A Brief, Literary Explanation of the Impending Debt Ceiling Confrontation

“I couldn’t forgive him them or like him them but I saw that what he they had done was, to him them, entirely justified.  It was all very careless and confused.  They were careless people, Tom and Daisy Congress — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made….”

F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (1925).

The Government Shutdown, in a Single Quotation

The Government Shutdown, in a Single Quotation

There’s more than enough recrimination to go around, this morning, for the Federal Government shutdown.

Speaker John Boehner took to the floor of the House of Representatives, last night, and tried out his impression of President Obama (video) — literally; I kid you not — who apparently told the speaker on the telephone: I’m not going to negotiate. I’m not going to negotiate — I’m not going to do this.