John Cole just about perfectly sums up where my head is at right now on our national discourse:

As entertaining as it was watch Obama make the Republicans look like the idiots that they are at their retreat last week, what really changed? They still believe all their talking points, as do their teabagging base, because this isn’t about facts or logic or reason, this shit is religion to these folks. And it wasn’t more than a few hours that our Politico inspired media was offering “equal time” for the Republicans to edit their remarks and inject more bullshit into the debate. Jeb Hensarling was given multiple opportunities for a do-over immediately after being depantsed, and guess what the media did?

That’s right- they just wrote down what he said and didn’t bother to fact check it or point out he is full of shit. And so it goes.

When you realize that our media is basically a bunch of 12 year olds (see the #dickwhisperer’s column on the sexiness of Orzag for yet more evidence), there simply is nothing you can do to inform the public, half of which chooses to remain uninformed (seen the polling on evolution lately?). Add to it that the Democrats all want different things from the bill, and so value and cherish their independence and willingness to criticize (we’re not like Republicans! We criticize our leaders! Fap! Fap! Fap!) that none of them can suck up their pride and work together, and this would probably just provide another opportunity for a circular firing squad.