Our political Quote of the Day comes from Esquire’s political blogger Charles P. Pierce on President Barack Obama’s quickly-called press conference where Obama spoke quite bluntly about there being no conditions to lift the Republican House engineered government shut down — and the new Republican threat to left American fall into debt default:
Yeah, I’m a little nervous about the fact that he mentioned that he might be open to a short-term fix; there is no reason to hand the vandals even the smallest fraction of a smidgen of a scintilla of a win in all this and, judging by the reaction of the courtier press, that’s exactly the way a short-term solution would be spun. But the basic position remains the same. Nothing happens until the vandalism stops and the hostage gets released. This is to keep the presidency intact for future presidents. This is to maintain the delicate separation of powers guaranteed to us by our Founders. This is also because the other side is completely riddled with public morons.
And yes, the link is telling. As is this. And this. And this.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.