How the Press Helped Cause the GOP Shutdown

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/media/how-press-helped-cause-gop-shutdown



***SNIP

Yet so it goes within portions of the Beltway press corps who are straining to include Democrats in the shutdown blame game; to make sure "both sides" are targeted for tsk-tsk scoldings about "Washington dysfunction," and that the Republicans' truly radical nature remains casually ignored. This media act is getting old. And this media act may be emboldening the Republicans' extreme behavior.

Note that unlike the government shutdowns during the Clinton administration, this one was not prompted by a budgetary disagreement between the two parties. It was provoked by the GOP's unheard-of demand that in order to vote for government spending they agree is necessary, the White House had to strip away funding for its health care law. Also note that the looming showdown over the debt ceiling represents another orchestrated crisis in which the GOP is making unprecedented demands on the president in exchange for their votes for a policy they say they support. Both cases illustrate the folly of trying to blame the White House for failing to engage with Republicans, who have embraced a path of purposefully unsolvable confrontations.

What's been clear for years is that the press clings to its preferred storyline: When Republicans obstruct Obama's agenda, the president's to blame for not changing the GOP's unprecedented behavior. In other words, "both sides" are to blame for the GOP's radical actions and the epic gridlock it produces.

The media lesson for Republicans? There's very little political downside to pushing extremism if the press is going to give the party a pass.

[B Calm]

1. I can't believe all the polls asking which side is responsible for

the shut down. You kidding me?

[Mnemosyne]

3. Most polls I've seen show repukes as the cause. An awakening, perhaps? nt

[B Calm]

4. What I find amazing is that they even have to ask. Anybody with any common sense

at all knows who shut down the government and it was the minority in congress!

[Mnemosyne]

8. Read my sig...

[B Calm]

9. lol

[deutsey]

6. They're straining to be fair and balanced

[B Calm]

7. LOL

[liberal N proud]

2. They are doing damage control

We all know the media is a propaganda machine for the GOP

[Coyotl]

5. We need to counter in the New Media

Create your own media: