If you don't have anything to say …

don't say anything.

But if you do – and you'd rather it not be public – make sure you're not saying it on a hot mic.

You win games. Football, baseball, Scrabble, checkers … those are games. Shutting down the government is NOT a game and you should not suggest that you want to "win."

Especially when 800,000 furloughed federal employees aren't winning at all.

I'm kind of wishing we could all go back to a time when ABC, CBS and NBC aired news programming at 6:30 p.m. Or was it 6 p.m.? CNN launched in 1980, but even then wasn't a major player for news.

MSNBC hit the airwaves in the summer of 1996, followed three months later by Faux Fox News. The Clinton impeachment (I did NOT have sex with that woman!) happened in 1998, and cable news was ready. Viewers hunkered down in front of their screens, taking sides and watching every last finger-shaking defense from the President of the United States.

And the news hasn't been the same since. And neither have our leaders.

And that's the way it is.

Good night, Chet. Good night, David.