What's the shutdown standoff all about? Don't dis me Bro

Stutzman

A rather obscure congressman from Indiana has become the face of the government shutdown standoff in the last 24 hours simply because of one quote.

A conservative Republican, Marlin Stutzman toldthe Washington Examiner this: "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

EzraKlein of the Washington Post summarizes the mess on Capitol Hill this way:

“Stutzman is right. The fight over the shutdown has become unmoored from any particular policy demands the GOP believes it can secure. It's become an issue of pride and politics. At this point, Republicans simply need something so they can tell themselves, and their base, that they didn't lose. They don't know what that something is, exactly. But it needs to be something.

“By the same token, the Democrats literally can't give them anything without losing. Not until the shutdown ends, anyway. And, on CNBC on Wednesday, President Obama added that the Democrats can't give them anything until the debt ceiling is raised. ‘Until we get (the shutdown) done, until we make sure that Congress allows treasury to pay for things that Congress itself already authorized, we are not going to engage in a series of negotiations,’ Obama said.

“It's this dynamic that makes 2013 so much more dangerous than 2011. The negotiations in 2011 weren't zero sum. For one side to win, the other didn't have to lose. That's because the negotiations in 2011 were over policy -- in particular, over a broad deficit-reduction package. Since both sides wanted to reduce the deficit, it was conceivable that both sides could walk away feeling like they'd won some and lost some.”