Stern. So the right-wing media don't just want to prevent labor from winning the argument, they want to prevent them from speaking altogether.