Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator David Gregory was already predicting the GOP would get the blame for a government shutdown: "Washington loves to engage in the same kind of destructive behavior every couple years, whether it needs to or not....There's a universal feeling that the party that's more divided, that's Republicans, will feel most of the heat on this from the public..."
Referring to the fast-approaching debt ceiling, co-host Savannah Guthrie fretted: "...we now have a date on the real doomsday...we will reach the borrowing limit in this country no later than October 17." Gregory warned: "Well, I think it is a real crisis point because we know the kind of economic shock that the world, and certainly the U.S. economy, could feel if they were to take that step. That's why nobody messes with this and they always end up raising the debt ceiling, whether they want to or not."
More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.