"A Government Shutdown And Debt Ceiling Guide For Journalists Who Don't Want To Be Complete Idiot" [View all]

[TomCADem]

The Sunday news shows are replete with examples of journalists trying to push a false equivalence narrative suggesting that Democrats are equally at fault for a shut down and that Republicans are doing Democrats a favor by considering an increase in the debt ceiling or funding the federal government. This is not gridlock. This is GOP nihilism at its worse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/government-shutdown-debt-ceiling_n_4004408.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

The only thing I'd add to this is that anyone who suggests in the future that raising the debt ceiling constitutes a "concession" to Democrats is also committing malpractice.

Among the many examples Fallows cites of journalists employing these best practices is the Sept. 27 edition of the Diane Rehm show, in which "panelists Ruth Marcus, Janet Hook, and Todd Purdum all said with a bluntness unusual for a D.C.-based talk show that we are witnessing the effects not of gridlock but of one party's internal crisis." Check it out here.

Naturally, this is a 100 percent accurate take on the matter. This is the GOP's intra-party crisis, not a congressional one. Democrats don't receive any benefit from avoiding a shutdown or a default. Nor do they impose anything on the GOP by calling for a government that continues to run, or a global economy that continues to exist. Republicans are free to stage debates, make arguments, attempt to pass laws, try to strike bargains, and seek redress in the normal cycle of campaigns and elections. At the moment, their party is having a difficult time deciding if it wants to stick with traditional American governance, or swap it out for a series of violent threats on the nation's economic security.

This should be a really easy story to get right.