A Most Important Lesson

Even as many Americans begin their preparations for the weekend today, scores of politicians and many of our media colleagues are already ramping up for the next round of budget battles in DC.

It's ironic, really. After Wednesday's 'Come To Jesus' moment by moderate Republicans in Congress, many of our colleagues in political media are still excitedly talking about all the lessons the Republican Party has yet to learn from their devastating defeat dealt to them by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Yet many of our more tightly wound colleagues seem to have missed one of the most important lessons in life themselves - a lesson that this week's displays by right-wing extremists should have taught moderate Republicans as well as members of the political media.

Indeed, many people we know outside the media business are getting ready for a weekend of relaxing autumn festivals, catching up on sports or television shows, or visiting with some old friends. In short, when people can, folks outside of our business are getting ready to have a day or two off.

Even on our own staff, discussion of a commentary piece by Ezra Klein from Thursday - one that gives a completely wrongheaded assessment about what the Democrats in Congress should do next - drove more chatter than it should for a beautiful autumn Friday.

While we might decide to address that issue on Monday, the fact is, even we forgot - for a moment - the lesson that the right-wing extremists should have taught everyone who's been paying attention.

Indeed, some of our conservative colleagues in the media reminded us of that lesson this week, specifically Robert Costa of National Review Online and CNBC, and Dave Weigel of Slate.

For years, Weigel has been one of our go-to sources for sane takes on what the insane right thinks. His snark is a turn-off to some people, though some of our staff finds that snark gives the perfect amount of bite to stories that otherwise might be a bit too heavy. If you're not already following Weigel on Twitter, we recommend heavily that you do so today.

Even as Weigel is a master of the snark, Costa's work throughout this debt ceiling debacle has provided steady, even-handed, snark-free news reporting. Costa's view of what has been going on inside the Capitol, on the right and the far right, has been fantastically valuable to anyone who cares about truly honest journalism. As Erik Wemple at the Washington Post also noted on Thursday, if Fox News followed Costa's lead, they'd be in fabulous shape. Of course, Fox isn't really in the business of news. They're in television - which is to say, entertainment, not news.

The lesson both Weigel and Costa teach in how they report is the same lesson the extremists in the GOP also taught, in the inverse, this week.

That lesson is simple. If you want to get ahead in life, on a daily basis, there's really no reason to run around screaming your head off, and throwing it around at people. That's going too far, and usually only leads to people running away from you.

In short, if you really want to get ahead in life, you also have to know when to stop.

Ringing The Bell

After a long two weeks, America and the world breathed a deep sigh of relief when, last night, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives finally passed a bill to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling - until early in 2014 - and President Obama signed it into law.

Make no mistake - this fight went the full twelve rounds and more, though it was the American people who were feeling most of the punches. As Chris Cillizza noted in the Washington Post, politicians will say there weren't any true winners in this match, even though we all know that's not entirely true.

If anyone won anything in this fight, President Obama and Congressional Democrats - as well as the American people - have to be on that winners list. By standing together, they've now proven that the majority of the nation can stand up to the political bullies of the extremist right - and that the right wing will back down.

For what it's worth, the costs of this battle were significant. S&P figured up the cost to the U.S. economy in this round was $24 billion, nearly 0.6% of America's fourth quarter GDP, and the nation lost nearly 1 million jobs. That doesn't even take into account all the individuals and businesses who now have a serious ding on their credit, thanks to more than two weeks without paychecks or customers.

The most visible hit, however, was a political one, where the Republican Party frankly knocked their own block off - and the Tea Party effectively is now bleeding out on the floor.

According to the latest Pew Poll, Americans now dislike the extremist Tea Party wing of the Republican Party more than they ever have before. The same poll shows Republicans are so ashamed of their extremist wing, most of them are in denial the Tea Party is even part of the GOP. What's more, the nominal leader of the Tea Party insurgents, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, outright admitted Wednesday afternoon that his entire goal in this disaster was to raise money for any future political campaigns he might have.

As Ezra Klein joked on Wednesday, Cruz may as well have been a sleeper agent for the Democratic Party, as the damage he's done to the GOP is deeper than almost anything the Democratic Party could have accomplished.

Conservatives even began taking shots at their own closed loop media infrastructure, blaming it for only telling them what they wanted to hear. No surprise that the biggest blowhard in right-wing media, Rush Limbaugh now says the Republican Party is the most irrelevant party he can remember.

You built that, Mr. Limbaugh. Enjoy.

As much as we'd love to say this perpetual brawl is now over for good, we don't truly believe it is. Neither do other experienced journalists like Michael Tomasky or Sahil Kapur.

Still, when counting up the costs of this fight, it's important to note the cost/benefit ratio.

The extremist Republicans cost the nation nearly a million jobs - over $24 billion in the economy already - and have effectively destroyed their political chances for 2014 in the Senate, and quite possibly in the House.

Here's the benefit Republicans gained for themselves and the nation, politically speaking, after sixteen days of stupidity:

Nothing.

Hope it was worth the fight, Republicans.

Why? Stupidity.

If you're like most well-informed Americans right now, including our staff, you're likely still concerned about the very real chance that Congress - led by the extremist right-wing Republicans - will push our nation into financial default in less than 48 hours.

At the time our staff is gathering content for Wednesday morning's edition, Senators Reid and McConnell have resumed their talks for a Senate deal, which could potentially get a vote at some point on Wednesday. The embarrassingly disastrous House Republican plan already went up in flames late Tuesday afternoon. The House plan was so bad, not only had all House Democrats agreed to vote against it, but even the right-wing Heritage Foundation was warning Republicans to vote against it - which is why Speaker Boehner had the bill pulled.

President Obama, in an interview Tuesday afternoon, still said he believes Congress will send him a bill that solves this problem before much more damage is done to our economy. That assurance didn't calm Wall Street credit ratings agency Fitch, who began warning late on Tuesday afternoon they may downgrade the nation's credit rating again if Congress doesn't pass a plan to fix both the debt ceiling and government shutdown, right away.

Obama's assurance also didn't calm the nerves of millions of Americans, who overwhelmingly - and correctly - blame Republicans for creating this horrible situation.

For all the anger and blame being thrown around, and debate about what the core reason is for America being in this jam there are a few key groups that seem to be escaping accountability right now: uninformed voters, moderate Republicans, and the Supreme Court.

Yes - stupid people are to blame for this mess. Some of them may even be reading these words right now.

Indeed, as a recent Pew Research poll found, 64 percent of Tea Party Republicans think blowing through the debt ceiling will have no major effect, even though EVERY trustworthy economic expert worldwide disagrees. Of course, these are the same idiots that elected people like Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, a man who continues to insist he's going to stop Obamacare. It doesn't matter to Yoho that the Affordable Care Act is already in place, helping millions - and according to the CBO, repealing the ACA would add billions to the deficit.

We also have to blame the media at large, to some degree, for those uninformed, brainless voters who chose morons like Rep. Yoho, specifically, the right-wing media. Year after year, legitimate studies keep proving that Fox "News" viewers are the least well-informed of all Americans. Even those people who don't watch cable news or listen to talk radio are better informed than your average right-wing fool. Yet, those idiots vote too - and as we mentioned, they vote for morons like Rep. Yoho.

Finally, the Supreme Court must also come in for some of the blame, in allowing the massive misinformation of Americans. While the Citizens United ruling is the most well-known recent mistake of this kind by the Court, the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling - the one that said that money was speech - is the original failure in this regard. As the Court has just begun to hear another case that might allow even more money to brainwash voters, this failing is even more key now.

No matter who in DC is to blame for this mess, the truth is that we've all had a hand in creating this disaster for many years.

We just hope that somehow, Congress can arrive at a solution at the last minute. America needs another massive financial crisis like we need another hole in our collective head.