Americans are tired of playing the Republican Party's blistering game of high-stakes political brinksmanship, writes the New York Times' Charles M. Blow. He calls on the GOP House to end its futile feud with President Obama and get on with the business of governing the nation.
Speaker John Boehner barked Friday about the government shutdown: "This isn't some damn game."
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The House leader was responding to an anonymous "senior administration official" who was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article, saying: "We are winning. … It doesn't really matter to us' how long the shutdown lasts ‘because what matters is the end result.' "
(The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, distanced the administration from the boastful nature of that quote, referring to the president and a budget bill known as a continuing resolution in a tweet: "This is absurd. POTUS wants the shutdown to end NOW. Speaker can do that NOW by putting a clean C.R. to a vote. #JustVote")
That said, the speaker is wrong once again. This unfortunately is a game. It's a game that he allowed himself to be pushed into playing and one he can find no easy way out of.
Read Charles M. Blow's entire piece at the New York Times.
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