After 10 Glorious Years, Sunshine State News and I Are Passing the Baton

Cancel any lingering illusion that Time magazine is conservative, or competent. Writing at the house that Henry Luce built, Michael Grunwald stubbed his prose when he went after Rep. Paul Ryan. Grunwald erred when he referred to Ryan's Wisconsin congressional district as "conservative." In fact, Barack Obama carried the district in 2008. (Grunwald's sentence was subsequently altered online to read "conservative caucus.")

As part of its budget discussions Thursday, the Florida Senate passed a measure that would end the discount for users of the state's SunPass system, which allows drivers to breeze through tolls with an electronic pass. Senate President Mike Haridopolos killed that idea Friday, saying he would reinstate the discount, which proponents say would net the state $100 million. But for Haridopolos, who has repeatedly stated his intention not to increase taxes in the face of a $3.8 billion budget shortfall, the measure came too close to a tax hike.

The Republican lines cracked Friday morning when the Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial questioning the GOP's strategy in the shutdown showdown. "It's clear enough by now that President Obama wants a shutdown and thinks he'll benefit politically from it," the Journal declared. Though the Journal typically questions or pooh-poohs anything Obama says, the editorialists this time laid out a case to prove him right.

Counting down to a shutdown, congressional negotiators are still at loggerheads over a spending plan that would keep the government running past midnight Friday. After a meeting with President Barack Obama Thursday afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed that no deal had been reached. Reid said discussions would resume at 7 p.m. Reid, D-Nev., sounded more optimistic than he did earlier in the day, but Boehner, R-Ohio, was less upbeat after Democrats dissed the House's latest funding plan.