WEDNESDAY: Can anybody here play this game?

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2025

Two-thirds know little or nothing: Did we read the New York Times wrong? As we noted this very morning, here's what the news report said (and still says):

Pressed on Justice Dept. Politicization, Bondi Goes on Attack

[...] 

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, opened the questioning by asking if the White House had consulted Ms. Bondi on the deployment of federal troops to Chicago. She ignored the question and instead raised her voice to accuse Mr. Durbin, a 28-year veteran of the Senate who has delivered billions of dollars in criminal justice funding to his state, of disloyalty to his constituents.

“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” she said.

Right there in paragraphs 4 and 5, that's what the news report says.

In fact, we'd seen that exchange between Durbin and Bondi on three or four cable news programs. We'd seen Bondi offer that accusatory non-answer non-reply to Senator Durbin's question.

That said:

From reading the article in the Times, we got the idea that Senator Durbin had actually "opened the questioning" in the manner described. But looking at the C-Span videotape, we now see that Senator Grassley had questioned Bondi at some length before Durbin took his turn.

According to the C-Span videotape, that accusatory non-reply by AG Bondi actually happened at roughly the 40-minute mark of yesterday's proceedings. 

As we noted yesterday afternoon in a brief aside, different people will have different reactions to Bondi's refusal to answer various questions, and to the unmistakable body language with which she broadcast her disdain for a string of Democratic Party senators.

To us, her behavior looks unmistakably insolent. To others, she may have come across as a heroine of the tribal wars. However you score it, civilizational breakdown is indicated by the relentless behavior you can observe on the C-Span videotape.

Reading Rev's transcript isn't enough. You have to look at the body language to see how stark the dismissal was.

Somehow, we managed to get a misimpression from reading the New York Times. That said, Bondi did return to the jibe she aimed at Senator Durbin a few hours later, as we noted this morning.

She played the same insult card in a scolding non-response to a question from Senator Padilla. As we noted this morning, she rebuked him for the length of time he had spoken, then returned to that same old jibe:

First, Senator Padilla, you've gone on for over five minutes, and I wish that you loved your home state as much as you hate President Trump. We'd be in really good shape then. 

Yes, that's what she said. We've referred to this as a silent secession. Whatever you think of that silent secession, we do think that phrasing is apt.

We've begun to hope that the president's conduct is becoming so weird and so extreme that public opinion will start turning against him in a decisive way. That said, none of us knows how far this administration might be willing to go if some such situation actually starts taking shape.

We'll offer one more observation about the way our national discourse now works or fails to work. Also in today's New York Times, a news report seeks to explain a major policy matter. Here's how that news report starts:

What’s Behind the Dispute Over Extending Health Care Subsidies

At the heart of the government shutdown fight is a dispute over extending expiring subsidies that help people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are demanding that Republicans renew the tax breaks that help pay for the coverage, which are set to expire at the end of the year, as part of any funding extension to reopen the government.

Republicans, so far, have said such an extension does not belong on a spending measure, and some have argued that Congress should let the subsidies expire.

Here is a look at the debate.

The Times report continues from there, laying out some basic information. With an eye to the death of the American discourse, we were struck by the way this news report ends.

The news report ends like this:

Before the shutdown, few Americans knew much about this issue. It barely came up during the 2024 presidential race, and the tweaks to a subsidy formula are a bit wonky and technical to understand.

But when surveys ask voters what they think about the policy, they tend to overwhelmingly support an extension of the subsidies.

A recent survey from KFF showed that more than three-quarters of adults, including 59 percent of Republicans, thought Congress should extend the subsidies. But it also showed that nearly two-thirds of people had heard “little” or “nothing at all” about the issue.

That's the way the news report ends. Nearly two-thirds of us the people know little or nothing at all about this important topic. 

To some extent, it's always been like this. To some extent, we'll guess that, thanks to all the civilizational warfare, matters are now somewhat worse.