The national dailies provide a nice compare and contrast and contrast in clear idiomatic English exercise regarding Pres. Obama’s debt sealing address last night.

New York Times:

Parties Head to Showdown as Obama Warns of a ‘Crisis’

The Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House on Monday barreled toward a showdown on competing plans to cut spending and raise the debt limit as a resolution to the intensifying crisis remained farther from sight just one week before a possible federal default.

Wall Street Journal:

Obama Warns of Default Risk

President and Boehner Spar Over Competing Debt Plans as Deadline Approaches

With Congress deadlocked a week before the government runs out of cash to pay its bills, President Barack Obama warned Monday in his starkest terms yet that the U.S. is on the brink of a default that could trigger an economic upheaval.

USA Today:

Obama, Boehner take cases on debt limit to nation

After a weekend of failed talks punctuated by walkouts and worries of a downgrading of U.S. debt, both sides in the showdown over the debt ceiling retreated into their own corners Monday and emerged with two competing plans.

Campaign Outsider InstAnalysis (pat. pending):

The Times is alarmist, the Journal is journalistic, USA Today is useless.

But that’s just us.