Members of the liberal media continue to pile disrespect on the debt limit as the drumbeat for Congress to raise it grows louder. On Thursday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell called the debt limit “a really dumb idea” and said there was no reason for it. That's right, she wants to get rid of it altogether.
Mitchell was talking to Rachel Maddow about the coming debt ceiling showdown in Congress when she made her comments. Maddow had just expressed hope that the country would reach an “adult moment” when Congress came together and raised the debt ceiling just in the nick of time. Mitchell seized on the “adult moment” line: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]
"By the way, speaking of adult moments, you're an adult, and you’ve got a big platform. We should just join forces, all of us. There is no reason for the debt ceiling. It's not in the Constitution. This should not be happening all the time. We should figure this out."
Wow. Keep in mind that, although she hosts an MSNBC program, Andrea Mitchell is meant to be a serious journalist. It’s not every day you hear a journalist issue a call to arms: “We should just join forces, all of us.”
It’s not clear exactly who Mitchell was talking about, but based on the context, she may have been talking about the “adults” who want to get rid of the debt ceiling. Apparently the adult thing to do is to remove any pretense of fiscal accountability from the federal government. But in order for that to work, we would need a government of adults capable of spending within their means so as not to rack up an ungodly amount of debt. And therein lies our problem, because we do not have such a government. The debt ceiling, however weak it may be, at least forces our leaders to consider whether the national debt is getting too high.
Maddow, being the leftist that she is, agreed with Mitchell’s views on the debt ceiling. According to her, we shouldn’t even talk about the debt: “[I]t turns out when we talk about the debt, we go crazy and accidentally hurt the country.” Mitchell jumped in with her assent: “It’s a really dumb idea.”
The two women were birds of a feather during this segment. It’s not a good sign when an NBC correspondent agrees wholeheartedly with a left-wing ideologue like Rachel Maddow. It shows that the line between news and liberal commentary is being blurred at the NBC/MSNBC complex.
Below is a transcript of the segment:
ANDREA MITCHELL: By the way, speaking of adult moments, you're an adult, and you’ve got a big platform. We should just join forces, all of us. There is no reason for the debt ceiling. It's not in the Constitution. This should not be happening all the time. We should figure this out.
RACHEL MADDOW: We established it in statute, the way that we did, so that we would have to talk about the debt every time when it came around. Well, okay, it turns out when we talk about the debt, we go crazy and accidentally hurt the country.
MITCHELL: It’s a really dumb idea.
MADDOW: We can't handle it. It could be done away with. I mean, Nancy Pelosi has raised again the prospect that President Obama should effectively ignore the debt ceiling, cite the Fourteenth Amendment, raise it himself...
MITCHELL: Blow through it.
MADDOW: ...and blow through it. And the president has said he didn't want to do that on constitutional grounds when we have previously been here. I think that this time if it looks like we really are going to hit it, he's going to have to reconsider.
