http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/not_leveling_with_viewers.php?ref=fpblg
It is not partisan or spin to say that the Democrats have repeatedly offered compromises. The real driver of the debate is that the fact that Republican majority in the House can't agree to win. Even Fred Thompson is urging Republicans to declare victory and get out. But that's the point. Their leaders cannot control their caucuses. The real problem at the moment isn't that neither side's caucus can accept the other side's 'plan'. The real issue is that Speaker Boehner doesn't have the votes in his caucus for his own 'plan'.
That tells you almost everything you need to know about what's happening and where we're going. And journalism should be about communicating these highly salient facts to people who come to news organizations seeking to understand what's happening in the world they're living in.
A week or so back I was talking to a guy who's a big time investor. The sort of person who has more money than you or I could ever imagine -- and knows all the market side of this stuff -- but doesn't have an intimate feel for Washington. And this person basically asked: What's the story? What's actually happening here? Is this theater? Are they actually going to do this? Run us off this cliff?
I hemmed and I hawed because I'd been thinking about the question myself for so long and I wasn't sure I had any good answer. And what I finally came up with was this. Yes, at some level it's a game of chicken. Something we can all understand pretty intuitively in human nature and game theory terms. But to really get what's really going on you've got to understand one key point: one of the two cars doesn't have a driver in it. Which changes everything.
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