Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Smell that, my darlings? That's pure desperation, that is:

Earlier this week, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said Sen. Saxby Chambliss' (R) win in Georgia was proof that Republicans "now have the momentum." Today, Duncan goes even further, using the predictable outcome of a Red-state Senate race to deny Barack Obama a "mandate."

Georgians refuted any notion that the ideology of the country has shifted to the left.... Notably, Chambliss won in spite of strong support by President-elect Obama and Democrat organizations for Jim Martin. Georgian's clearly sent a message that any rhetoric about a liberal mandate is nothing but hot air. [...]

In the first contest since the presidential election and what many believe is the first race of the 2010 cycle, Republicans won because we coupled a strong, conservative candidate in Saxby Chambliss with a solid ground game that reached out to millions of Georgians and turned out the vote.

First, no one believes this was the "first race of the 2010 cycle." It was a run-off election to decide the outcome of a race in the 2008 cycle, which was, by the way, 30 days ago.

Second, Duncan is obviously latching onto the results in Georgia like a life-preserver, but the only "message" the Chambliss race offered is that a conservative Republican incumbent, with the aggressive backing of the Republican Party establishment, can still win a statewide race in a reliably "red" state. Indeed, Chambliss had a" solid ground game that reached out to millions of Georgians," but he still needed a runoff to win a race against a largely unknown opponent.

Keep a sharp eye on your straws, because the Cons are grasping at any they can find. This is just utterly pathetic.

The Con inability to understand economics is similarly pathetic:

The Wall Street Journal has a report today on Republican governors, restricted by balanced-budget requirements, who suddenly find themselves considering tax increases. The piece included this gem:

South Carolina's Gov. Sanford is resisting the urge to propose or accept raising taxes. Faced with a shortfall, Gov. Sanford reconvened the state Legislature in October, and it made $488 million in targeted budget cuts.

Gov. Sanford, unlike most of his colleagues, speaks out against any federal bailouts, including a fiscal stimulus bill that is likely to include state aid. "When times go south you cut spending," Gov. Sanford said. "That's what families do, that's what businesses do, and I don't think the government should be exempt from that process."

There was no indication in the article that Sanford was kidding.
Sanford isn't just some random conservative blowhard, ranting at the end of a bar; he's a governor and alleged "rising star" in Republican politics. That he has no idea what he's talking about is apparently inconsequential.

Publius does his level best to set Sanford straight: "This is of course dead wrong -- and confuses microeconomics with macro, as any student of Econ 101 could tell you. The micro-considerations of an individual family or business has nothing much to do with what governments need to do to get the larger economy moving again. Even worse, it's often affirmatively harmful to adopt microeconomic solutions to macroeconomic problems."

These idiots just can't get out of the tax cut rut, can they?

Ready for your daily dose of Dana Perino's parade of idiocy? You know you are. Here ye go:

Earlier this week, Karl Rove said that President Bush would not have invaded Iraq if he knew there were no WMD. In today’s press briefing, Helen Thomas asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino whether Rove is “in charge” of promoting Bush’s presidency. Perino responded, “No, I am. I have a team of people who’s helping talk about the president’s decisions that he’s made over the past eight years.”

Defending Bush’s pre-war intelligence failure, Perino claimed that “other leaders from all around the world” thought Saddam had WMD. When Thomas noted that British intelligence — referring to the the Downing Street Memo — disagreed with Bush, Perino simply said that the memo had been “debunked”:

Q: What about the chief of British intelligence saying you were going to fix the facts around the politics?

PERINO: I think that that’s been debunked.

Thomas quickly countered, “It’s never been been debunked.” Caught off guard, Perino admitted that she was the one who “debunked” it:

Q: It’s never been debunked.

PERINO: Well, it’s been debunked by me.

Well. That just clears that right up, then. Because we all know what a forensic authority Perino is, right?

For fuck's sake, these people are too stupid for words.

To end on a disgusted note, I hope you haven't eaten yet. I've been known to munch my dinner while watching autopsies, murder investigations, and all manner of disgusting things on teevee, so I believe I've got a reasonably strong stomach, but this just about made me toss my cookies:

A former technician who worked for contracting company KBR in Iraq has filed a class-action lawsuit saying the company “exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.” Joshua Eller’s suit includes particularly disturbing charges about KBR’s indifference to proper sanatization and the disposal of human remains:

The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.”

Way to support the troops, there. KBR has so far electrocuted, raped, and poisoned our soldiers. I do believe they have a solid claim to worst contractor evah.

That award should go nicely with Bush's Worst President Evah award.