Where The New York Times Misses the Boat

Remember way back in February when Obama decided that getting the stimulus done quickly was more important than getting it done efficiently? Remember how it was a flawed bill that no one really liked? Remember how the Republicans in the House all voted against it and how Snowe, Collins, and Specter flipped in the Senate and were the only reason as to why it was passed? Remember all that?

I remember telling people at the time that this was political stupidly by the G.O.P. Obama asked them to be apart of the bill and the G.O.P. leaders got upset because it wasn't what they wanted, so they decided to give America and Obama the middle finger by not voting for the bill... it was only a matter of time before that came back to bite them in the ass.

And that time is now. With Specter deciding that he HAS to be a Senator and thus switching parties, the G.O.P. is panicking. The change in the Senate pretty much means that the Republicans are completely shut out of the political process.

So when I saw yesterday that the New York Times finally figured this out, I was disappointed that it took until page 22. But as the paper points out, there have been a mad dash of Republicans trying to work with and voting for Democratic bills.

Scores of House Republicans joined Democrats in recent days in pushing through measures meant to rein in credit card companies, increase federal resources to pursue financial fraud and crack down on predatory housing lenders — all legislation opposed by top House Republicans. On the credit card and financial fraud bills, only a minority of Republicans ended up opposing them.

This shouldn't come as any surprise because, as I am now repeating myself, the G.O.P. is currently shut out of the law making process. If they don't work with the Democrats, then they'll get nothing. In other words, they don't bring back the bacon to their home districts. No bacon, no reelection. No reelection, no job...

But here is where the article gets it all wrong:

Democrats say the fracturing suggests that rank-and-file Republicans are growing nervous about their leadership’s near-blanket opposition to the agenda that Congressional Democrats and President Obama are pursuing, particularly on measures that have obvious popular appeal.

They aren't nervous about opposition to Obama, they're nervous about their jobs.

This is where the media really drops the ball, why not tell us that the reason why Republicans are working with Democrats is because if they don't... they get nothing. They HAVE to work with the Dems if they want to stay on the Hill.

There is not a breakdown of Republican unity on the Hill. And to write that there is a problem within the party is lazy and anti-intellectual.

And yet another reason why newspapers are dying.