The refreshing part is the clear and un-nuanced call out of the Speaker of the House who CHOSE to shut the country down to tilt at the favored windmill of a deluded band of dead-enders.
But please read it for yourself:
John Boehner's Shutdown
The consequences of Mr. Boehner’s failure will be immediate: 800,000 government employees thrown out of work, over a million more working without pay, offices that provide important services closed, and programs on which poor people depend — like the Women, Infants and Children nutrition system — cut off. The longer Republicans refuse to approve a rational spending measure, the more federal agencies will be affected and the greater the damage done to an economy still in recovery.
The New York Times Editorial Board, October 1, 2013
It hard to imagine the reasoning process of the man who chose the consequences to the country detailed above as
his best move.
When the Republican Party has a majority in the House, they apparently simply cannot stop themselves from going outside all reasonable and rational parameters of debate and then subsequently shutting down the government simply because they can. They did not learn a thing from their last deployment of this despicable tactic seventeen years ago. This is the second time they have decided that their demands supersede the very existence of the government of the nation.
As an average citizen it is as frightening as seeing your local fire department overrun with arsonists. How is it possible that the majority Party in the Congress, "the People's House" and their Leaders can think and do and say and act as preposterously and irresponsibly as these buffoons have done recently*
This is THEIR shutdown. They must feel the consequences of their actions from voters of every persuasion. We may disagree, but we vote and then regardless of the outcome, we deserve at the very least a basic functionality.
*- define "recently" for yourself. (I would date the insanity from the first appearance of the Tea Party and their whole "we want our country back! (from the 20th century) movement.)