Author Question: Which statement best describes the change in the relationship between the press and the president as ... (Read 44 times)

jho37 · **on:** Jul 9, 2018

Which statement best describes the change in the relationship between the press and the president as a consequence of the Watergate scandal?

A)Journalists can reap professional rewards by exposing scandals in the executive branch, even if those scandals shake the faith of Americans in their political institutions, and thus they no longer adopt a deferential stance toward the actions of presidents.
B)Investigating the executive can exact an exceedingly high toll on journalists' personal and professional lives, and thus they have adopted a deferential stance toward the actions of presidents.
C)The American public has little interest in the investigation of scandals within American government, and so journalists have returned to the basic journalistic practice of reporting the facts provided by the government.
D)Journalists have the ability to bring down entire presidencies, reaping personal and professional fame in the process, and thus they now focus exclusively on investigative journalism and ignore mundane and nonscandalous events.

Question 2

Explain the debt ceiling crisis and analyze the effects of party polarization on efforts to address this problem.

What will be an ideal response?

chereeb · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 9, 2018

Answer to Question 1

A

Answer to Question 2

The ideal answer should:
a. Define the debt ceiling as the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow to meet its budget obligations.
b.Explain that during the 2011 crisis, the federal government faced a situation in which if the budget ceiling were not raised, the government would run out of money and risk defaulting on debts and/or shutting down key programs such as Social Security.
c.Describe the factors that contributed to the impasse between the two parties in Congress, specifically the refusal by liberal Democrats to cut spending and the insistence by conservative Republicans on deep spending cuts.
d. Demonstrate how party polarization, the gap between the two major parties on ideological grounds, made it impossible for President Obama to negotiate a deal with Speaker Boehner, in part because moderates were in short supply and conservatives exercised extreme pressure on moderates to hold the party line.
e. Discuss how this experience further emboldened President Obama to bypass Congress and rely on unilateral power to achieve his objectives.