Do We Have to Threaten Big Bird to Get NPR to Report the Budget Fairly?

The issue arises because Morning Edition decided to lead off its top of the hour news segment by telling listeners of the number of days until we hit the "fiscal cliff." While one could view this as a random fact, like the number of days until the winter solstice or Super Bowl XLVII, but that is presumably not how it was intended. Most likely this number would be viewed as a countdown against an important deadline.

Of course the end of the year is not an important deadline as every budget exp...