All those sanctimonious tears shed by Democrats over how the government shutdown hurt Americans? Turns out they were of the crocodile variety.
Ed Schultz gave away the game in opening his MSNBC show tonight. Avoiding another shutdown is "bad news" for Democrats, said Schultz. View the video after the jump.
The cynicism is stunning. Schultz, and surely many Dems—their touching displays of sympathy for affected Americans notwithstanding—would have been delighted to see another shutdown. As Ed put it, another shutdown would "destroy" Republicans.
Note: the show did display a graphic depicting the avoidance of a shutdown as "good news." But Schultz made clear that he saw it as such only for Republicans, while declaring it "bad news" for Dems.
ED SCHULTZ: We begin the show with breaking news, just moments ago. The Senate just voted 64-36 to pass the bipartisan budget bill. And let me tell you, there's a whole bunch of good news in it for the Republicans. Because this is a blockbuster for them. The budget does avoid a shutdown for the next two years, which I think is bad news for the Democrats. Politically, if they were to shut down the government again, it would destroy them in the mid terms. So the Republicans were smart enough to make sure that this budget deal is going to avoid a shutdown.
