More Bad Reporting

From the NYT,

Seizing on Democratic threats to slow the majority agenda in the Senate, Republicans intend to paint Democrats as uncompromising obstacles to popular legislation. The message is simple, they say - no highway money, no energy bill, no tax relief.

and

Charlie Cook, a veteran nonpartisan analyst of Congressional races, said he believed that Democrats could benefit initially from the showdown if the public interpreted the Republican move as a power grab. But voters could eventually side with Republicans if they succeed in making Democrats seem petulant and obstinate.

The article offers this catch,

Democrats have softened their earlier tone on paralyzing the Senate, saying they intend to push their own initiatives. And they say a snarled Senate has much less public resonance than does a government-wide shutdown like the one in 1995 that backfired on Newt Gingrich, the House speaker, and Congressional Republicans.

But this article is on the whole entirely unrepresentative of the issue. First off, it does not even begin to describe the massive abuse of power that the GOP is committing in trying to eliminate the filibuster. Second, it gets the Democratic stance completely wrong and instead characterizes it with GOP talking points. The Democrats will NOT shut Congress down. If the GOP succeeds in eliminating the judicial filibuster the Democrats will use rule XIV in order to speed up legislation. This involves disregarding the tradition of letting the majority party set the agenda and pushing initiatives to a floor vote instead of letting them get held up in committe. Explain to me how this is holding up government. But meanwhile, the NYT can say what it wants and do FOX News' job for them. However, for me, between the Republican and the mock Republican, I'll take the Republican.