Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Mainstream Reporters: Too Close to the Field and Teams to Get the Debt Story
If you were a spectator in a sky box seat looking directly down on the Washington debt debate, you’d be seeing a contest both narrow and off to one edge of the field -- like watching a football game being played entirely between the 10-yard line and the goal line.
The big items that added trillions to the debt are not even on the field of debate. Because the two teams are not contesting them.
- Wars: When Obama expanded the Afghan war and asked for the largest military budget in world history, the GOP largely applauded. It was bipartisan.
- Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: Obama extended them in December.
- Bank Bailouts: Bipartisan.
- Declining Tax Revenue: Resulted from recession and financial meltdown caused by years of bipartisan (Reagan/Clinton) deregulation of Wall Street. And by big companies like General Electric (whose CEO is Obama’s jobs chairman) dodging their taxes.
That’s the broad view -- a perspective that sees our country in extreme debt and extremist "debate" because the leaders of the two teams collaborated in putting it there.
But this would not be your view if you were a mainstream reporter. Because reporting in elite U.S. media is not so much about relaying obvious and important facts as it is about positioning.
It requires placing yourself equidistant between the two opposing teams.
It means your vantage point is not an elevated or broad view, but down on the field. At the 5-yard line.
From down on the field, you easily miss how the two teams had collaborated to push the game toward the edge. Instead, you see real rancor and animosity between the two teams. You see differences in rhetoric and strategy.
From down on the field, you wouldn’t want to irritate either side or you might get hurt yourself.
With you in the middle of all the heated rhetoric flying back and forth, you might believe you’re somewhere in middle of the field and not off on the right edge.
In fact, you’d be writing headlines like this one from AP that so annoyed economist/columnist Paul Krugman: “Obama, Republicans Trapped by Inflexible Rhetoric.”
You’d be reporting claim and counterclaim over whether Reid’s Senate plan or Boehner’s House plan cuts spending by a couple hundred billion more than the other (neither gets tax revenue from the wealthy). But you’d be unlikely to step back to report on how bipartisan consensus, compromise and corruption racked up the trillions of debt in the first place.
In his column (“The Centrist Cop-Out”) attacking mainstream journalists for “the cult of ‘balance,’” Krugman says: ”Writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties is a big cop-out -- a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. “
He concludes: “The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.”
Krugman is correct that the main problem in politics is Republican extremism. That extremism has been abetted by Democratic corporatism and appeasement.
It’s clear that the Republican leadership has been moving rightward for decades -- from Reagan in the 80s to Gingrich in the 90s to W in the 00s to the Tea Party today. On the Democratic side, one could also argue that Obama is governing to the right of President Clinton, who governed to the right of President Carter, who governed to the right of LBJ.
Given trends like these, is it asking too much of mainstream reporters to look around and realize they’re nowhere near the 50-yard line anymore?
46 Comments so far
Show AllExcellent metaphor, Mr. Cohen... honestly and well-played!
LMAO. I'm sorry but I just have to laugh. Are you serious? Why is this garbage being posted on commondreams? Mr. Cohen needs to write for the MSM and quit polluting this site with his DNC propaganda. Please...do the editors of this site really not know about Obama's vote in 2006? How come nobody in the MSM has brought it up? How come our "betters" Mr. Cohen and Mr. Krugman have seemed to overlook it? Let's have a bit of a reality check here shall we?
In 2006, there was a vote in the United States Senate, Senator Obama voted against the increase. Let us hear the howls from the "progressive" Obama worshipers like Mr. Cohen as they twist all reason and logic to try and explain away the hypocrisy. Obama the tea party candidate will speak now! LOL
March 16, 2006, Senator Obama:
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is "trillion" with a "T." That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans – a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.
But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators CONRAD and FEINGOLD, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.
As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them.
Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.
Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years.
Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.
Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit."
Good analogy. Until we see the whole picture, or football field, we are missing the point
its called 3 card monte
the reality is that everytime you see these false media carney shows like we just saw on the debt crisis - then you know some serious shit is going on in the background
often these side bars are in the form of executive orders of which obummer has signed 86 - despite promising that he would not sign any as a candidate
last week it was an exec order to take over all the farmland in the country
"President Obama signed his 86th executive order (13575) on June 9, which established the White House Rural Council (WHRC). According to The Blaze, the Executive Order seems to be in line with the United Nations radical Agenda 21, as it is designed “to begin taking control over almost all aspects of the lives of 16 percent of the American people.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7958-obama-signs-agenda-21-related-executive-order
he even signed one to prevent the release of his birth certificate
"That the first order of business Obama took care of on day one of his Presidency was to sign off on an Executive Order that states that only the records he chooses to be made public will be released"
http://www.infowars.com/obama-signs-executive-order-barring-release-of-his-birth-certificate/
during the infamous oj simpson trial - remember the neo con bitch wolf blitzer did 24 hours a day of simpson riding his suv down the highway...
during that psyop the trial of the first world trade center attackers was taking place - it was determined that the attack was a cia mission
this kind of stuff goes on all the time
the first gulf war was "sold" to the sheeple when a girl testified that the iraqis had stolen incubators from the hospitals of kuwait - all bullshit - the girl was the daughter of the kuwati ambassador and she had never been in the country during the war with iraq - she was coached by hill and knowlton
gulf of tonkin that started the vietnam war was a lie the government admits
the attack on the main starting the war with spain - the navy admits was a lie
let's not forget 9/11
all of this crap is sold to the public through the corporate media
like the suckers in 3 card monte the sheeple fall for it over and over
the media does what it is told and we are just plain stupid
Sometime CD does indeed publish revolutionary and visionary thinking. Cohen is one of those rare Cats at the forefront of illuminating the two party dsyfunction and why it needs to be crushed.
C'mon, the guy gives a simplistic football analogy and now he sits on the right hand of god? ***FLASH*** ***BREAKING NEWS*** THE MEDIA IS OWNED BY THE RICH !
...and its employees are increasingly young, very naive' and easily manipulated. Even Press Secretary Carney, really now, how much can this guy know? How old is he - 20?
Cohen is a loser. This article proves it. See my post above
WWII slowed the move to the right until people began to forget what fascism is all about, began worrying more about communism, and the Wall Street Casino started moving right back into politics. The corporate and banking Mafia's takeover is complete and kinder, gentler fascism is turning into full blown totalitarianism.
Direct democracy
During the Cold War we were sold the idea that Socialism=Soviet Communism and Capitalism=American Democracy. As the Soviets were the godless enemy, Communism became evil incarnate. The opposite of that evil, we were told, was Democracy. And since capitalism is portrayed as the god of Democracy, it is virtually unassailable. Of course, our current unregulated corporate crony capitalism, which extends to every corner of our government, is the antithesis of true Democracy, not its Saviour. By this logic, social programs must be Socialist and thus are also Communist and evil. The perpetuation of this myth allows the crony corporate capitalists to dismantle the fabric of society while claiming the high ground of Democracy, all with the enthusiastic cooperation of the very majority they are in the process of crushing. Society, you see, is just another Communist plot.
Well said!
this new totalitarianism is far worse that the old kind.
"is it asking too much of mainstream reporters to look around and realize they’re nowhere near the 50-yard line anymore?"
What "mainstream reporters?" What we've come to refer to as the 'mainstream media' hasn't been mainstream or independent for decades. Most all media in the US is controlled by 6 mega-corps - newspapers, radio, and TV; and, if some in the corpora-fascist gov't get their way, the ISP's will be able to limit access to internet sites in the foreseeable future.
The elites who 'represent' us in both parties in Congress are the ones who've created the series of crises we've suffered over the past couple decades, and their corporate friends in the 'mainstream media' have been marching lockstep with them.
Very good article. Corporate media is limiting the reporting to the talking/legislative points of the duopoly without challenging the assumptions of either. It is more he said/she said reporting garnished with sensationalism.
I do not believe so much that "Corporate media is limiting the reporting to the talking/legislative points of the duopoly without challenging the assumptions of either". The corporate media almost no longer have to because what MSM reporters and analysts do is what they have been taught in college and by imitating their "famous" predecessors. It has become a routine that only the most daring dare to toss overboard. Nevertheless, there is a feedback from corporations to corporate media as Glenn Beck discovered too late. It is the gigantic power of advertisers that controls the MSM. The advertisers have staked out a "center road" of what is permitted. Any large deviations to the right or left are swiftly punished.
So agonizingly true. I just think that what the M$M does is reprehensible. I have followed to an extent what the whole balderdash crapola is and the one major thing is that the 'breathless contest of which side will pass what deal' is all the M$M presents. I have seen nothing of what is in these 'deals' and what may be the final outcome when anything is passed which when it is passed the people just may wake up to find that 'deal' has left them further 'left out' than they were before.
But that is how the corrupted M$M works. I remember from the Robert Kane Pappas dvd documentary 'Orwell Rolls in His Grave', Charles Lewis, from cbs 60 min said, 'that what now constitutes investigative reporting is a congressional committee just raps up the details of some project or bill or whatnot and a 'reporter' gets a copy and rushes to the camera to announce, breathlessly, these 'new' developments just in'. No wonder the M$M's dumbstream garden are so well fertilized but doesn't grow any more intellectually. That's the neoconservative's M$M owners mission and they perform that task impeccably.
Until that is rectified, NOTHING will get better in this country.
The analogy to game coverage, while helpful, misses the point.
The real failing of the media is that underlying causes aren’t “news” to a Press corps working a 24-hour news cycle. A cause doesn’t “develop” or change each and every day. Causes are “old news” and hence unreported.
And so we, the public, forget or ignore the causes of our problems.
It is hardly breaking news that this country has a shameful disparity of income between the wealthy and the poor, that the rich own the political system, and that the tax code is shot through with loopholes benefiting the wealthy and corporations. The list of unreported "news" goes on and on.
Instead, the “news” of the day, and hence the public’s focus, is play-by-play coverage between the 10-yard markers on the field, as Cohen notes. Such coverage results in headlines like, “Boehner gets debt plan through House.” Big deal.
Imagine a front-page story with this headline: “The richest 10 percent account for 80 percent of Republican campaign coffers” or “Tea Party: bought by, beholden to Billionaires” or “The Richest Americans scapegoat the Poorest.”
The problem is that each of these stories did not "break" in the “news cycle.” In short, it doesn’t fit the definition of "the news." No, to find out about these mega-causal issues, you have to read books.
Who in this knee-jerk, instant-analysis, Twitter world has time for that?
Finally, Cohen knows, but doesn’t mention, that the Press is beholden to its advertisers, stockholders, interlocking corporate boards and financial chiefs. And just who might they be? (think Rupert Murdoch...) And to what extent do they define the news and determine the information the public receives?
While everything you said is true, your comment trivializes the insights offered by Cohen. Your perspective reminds me of those who say that global warming is a hoax. They relate this because there's always been fires, floods and earthquakes. Here you seem to be saying "it's always been THIS way, the rich are in control." These types of comments do not allow for the very clear changes in events seen in the matter of an uptick in frequency, intensity, and speed. You make it seem as if everyone in the viewing public knows that: "“The richest 10 percent account for 80 percent of Republican campaign coffers” or “Tea Party: bought by, beholden to Billionaires” or “The Richest Americans scapegoat the Poorest.” That is hardly the case.
So while your concluding paragraph nails the reason for the lack of coverage, you turn it into an issue about the public's receptivity to "The Story," as opposed to linking the types of stories with why the owners want the dialog kept within that narrow range that Cohen likens to a limited sector of the playing field. You're blaming the public for what they're being conditioned to accept, instead of placing accountability where it belongs.
You make it seem that the "news cycle" is its own organic reality, as opposed to a set of items selected specifically to keep the spectators seated inside the stadium (preferably numb and dumb).
Your screen name is new, but the tactics your post utilizes are often seen in these threads. They weave elements of the truth into a covert argument that ends up making it about the very ones who are not directly responsible for what's going on.
So I hear the facts you mention and find them all sound, but then you use them to point the reader towards a peripheral (in my view disjointed) conclusion. You're the one missing the point.. while meanwhile attemping to dilute the one made by Cohen to substitute for your own agenda.
Cohen is a hack and has nothing but DNC shilling to add to the debate. If he had an honest bone in his body he would have wrote an article about Obama's 2006 vote. Nobody...I repeat...nobody in the MSM has brought it up yet.
"Nobody...I repeat...nobody in the MSM has brought it up yet".
Get real, because the news has already brought it up.
If you watched TV or listened to the radio once in a while you would know that Obama said that was a mistake.
CD is not the news it is progressive opinion on the news in general so what is the Big Deal about the old story about Obama saying voting against the ceiling was a mistake.
All those here sayin Cohen is just a "shill" and a "hack" and a "loser" are the biggest shills, hacks and losers I have ever read.
We all know both parties are at fault as Cohen points out better than anyone here so If you want a Default why not just say so.
Raising tax rates for millionaires and billionaires by ending their Bush tax cut and ending wars by refusing to fund these are both objectives which I fully support and wish they would already have been executed in 2009 but these cannot be attached to a bill that empowers the President to order the Secretary of the Treasury to issue U.S. bonds as needed to pay the existing debt. Furthermore I have a hunch that 99 out of 100 readers of CD already know exactly how the bulk of the Federal debt came about hence do not need Mr. Cohen's lecture. Once upon a time this kind of analysis was called "carrying coals to Newcastle". I am in the proverbial Newcastle and have plenty of coal already.
If articles were not published that your "hunch" tells you "most CD readers already know", this sight would be boring and empty since you sound like you think you already know it all.
Cohen said it better than you just tried and that is why you call it a "lecture".
Fact is most of the media either has stock in a particular team or has a bet riding on one or the other. There hasn't been an objective "free" press for quite some time.
This article gets to the point of complete lack of any real objective view of the mess we find ourselves in from the US mainstream media which is very much skewed toward as he points out only looking at what "our rulers" as Thomas Jefferson would say are "offering" us. This leaves us with little real idea of the big picture, and as surely as "Light and liberty go together" as Jefferson put it, that leaves us in the proverbial mess we're in.
Apparently Thomas Jefferson never got the enlightenment to free his slaves. Please, please spare me the wisdom of TJ who is co-responsible for the failure of his own constitution which resulted in a vicious civil war. Yes, chattel slavery was acceptable in "his days" but that does not exonerate him in my eyes. After all there were well-known persons such as Alexander Hamilton who actively worked against the continuance of slavery. Jefferson knew Hamilton, hence must have known his warning of what was to come. TJ ignored the warning because he could not even tie his shoelaces without help from a slave-servant whom he bedded which was also accepted in "his days". The TJ days are over, passe, gone with the wind. Why not quote Confucius, Aristotle, Solon, Machiavelli, or Shakespeare all of whom have uttered more profound statements than TJ?
Excellent article Mr. Cohen. You are right on target. " Given trends like these, is it asking too much of mainstream reporters to look around and realize they are nowhere near the 50-yard line anymore". Yes, Mr. Cohen, it is asking too much! Because most mainstream reporters realize that if they went near the 50 yard line, they would be thrown out of the game.
Right on target? The flaming radicals that crafted the 14th amendment and a nation that ratified that amendment in the spirit of "don't allow these Southern bastards to fuck up our nation even more" would hold Mr. Cohen in contempt. Why? Because nothing he avers matters. What matters today is that only a so called "clean bill" is allowed by the 14th amendment which does not permit any conditional blah, blah, blah attached to giving the President the power to order the Treasurer to issue new U.S. bonds as needed to pay the existing debts. Mr. Cohen holds only the "republican extremists" responsible for a possible default. What nonsense! It is a sad day indeed when a sitting President negotiates his own "plan" which in essence says: "Mr. President you cannot order the issuance of more U.S. bonds UNLESS blah, blah, blah...The UNLESS violates the 14th amendment because it questions the debt. If Mr. Obama had been President at the time of Mr. Johnson he would already face impeachment procedures by that radical congress. Any current congress person who has voted for or against any of these plans has also violated his/her oath of office for the very same reason. The radicals that framed the 14th amendment made a slight mistake even though they could not foresee that it would become one. The phrasing of Article 4 of the 14th amendment should have begun with "Thou shalt not question..." which is the only language that the current religious nuts in Congress and the White House understand.
Main-$tream reporters? When somebody uses that term, the first thing that comes to mind is whore... and corp-rat propagandist for the bankster ruling class.
Richard-Ralph-Roehl,
Exactly. And I must be having vision problems because, where Cohen sees two teams, I only see one; the same one that owns the "main stream reporters" (i.e. corporate cheerleaders).
Of course Obama is a progressive liberal democrat. I know lots of them. They drive hi end German cars, wear expensive designer clothes, drink french wine, live in upscale neighborhoods, and have hi paying corporate jobs. It's funny because I know there is a difference,but I can't tell them apart when there out at the country club playing golf. If you see them driving you can tell them apart by the bumper stickers.
Harry Braun Begins His Presidential Campaign
In Iowa's Democratic Presidential Caucus
on June 15th 2011
https://p3amendments.us/Home_Page.html
Articles like this calling on corporate "mainstream" reporters and "editors" to do better are like Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO "leadership" calling on the failed systemically corrupt DLC Democrat Party to do better: PERFECTLY INEFFECTIVE AND USELESS.
This country no longer has time for that shit.
MSNBC, CNN and other cable TV networks are content to let Rupert Murdoch's FOX News be the contextual frame control on every major issue. Letting FOX be the alpha male corporate mass media is exceedingly dangerous for this country, which has already drifted too far into fascism.
We need an independent authentically progressive mass media with parallel online streaming that bypasses the corporate mass media frame on local, regional, national and international news.
The only way I see to do that is blanket cities and towns with authentically progressive low power FM radio stations with contiguous broadcast areas to potentially mimic the large audience market penetration of Big Media. This would do several urgently needed things:
(1) It would restore the concept and reality of local radio news which has all but died in this country.
(2) It would allow these stations to act as an information co-operative to nationally circulate and host interview guests on a wide variety of topics of interest to working-class progressives that seldom or never get heard on corporate media.
(3) This loose cooperative network of low power FM radio stations could periodically combine efforts to focus on issues of special or major significance for working-class progressives in a timely way that the corporate mass media is DESIGNED to preclude within its own system.
(4) These stations could serve as election debate forums for local and national elections, and provide much more access for a wider variety of political candidates to air their views and answer tough questions BEFORE the primary process weeds the choices down to two or three treacherous corporate Big Party clowns.
We need our own media for the exact same reasons we need our own independent national movement and/or Third Party to represent organized labor and the rest of the working-class: WE HAVE NO REPRESENTATION IN CORPORATIST MEDIA OR THE CORPORATIST DEMOCRAT, REPUBLICAN & TEA PARTIES.
Approximately 300 million people in America sit dumbfounded (at least I am as well as everyone else I know ) by the shenanigans in Washington. Decisions are being made (supposedly) regarding "our money" and who among us has any say in the matter? who has a clue as to what debt ceiling really is? or what happens if it's raised or not? Take money away from here, throw some over there, and we have not a goddamn thing to say about it. The only trust I have in our leaders is that they will screw us over regardless.
Politicians in a curmudgeon imply no obligation to pay debts. Who would want to lend to us without a much bigger rate of return to offset the risk? Meanwhile, we have people dependent on getting what was promised from the government. We could get better deals for our dollars. That has nothing to do with the debt already incurred, and the need to continue borrowing to meet obligations already committed.
We have economic crisis, so Congress wastes our time and resources on a worthless show. If you can't give the people bread, give 'em a circus?
There is no saving ourselves out of deficit/debt. New industries with excitement and job growth are on their way every day. The route is not shared pain, but shared endeavor, to be educated and open to the new.
If anyone in DC were serious about deficit reduction, they would insist on funding alternative energy research, start-ups and education.
Lives and funds could be improved if prison time were confined to those who have acted violently. Nonviolent crimes: actual payment -- cash, service, or other methods.
Social Security is not causing economic problems, in fact ameliorates many of them.
Medicaid and Medicare are part of the problem of skyrocketing medical costs. What is being proposed to solve the actual problem?
The real fix on revenue would be a streamlined, clear, concise, user friendly instructions for giving our social structure its cut. Not a job that can be done in a hurry, though.
”Writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties is a big cop-out -- a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. “
This is twisted logic. Any observer can see both sides in the American body politic are equally to blame. Everybody knows it even while they deny it. Nevertheless, the statement that this is the result of a specious 'balanced perspective' is designed to destroy logic; is propaganda. It is designed to make people believe the answer lies within the field of play. So, Cohen says, get beyond the 10-yard line and the problem will finally be resolved.
He is wrong. The truth is the game is the same game when it is played over the whole field; the game, the rules, the stadium, the players and the spectators are a disaster: we need a complete change of game.
The significance of the 10-yard line image is that the USA as we see it today is the expression of a failed culture. The ground rules of US identity have to be changed. The balance in US English has to shift.The US spirit, as expressed by words and phrases like Free Enterprise, Capitalism, Democracy, Individualism, Can Do, God and Country and so on now lie exposed as so much trash and tinsel like Christmas decorations mistaken for truth, or consumerism mistaken for generosity.
What is the USA? This is the question.
We can start by stating what the USA is obviously not: It is clearly not America. Those who say it is are crazy. They are just insisting the bad game is good despite the clear advance of both their personal and US history towards the current absurdity. America consists of two continents and, no matter how the US intellectuals persistently assert otherwise, all on them are Americans. Language is important. Period! Say otherwise and no matter what else you say or think you are a conceited fool destined to think in ever smaller circles; an infinite regression.
Another way of saying this is that 'Americans' have long been busy looking up their own rectum and we won't mention the use of the mouth here. This is 'American Individualism' the perspective that has assiduously been printed on the US psyche, and it is no good. English Jingoism was its forerunner and is still lurking there in the foundations on both sides of the Atlantic.
There is much more to say but it has been done already and will be further done. My comment here is not an insult. It is just straight talk, for now is the time.
I have admired Jeff Cohen through the years of subscribing to FAIR and I guess he is reaching to a football analogy in order to connect to some who wouldn't otherwise read his remarks. We actually don't know who he wrote it for before CD picked it up. But given that, I think he missed the two most salient points, and that is there aint no ball down there and no game either. The debt ceiling is about raising how much more you can borrow, like getting a bigger limit on your credit card. It doesn't have any impact, either way, with respect to paying your already incurred obligations. That's the ball. And that's especially true when you can print all the money you want in order to pay any anxious creditors. That's the game.
Like so many other adults I have a credit card. Imagine that I will, some day, tell the bank that I will only pay my credit card debt if it reduces the interest rate to 1%. The bank will surely answer: "Mr. Crowsnest, you are a nice person, since you have always paid your debts on time we will reduce your interest rate to 1%", right? Now, that is exactly what all of the Democratic and Republican plans, including the Presidents 4 trillion giveaway, attempt to do. In other words these are unconstitutional "questioning the federal debt" which is even worse than my request which is only illegal. It is therefore a waste of time for me "on the sidelines" to even discuss these unconstitutional plans. I "on the sidelines" can accept only a "clean bill" Mr. President and I am mightily angry that you do not seem to understand your own unconstitutional 4 trillion (or whatever other figure has been bandied about) dollar shenanigans.
I guess I took too long a break and nap. I thought for sure Cohen was bashing the M$M and it's power to disinform or not inform or just plain ignore reality for its well fertilized dumbstream garden. I will accept that the MSM continues to not give details on any of the deals which is part of 'not informing'