Randi Rhodes: Shutdown Adverted

On Today's Show

Well, it seems we managed to avoid a government shutdown, unless you’re a conservative, in which case you look at it more like you failed to cause a government shutdown. The deal was announced with just over an hour remaining before government would have had to shut down. Suddenly the Tea Party people had to put away all their champagne and noisemakers. They never got to have their “death to government” countdown, with Michele Bachmann riding a crystal ball to the bottom of a pole.

President Obama announced the deal with the Washington Monument in the background, saying it would stay lit up. Oh, and speaking of lit up, the first announcement came from Speaker John Boehner. Boehner announced the deal shortly before 11pm. Do you know how hard it is for John Boehner to avoid being visibly drunk by 11 at night? I guess people made sacrifices all around. But you know that as Boehner was making his announcement, an aide was standing just off camera with a bottle of Merlot and a funnel.

Dana Milbank points out that the demise of Glenn Beck’s Fox News show comes at the same time as the economic recovery is picking up steam. Those two things are connected. And that’s the only possible connection in the universe that Glenn Beck has never made. Glenn Beck cried “wolf!” too many times. Then he made a fool of himself trying to connect the wolf to George Soros. Beck has also been telling his minions to hoard food. From the looks of Glenn, he’s been taking his own advice. I think he’s been hoarding it in his cheeks, like some kind of paranoid chipmunk.

To nobody’s surprise, a Rupert Murdoch property is being accused of hacking, though it’s not the sort of “hack” you usually associate with media outlets that are run by Rupert Murdoch. Rupert’s British tabloid, the News of the World, admits that it hacked into the phone lines and voicemails of high-profile figures. That has to be the only research that anybody in Rupert Murdoch’s empire has ever done. Really guys, why are you eavesdropping on people to get information? Do what your mates at Fox News in the US do, and just make the stuff up from scratch.

Today’s Homework | Discuss

President Obama late Friday announces that a government has been narrowly averted…