Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I don't even know where to begin today. The stupid pours forth like a flooding Washington State river.

Whelp. Let's take Aristotle's advice and start (relatively) small and build. First, Cons on the economy:

Dick Cheney declared during Bush's first term, "Deficits don't matter." Congressional Republicans agreed, spent freely, and gladly put two wars on the national charge card. The results were trillions of dollars in additional debt and enormous annual budget deficits.

Now that the White House is poised to welcome a Democratic president, and an economic crisis demands massive new federal spending, congressional Republicans have decided they suddenly care about deficits again. How convenient.

Out of power, Republicans appear to be retreating to familiar old ground. They're becoming deficit hawks again.

GOP lawmakers didn't seem to mind enjoying the fruits of government largesse for the past eight years while one of their own was in the White House. Now they're struggling to regain footing at a time of economic rout, a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit and an incoming Democratic president claiming a mandate for change.

It might not be the best time for running against more government spending. But that hasn't stopped Republicans from casting themselves as protectors of the public purse, striving for relevancy as Congress tackles President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus legislation.

"Congress cannot keep writing checks and simply pass IOUs to our children and grandchildren," says Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Asks House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio: "How much debt are we going to pile on future generations?"

I don't know, how much economic collapse are we prepared to hand to future generations?

Has that ever mattered to Cons?

Oh, and you remember how Cons were advertising for economists to tell them what they want to hear? That's not going so well:

Brad DeLong took a closer look at some economists who chose not to endorse the House Republican caucus' opposition to a stimulus plan.

In fact, no current or former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers -- Democrat or Republican, living or dead, sane or insane -- has signed up for the Republican House caucus's list of economists opposed to the stimulus package. None. Zero. Nada. Sifr. Efes. Wala sero. Kosong sifar. 'Ole. Knin. Pujyam. Mann. Dim. Nocht. Null. Meden. Hitotsu. Sifuri. Ling. Sunya. Mwac. Ataqan. Saquui. Hun. Illaq. Wanzi. Wanzi. Pagh. Na. Uqua.

Nobody.

That should tell you something about today's Republican Party.

You know what tells me more? Bush himself:

It appears there's at least one person who thinks George W. Bush was an awesome president.

"I have a great sense of accomplishment, and I am going home with my head held high."

Good for you! But what about the economy, W.?

"No question that the current economic situation is very difficult and obscures the fact that during my time in office we had 52 uninterrupted months of job creation, which was a record," he said. "The current economic crisis began before my presidency. All of us who have held office from the genesis of the crisis until today bear responsibility."

The buck never stops with W., who has been pushing this "52 uninterrupted months of job creation" spin for a year. Considering Bill Clinton's tenure produced 21 million new jobs and W.'s, 3 million, and that he has the worst job creation record of any modern president, it's just pathetic. It's also a bit like bragging about how many accident-free days you had at the factory before it blew up and killed everyone.

You know what? I'd rather have a shorter stretch of uninterrupted job creation and have more fucking jobs than 52 months straight of very few jobs being created. Clinton created 5 times more jobs. Five fucking times. And he didn't leave the economy in the shitter.

He also didn't leave office proudly proclaiming he'd ordered people tortured:

In an interview with Brit Hume that aired today on Fox News Sunday, President Bush admitted that he personally authorized the torture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said he personally asked “what tools” were available to use on him, and sought legal approval for waterboarding him:

BUSH: One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. … And I’m in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country. So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him and they gave me a list of tools, and I said are these tools deemed to be legal? And so we got legal opinions before any decision was made.

Yes. That's right. Bush is now pleased to admit that he, personally, authorized torturing a man. We all know that John Yoo's legal opinion doesn't mean jack fucking shit - no matter what Bush bootlickers were prepared to say to make Bush happy, torture is still illegal.

Amazingly enough, though, that's not the dumbest thing I've heard all day. The most outrageous, certainly, but it's not the prizewinner for sheer bloody stupidity. This is:

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” is currently in Israel covering the war for the conservative site PJTV.com. When asked what he has learned from his new experiences as a journalist, Wurzelbacher said that he believes the media shouldn’t be allowed to do “reporting” on wars:

[snip]

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.

That's Joe the Plumber, deciding that it's not a reporter's job to report. And I think that tells you everything you'll ever need to know about the Con base.

Fucking. Idiots.