‘This ain’t a football game. We do this every day.’

Gene Lyons wishes politics was baseball, and makes this observation:

Business correspondent Ali Velshi struggled to explain the basics to the excited anchorman. Investors cashing out of stocks were buying U.S. Treasury bills. Bond yields were dropping — precisely the opposite effect S&P’s grandstanding would have caused if markets took it seriously.

Short of dousing Blitzer with a fire extinguisher, there seemed no way to make him understand. Actually, I expect he wasn’t confused, but performing. Cable news channels hype Washington melodrama to boost ratings. Absent real crises, they invent them. Broadly speaking, Republican operatives understand this; Democrats not so much.

. . .

Now a baseball announcer who didn’t grasp the infield fly rule, or pretended that the Yankees batting order affected their earned run average would be out of work. Fans demand competence. Sports journalists have their faults, but they do have to get the scores right.