A last minute budget deal, forged amid bluster and tough bargaining, averted an embarrassing federal shutdown and cut billions in spending….
(Associated Press, April 9, 2011)
No shit! But to listen to media reports this week you’d think the U.S. federal government were going to disappear or explode at midnight on Friday if this deal were not reached. Indeed, just to heighten the anxiety, most TV reports featured a countdown to this bewitching hour on ticking digital clocks.
Never mind that it was crystal clear from the outset of these negotiations that, despite their puerile bickering over relatively insignificant numbers (like 70 billion out of a budget deficit of 1.5 trillion) and irrelevant issues (like funding for women’s health), both Democrats and Republicans were equally determined to forge a deal.
Now, after whipping the country into a panic about a shutdown that was never coming, the media are busy trying to crown champions for averting a shutdown that never was.
The country’s 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing….
(Jon Stewart, Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, November 1, 2010)
Enough said.
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Rally to restore sanity…