We learned this week that sequestration cuts will force furloughs for those who help keep Americans' food supply safe, will deny tuition assistance to military veterans, and cause real hardship on low-income Americans who rely on housing assistance.
But for reasons that increasingly defy comprehension, Washington doesn't want to talk about any of these issues or related sequester-related suffering. Instead, the cancelation of White House tours is dominating the Beltway conversation.
By my count, there were eight questions about the tours at yesterday's White House press briefing. George Stephanopoulos wanted to talk about this during a rare interview with President Obama, asking two questions on this. Congressional Republicans wanted to talk about this when the president met with them privately, and they're weighing a new resolution on the issue.
This was a bizarre distraction last week, but yesterday, it seems Washington's interest in the sequestration cuts' effect on White House tours took a farcical turn. The CBO says the sequester will cost the nation 750,000 jobs and the Beltway yawns; the White House says tours will be canceled and the Beltway screams.
It's hard not to wonder why media professionals are playing along with this. Time's Michael Grunwald said reporters are "obsessed" with the tours issue because "Republicans are talking about" it, and I suspect there's something to this. I've long argued that Washington is simply "wired" to advantage Republicans -- it's GOP ideas that get attention; it's GOP talking points that get internalized; it's GOP voices that get aired -- and so it stands to reason that if Republicans care about White House tour cancelations, it's the issue that the president's press secretary will get eight questions on, to the neglect of real sequestration consequences.
But that leads to an obvious follow-up question: why do Republicans care about this?
Ezra Klein, who lamented the "gross obsession" with the issue, had a helpful item on this yesterday.
Here's what's going on. The Secret Service is getting cut under the sequester. They took a look at the things they do and one of those things is they stand guard during White House tours so no one runs off and tries to attack the president. So rather than cutting one of the things they really need to do, they cut the White House tours. Seems pretty reasonable.
The question is why Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the media have chosen this to get angry about. You can find the answer elsewhere on Fox News: "White House tours, which are self-guided, are typically scheduled through members of Congress. Visitors can request a tour through their representative up to six months in advance."
So, these kids come to town, they can't get the tour they scheduled through their member of Congress, and now they're not so happy with their member of Congress and the sequester. That means that member of Congress now has a problem with some of their constituents -- and with the kinds of constituents who are likely to contact their member of Congress when their kid goes to Washington.
That's not a reassuring answer, and it's certainly not a satisfying answer, but it's an accurate one. Republicans aren't especially concerned with families who'll suffer without housing assistance, because they're not calling the office and they probably won't support GOP candidates anyway. But White House tours? That's different.
But this doesn't change the fact that, given the larger context and real-world consequences of this ridiculous sequestration policy, Washington's preoccupation with these tours is perverse.
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There is a rather large middle school in D.C., with 538 students.
If the press were placed between two pages like a four leaf clover, it might just leave a stain.
The American press since the days of Hearst has always loved a bully, the press loves a fight, and the press would start a fight it there were none. If you were having a dog fight, people would read the news. If the dogs licked each other's faces you lose market share.
The reporters and talking heads' preemptive armistice; a temporary ceremony performed before in interview, allow them access to unsavory characters, needing some sanitizing restraint. Under straight jack control and mood control music, the reporter spoon feeds agreed upon pabulum, and the otherwise seething, foaming at the mouth, fight trained pit bull, spits words out between their teeth staring into the camera, like WWF would it be allowed to use automatic high capacity magazines. (Apologies to the WWF)
In this way the suit and tie press portrays monster and fiend as Sunday school teachers, in comfortable settings. With the sound out, we cannot tell them from the town rotary club concerning plantings for the town square, or from Americans being unconvinced that USS Lusitania, really had munitions, but then who tipped the Germans off allowing the US Senate to send Americans into the war; relieving the Russians who's returning misspent solders, went to the side of the Russian Revolution, a change that Oil companies thought would help their business. Digression aside, serious issues are at hand, but to the press resolution of conflict is not good news, and consequences as remote as they seem do finally matter.
With the equal access time provision sold to the highest bidder, the public matured in to cable network news. Unlike the newspaper where you wrap fish in or read again the cable network news was not much replayed. Then the internet came, and you could replay, what passed for news again and again.
The media and the press changed faster than the players. In polite company we might have seen enough of the poised press opportunity where a finely suited politician in front of a bored set of fellow travelers, with a back drop banner of some decidedly undemocratic lobbying group. Unfortunately technology high resolution cameras now show full frontal boredom. In less polite company in full blown anarchy we have the internet commentary, a modified version of the 70's "Laugh In", without seeing doors pop open, or a recognizable face, hearing the joke. So unfunny, that the sign in names are also so obscene that they have to be kept anonymous as they are comment headers, and then comments filled with toilet bowl material, that you hope it is not clogged as it would run across the floor, out the door and down the street.
The old fashioned peanut gallery has become a salmonella infested breeding ground, and the food inspectors are all furloughed.
It is too polite to call them the "Inside the beltway media" possessed of dog fights; we need to escalate to "Inside the Ring, Raging Bully."
It is safe to say that if a farmer plowed his fields this way, his chickens would be following to eat the seeds, and hogs would be a digging up potato eyes, in the end is cannot last.
The voracious bully game in Washington, played by seasoned anarchists, will not to the country any better than the whiskey gone mad farmer.
We wait for improvement but that will take the WWF to become more familiar with pointless politics, and the press to start wearing Spiderman tutus for serious discussions.
Why are Republicans obsessed with this and not the really important issues?
It's a "shiny object." The otherwise-unemployables of the Press Corpse love their shiny objects. The smaller the better so their tiny minds can become totally obsessed with the tiny object.
GOP cares about it for two reasons. First, it is more symbolic than it is substantial. We all know the GOP is all about the talking points. Second, it's in their faces. By that I mean, why worry about a low income person and their housing when they can worry about a financial donor that shows up for tickets and gets turned away?
For all the whine about the liberal main stream media, the GOP sure does have them doing on the talking point two step very well.
I see you all aren't getting it.
That's because nobody believes it. It's just a scare tactic for political effect.
Screams? That's an interesting word, an emotionally charged word, a word all out of proportion to being asked questions. Whatever, Obama and staff are so isolated they don't get that depriving children while spending a million dollars to play golf, shows Obama has a 1% mentality. Obama just demonstrated he doesn't care about anything other than crude political manipulation.
Why is it that nobody seems to notice how this is a huge distraction? The GOP want to distract the USA from the undeniable fact that this is all their fault. They aren't doing a very good job of that, considering the polls, but this angle allows them to farcically pin at least some of the blame on the President.
It's not that they care about their constituents, per se, it's that they want to find some way to blame the black guy for the mess they caused.
If only we listened to Rush Limbaugh more, I'm sure it would all become clear.
It's the first thing magicians learn: look at this hand here so you don't see what I'm doing with my other hand, which is what is actually doing the trick. Look at this symbolic cut, so you don't see how we're cutting tuition for in service troops' college, various social program cuts that hurt real people, etc.
And don't forget, the reason the media largely stays on the GOP's talking points is because most of them are owned by conservative individuals.
Scare tactic?
You can call it a scare tactic when the President says it, but, when a NON-PARTISAN entity like the CBO says it, you should be CONCERNED.
I think there is something getting lost in translation here. The thing is that the tours are first in government speak what is called "Non-mission critical operations" and second they cost money...
Republicans are absolutely obsessed with money at the moment and anything with a price tag that they don't like becomes fodder for their spending cut rhetoric...They Should be all about getting rid of things like this IF they were serious about reducing spending but they aren't because it affects THEM Personally...and that's why the reporters are after it because they smell conflict and want to sell content and that is where the disconnect is...the press should be asking congress WHY this is a crisis and not just a trimming of nonessential services...but they know that again pestering the White House sells and pestering Congressman Fogbound from Podunk doesn't
Last night at CPAC Calgary Ted Cruz made jokes about the cuts, so expect every speaker to do the same. They don't care about people, they care about narratives for context-challengened rubes who are foolish enough to swallow manure...
I agree that D.C. is wired for Republicans as they focus on the trivial, inane and profane.
Another followup question, why does the Washington press herd care so much about White House tours? A third followup question, why do we have a Washington press herd anyway? A stenographer could handle the whole job for a lot less. GE should lay a bunch of those reporters off and increase my dividends. After all most of them don't provide much value ad to any story especially this one.
So in hindsight, leading up to sequestration, the Prez should have just said, "No more White House tours" and that would have been sufficient to stop the Tea Party House in its tracks. Amazing what this country has come to -- the loss of a single tour hands-down beats the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in terms of priorities.
It's not a secret.
They think they can fool us into thinking that all the Sequester did was cancel the White House tours.
That way we won't notice the other stuff.
"Look up in the sky...is that a dead bird"
thats it exactly ny and 2.2, shadetail!
There is definitely reason for some minor complaint... As someone that lives in the DC area and have taken the tour a number of times with visiting relatives... there's a LOT of history in that tour. It's a very entertaining and educational time. I doubt this is why they're complaining....
It is a great tour, I have been on it myself. But it's also a great cut for the Secret Service, it does not endanger any lives.
So basically it boils down to the GOTP wanting to keep their monied pimp donors happy - and actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the real hurt working Americans are dealing with.
Yeah, and these people say with a straight face they haven't sold US out, right......
well, i might feel that the president was being unfairly put upon had i not opened up TPM this morning to find that obama was down at the other end of pennsylvania avenue trying to peddle 'entitlement reform' to the likes of paul ryan and eric cantor. the msm isn't the only thing infected with 'inside the beltway' syndrome.
And he's back down there this morning, bending over for the Confederates in the Senate after doing so yesterday for the traitors in the House.
Time for people to turn off the TV news - most channels anyway - since none of it is as informed as this blog and Rachel's show.....
What do you expect from a group of people for whom superficiality is more important than actual substance?
Well yes...the PRESS! God DAMMIT! is wired towards the GOP. They are obsessed with THEIR importance. Honest to God. I was watching Chuck Todd interview Hoeven this morning and I was outraged. 'Obama got his tax cuts!' Now the followup would be 'YOU got your spending cuts so NOW what?' but no....Next up was 'the President spends his time CAMPAIGNING!' and the obvious follow up would have been 'Well Senator, you spend three days a week in DC and then fly home to 'talk to your constituents'...one could SAY that the whole COUNTRY is the President's constituents'...but again NO. Then on to OFA...'should the PRESIDENT be doing THIS?' as if OFA was an offshoot of ACORN. What a bunch of crap.
The GOP and the media, including the MSNBC, live in a bubble and they are afraid to break it. Because if the do they will find that most all the time the are all wrong.
Repubs aren't interested in those losing benefits or about to lose jobs. I'm sure
they look at all of them as the 47% that are the slackers who should learn to take
care of themselves. And since the tours affect the other side of the percentage
(who in the 47% can afford vacation trips to D.C.), we should be concerned about
them. In reality, it's the Republican Congress who are living on the 'government
tit' because it looks like to me they are the non-workers on welfare.
The problem illustrated in picture form; just posted by Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/03/14/1714281/cable-news-obsessesively-covers-cuts-to-white-house-tours-virtually-ignores-cuts-to-programs-for-the-poor/
This is the problem with the Republican Party, people are being laid off, hours being cut, loosing their health care benefits for those who have been laid off and they are making jokes about the cuts. They are outraged about the White House tours being suspended, but don't give a rats ass about the men and women loosing their jobs and taking forced cuts in pay. Something is wrong with their priorities.
The other alternative view is that they don't care about the mission critical safeguarding of the president. What better way to ensure a 1 term presidency than to allow guns everywhere then reduce the actual protection the president receives. I say this in jest but part of me doubts they would complain about reduced protection.
Why can't the President just be honest about his desire to have Zulu rituals more often than those pesky White House Tours currently allow him and his family to have. White House tours have been curtailed not because of sequester but so Michelle and the kids can do the jungle boogey (all topless and stuff) in the foyer! (/snark)
Meanwhile, as Benen complains about it, he is talking about it. It's like there's there's 100% irony immunization amongst the liberal/progressive chattering class.
Get your goddamn big heads out of the rabbit hole the Republicans dug for you. For crying out loud, change the frickin' conversation.
anytime anyone in the news 'business' talks about silly inane 'junk' its filling those 24/7 shows with the things they are allowed to talk about. so the other 66% of the real news can stay a secret. lets talk about the companies that have moved 10s of thousands of jobs overseas. who are they and what was the effect on the cities and states that lost those jobs. why really is the price of gas so high. really! what is the real reason the medical industry is so expensive. why are food prices rising so fast. why! these are the basic questions that most americans would like answers to. because they affect all of us directly. day in and day out. not some rant by a whiney republican. i don't care what he thinks. hes only saying what his rich masters want him to say. heres a kid in north korea shooting off his mouth. wow! does everyone understand what happens if he shoots a missle at us. they cease to exist as a country. case closed! we can talk about how the gop is obstructing this country. now what! is this news. real news. come on! i know that the things that affect most americans are items that the 'sponsors' don't want the news to talk about; but those are the very things that mean the most to us. the things that change our lives the most. we deserve better!
In situations like this, I would love to see Mr. Carney tell a reporter who asked a stupid question like the ones about the tours, "I'll answer your question if afterwards you answer mine. Do we have a deal? My questions to you are with all the layoffs, three quarters of a million people, with all the cuts to our soldiers, with the reduction in money for Head Start, with all the other cuts that actually have a severe effect on people's lives, why are you concerned about tours? Why don't you regard these other cuts as worth discussing? Why is it that you don't give a hirsute rodent's derriere about Americans and what is happening to them?
The problem is not Taliban ideas but a media consumed by false equivalents