where's MY pink slip? sign.

I'm not posting this to cause despair, because in politics, we truly don't know how something will play out -- for instance, Bill Clinton has and has long had a sizable number of enemies, but who among us could have predicted his approval ratings would rise the more Ken Starr investigated him? -- but because it calls out the press on its complicity in repeating stock talking points.

[url]http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Shutdown_Blues[/url]

What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic party. For that to happen, the country would have to make a nuanced judgment over who is to blame that, I believe, will be discouraged by the courtier press of the Beltway and that, in any case, the country has not shown itself capable of making. For that to happen, the Democratic party would have to be demonstrably ruthless enough to risk its own political standing to make the point, which the Democratic party never has shown itself capable of doing. With the vandals tucked away in safe, gerrymandered districts, and their control over state governments probably unshaken by events in Washington, there will be no great wave election that sweeps them out of power. I do not see profound political consequences for enough of them to change the character of a Congress gone delusional. The only real consequences will be felt by the millions of people affected by what this Congress has forced upon the nation, which was the whole point all along.

The party as it is now will not stand up to the republicans, regardless of how insane or malignant they act. Someone needs to tell the president that both sides are not to blame.

I have almost no hope that the dc dems will stand firm against the loonies.

...but the media skews rightwards both in terms of focus and in acceptance of talking points. Even if you have a Mitt Romney "Corporations are people" moment or a GOP politician with a zipper problem, the media will still grade Republicans on a curve and/or echo Frank Luntz or other pollsters.

But we don't have to buy into that or be quiet. We can use the Democratic tendency towards pessimism as a means to motivate rather than deflate.

and I would be happy to hear some ways we might counteract that (ways that actually might work).

... is rarely strong, and that is a lot of the problem. Outside of Grayson, Warren and Sanders, they are afraid of their own shadow.

David Nangle · Top Commenter · Billerica Memorial High School
This Congress should only be flown by pilots that don't believe in flight. They should only be treated by doctors that don't believe in medicine, or the efficacy of surgery. They should live in houses built by people that don't believe in carpentry. And they should eat only food prepared by people that don't believe in cooking, or the germ theory of disease.

I have just read your article. It was amazing. It made me think of something I have read previously.

Comments were good too.