>I don't know how accurate this is, but it certainly is an interesting perspective and even more so if true:
>
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/04/09/who-won-shutdown-showdown-it-wasnt-even-close>
>I'm not taking sides, mostly because both sides are always too extreme and sometimes a real compromise is a good thing.
>
>However, I do have one comment: I watch a lot of PBS and listen to NPR, but when it comes to cutting the deficit: Planned Parenthood is far more important than PBS and NPR... no contest (even though the Dems in their argument were very misleading about Planned Parenthood - it doesn't give mammograms - it gives the individual a reference to a doctor or service that does and it is NOT free and the Republicans were even worse in trying to pin Planned Parenthood as only all about abortions. It's much more than that. Even so, on a separate note, sticking to their ridiculous requirement of no government funded abortions is SAD. I know many disagree with me, but it should be a part of health care and for medicaid recipients as well) I'm not sure if Planned Parenthood is behind the misleading promise of mammograms, it may be:
>
http://www.gofbw.com/news.asp?ID=12813>
>Could we get some real transparency please so people can have sufficient information to make informed choices? That should be the case on all public funded services and research projects, etc...
This is probably a completely predictable response from me. You probably could have written it yourself ;-)
In direct answer to your question, I don't think anyone won the showdown. Well, neither political party. They both demonstrated they were willing to shut down major parts of the government in an ideological battle. The winners were the estimated 800,000 federal workers who would have been furloughed (clean out your office furloughed, not go home and wait by the phone furloughed) tomorrow. As well as we ordinary Americans who would have discovered the government is not as useless as some like to say. You don't know what you got till it's gone (Joni Mitchell).
To me it was disgusting that the sticking point was not the fiscal numbers, which were not really that far apart and eventually easily reconciled, but conservative bugaboos like abortion, the NEA, and the EPA. The brats in the House say they are all about fiscal responsibility but the conservative social agenda is right there neck and neck.
I thought President Obama made a good contribution as a mediator. I am not giving him all the credit but when he got into round the clock discussions with the principals from both parties the logjam seemed to break. Maybe it was just a coincidence.
This is not the end of it, of course. There are two diametrically opposed views of how we should proceed as a country. That hasn't gone away. The next skirmish will be over raising the debt ceiling, and then the battle royale over the next budget.
FWIW --
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=paul%20krugman&st=cse
