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her to elected office must be among the stupidest humans ever to walk the face of the earth. 
I don't care how little the Tea Partiers love their country or much they hate Obamacare. Both are quite clear to me and Mr. Roberts didn't need to waste time with a question that he surely knew would be answered with a scripted talking point ("We aren't the one who wanted a shut down"
. The idea that Republicans aren't the ones driving the country over a cliff is nonsense, but what did Mr. Roberts expect Mrs. Blackburn to say?
Journalists should not confront a Republican traitor with the judgment that he is a traitor. Any Republican is going to plead not guilty to that, no matter how responsible he is for the shut down or planning extortion (which, of course, he won't admit to being extortion). The problem is that journalists nowadays are so used to rewriting a press release without questioning the source that he doesn't know how to ask a question at all.
As didactic as Lawrence O'Donnell can be, I'd rather have seen him ask Mrs. Blackburn the questions. Mr. O'Donnell isn't even a trained journalist; he used to be a prosecuting attorney. He would know what to do with Mrs. Blackburn and her ilk. He would treat her as a witness whom he is intent on impeaching. He would ask he very specific questions about what the Republican caucus thought they were going to accomplish by passing a budget that they knew would never be signed into law and then not admitting defeat, leaving the American people to suffer the consequences. Not admitting defeat is what has led to the shut down. I don't expect him to ask if it is because they have been bribed by getting large campaign contributions from the Koch brothers. She's going to plead the fifth on that, too. That is a story journalists will just have to get another way. Start digging, guys.
