The Spin Cycle

The dinosaur media machine is in overdrive, racing to cast blame on Republicans for the coming government shutdown that GOP members in Congress have actually bent over backwards to avoid. On this front, Republicans are being over cautious and too accommodating because they fear that the onus of blame for the shutdown will fall on them as it did during the Clinton era shutdown of 1995. But this is a new age, with the New Media tearing deeply into legacy media hold over the narrative. Then, the Internet was in its infancy and talk radio was but a babe up in arms personified largely through the single voice of Rush Limbaugh. Now, America has the FOX news network, hundreds of conservative talk radio shows not only at the national but at the local level, and vibrant voices from the right all over the world wide web. This is not 1995 and Barack Hussein Obama is no Bill Clinton.