A Step Away From False Equivalence?

Note that it doesn't say "Two sides reach compromise" or "Extremists of the left and right yield to centrist views." This crisis was created wholly by "extremists of the right," and the paper clearly says so. (This summer's debt-ceiling fiasco had the same origin, but the media tended to pussyfoot around that truth.) I guess that when a Wall Street Journal editorial blasts the House GOP hardliners for being too stupidly and stubbornly ideological, anything is possible. Perhaps it's the Miracle of the Christmas Season?

We'll see what the print edition shows tomorrow. Who knows what this episode of overreach by the House Republicans means -- for the political balance, and for press coverage. Right at this moment it feels at least slightly similar to Newt Gingrich's overreach and miscalculation with the government shutdown in 1995.

I'm on another deadline tonight but thought this story was worth noting. (Previously on "false equivalence" here and here.)