decided to play the "both sides" false equivalency game this weekend over who is to blame for shutting down the government and taking our economy hostage with the threat of default.

I'm not as old as Schieffer, but I've been around a little while myself, and every time I think our sorry excuse for a fourth estate can't fail us any further, they continue to prove me wrong.

Schieffer decided to blast the Congress for the government shutdown and talk about how "both sides" have their poll numbers sinking, but the one word he never managed to get past his lips during his commentary this Sunday was the word Republican.

SCHIEFFER: I've lived a long time, but I never thought I'd live to see what I saw around here last week. I come from the generation whose grandmothers aspired for their grandchildren to become president. So it was hard to believe last week's poll showing the country has become so disgusted with its politicians that six out of 10 Americans would like to see every member of Congress, Democrat and Republican, defeated. Most people don't like the way the president is handling his job, either.

But Congress now gets the approval of only 11 percent of the people. I heard several people ask, and who do you suppose comprises the 11 percent who are pleased with them? When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was asked what he would do if he were in the Senate, he said, if I were in the Senate right now, I would kill myself. I never thought I'd see a private citizen doing yard work around the Lincoln Memorial because Congress had shut down the government mowers, which was just after it dawned on Congress that they had inadvertently cut off death benefits for soldiers killed in battle.

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the 200-year-old clock outside the Senate Chamber finally stopped ticking because there was no one there to wind it. The first time that has ever happened, I think. But I can't say for sure. The only people who know have been furloughed. Back in a minute.