Schumer Issues Orders to Democrats

Chuckie Schumer got caught with his foot in his mouth giving marching orders to Democrats regarding the budget battle:

Um, senators, ever heard of the mute button?

Moments before a conference call with reporters was scheduled to get underway on Tuesday morning, Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line, began to instruct his fellow senators on how to talk to reporters about the contentious budget process.

After thanking his colleagues — Barbara Boxer of California, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — for doing the budget bidding for the Senate Democrats, who are facing off against the House Republicans over how to cut spending for the rest of the fiscal year, Mr. Schumer told them to portray John A. Boehner of Ohio, the speaker of the House, as painted into a box by the Tea Party, and to decry the spending cuts that he wants as extreme. “I always use the word extreme,” Mr. Schumer said. “That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.”

A minute or two into the talking-points tutorial, though, someone apparently figured out that reporters were listening, and silence fell.

Today Howard Dean admitted that the Democrats want a government shutdown. They believe it will benefit them the way it did in 1995...but this isn't 1995. With trillion dollar deficits now the norm under Obama the idea of a government shutdown is not so politically incorrect. In fact, I'm not sure it wouldn't have pretty wide support right now. Anything to stop the bleeding.

As far as the story above goes, how many reporters will simply stick to the Democrat talking points and ignore the behind-the-scenes orchestration that was going on?  If the press was really doing its job they would ridicule anyone describing as "extreme" the cuts the GOP is proposing.  The amount they want to cut is barely a blip in the national budget.