QOTD: Dennis Ross (R-Pirate Party)
by David Atkins
“We’ve lost the CR battle,” Ross, referring to the continuing resolution to authorize government spending, said in an interview. “We need to move on and take whatever we can find in the debt limit.”
“Take whatever we can find.” Are these people legislators or highwaymen?
Media like Bloomberg.com are presenting this quote as straightforward politics, a sign that even Tea Partiers are relenting on the shutdown as they look forward to the debt ceiling.
What they should be reporting on is the political dynamic on display. The Republicans took the government hostage, and Democrats didn’t back down. So the Republicans “lost” that “battle.” Now they’re taking the debt limit hostage and hoping that Democrats will pay the ransom on that, instead.
It must be said again: if Democrats were shutting down the government and threatening the full faith and credit of the United States in order to force a Republican president to pass gun control and tax increases, Republicans would be calling Democrats terrorists holding the nation hostage. They would be accusing the left of treason and threatening armed revolt and murder in the streets. The press would perforce take up some of that language in their reporting.
What Republicans are doing is truly radical. It threatens the very foundation of the government, using the language and negotiating calculus of pirates, hostage takers and terrorists. At some point the traditional press needs to call it what it is.
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