Enough of this made-for-TV 'cliff' hysteria

As yet another make-believe Washington “crisis” looms, it’s tempting to suspect that the most fraught interludes in American politics derive from turning government into a TV show. Artificial deadlines, imaginary cliffs, villains and heroes — a state of permanent emergency. These well-worn dramatic devices have been the stuff of serial melodrama from “The Perils of Pauline” through “24.”

By: Gene Lyons, Syndicated Columnist