Reply #2: Distraction is their game

[David Gill]

Welcome to the latest Fox News distraction!

Here's the thing: this lightbulb rule doesn't matter. I mean, everything matters, but compared to the debt ceiling, and the huge inequities between rich and poor in this country, it's meaningless. But if they can keep the nation distracted, no attention will be paid, and nothing will be done about those serious things. And it can only work if there's a liberal base on the other side that fights for it and says "If these light bulbs go dim, so will our nation!". Otherwise it's just a story for a day, doesn't have any staying power in terms of controversy, and dies out.

This stupid light bulb thing could literally take up a full week, maybe two, in the national news cycle. Hell, how long were we talking about flag pins?? They're already making illusions to nanny states, and freedom of choice. The main thing to remember is that whatever's going to ultimately happen about this, will probably happen whether there's a big fight over it or not. Either there are the votes in the Senate to change it, or there isn't. Either Obama would veto something like this (he wouldn't, by the way, if it was attached to something important, which it would be).

It's kind of like when some dumb kid on the playground would say "Shut up", and you didn't really care about talking anyway. You could come back and say "You shut up", or "No!", and then you could go back and forth all day. Sometimes it's easier to just stop talking, and let the people looking on see that the idiot is acting like an idiot.