January 14, 2008
January 13, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Mea Culpa, Media Maxima Culpa Edition
Or, How Could You, and the BM, Be So Wrong?
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa – The Tattler Lays a Prediction Egg in New Hampshire, Nearly as Large as the One Dropped By the Big Media
Well, my face may be flushed with chastisement, but the Big Media look like a bunch of red-assed orangutans, dumbly scratching under their arms and picking ticks off of each other’s hides. The Tattler, with his staff of none and a coin to flip, erroneously called it for Obama, Edwards and Hillary in that order on Monday, Jan. 7th, while the BM, with its millions of dollars, hundreds of reporters and scores of ‘scientific’ polls, started the chant that Obama would pulverize Hillary at the end of the previous week. We were both ‘Hillariously’ wrong.
Congrats to Hillary, and let’s hope this one wasn’t decided by the GOP-controlled Diebold voting equipment, as the Republicans seem to think Clinton would be the easiest Democrat for them to beat in November. Hillary does have higher negatives than the other Dem candidates, but the economy is diving into a deep gorge with ‘GOP’ on the license plate and Hoover Junior at the wheel – it’ll be pretty hard for the Republican candidate to argue that his party should have another hitch in the White House, after eight years of spectacular, mind-bending failure.
As to an autopsy of Hillary’s victory – the BM Conventional Wisdom, peddled by both anchors and anchorettes alike, showed its sexist side by speculating that women voted for Hill in droves because she choked up on one occasion, two idiots from a radio station taunted her with “Iron my shirt!” signs on another, and those mean old men Obama and Edwards ganged up on her in a debate. Cable TV morons like Chris Matthews summed it up by sketching a scenario of downtrodden working-class New Hampshire housewives, harried proles tied down to a houseful of ugly kids and a guy in a stained wife-beater who practices farting on key at the dinner table, finally striking back at the whole smelly, hairy, male-dominated world by voting for Hillary. While a few ‘gals’ may have had this lurid image from a 19th century pulp potboiler burning in their mind as they cast their vote, this is the typical diminution of women by the BM as emotionally-driven flits, incapable of reasoned choices or rational thought, the men who rule the BM apparently believing that all women are as lacking in frontal lobe cogitation as the ones they hire to recite the news.
Dennis Kucinich, though, may emerge as the real hero of the NH primary: Since only candidates can call for a hand recount there and not average citizens, Dennis has filed for one — not because he disputes his fifth place finish, but just to find out if there were any discrepancies caused by the Diebold equipment that tallied 81 percent of the Granite State’s vote. Hats off to you, Rep. K.
Fourth spot Bill Richardson has quit; Mike Gravel has wandered off somewhere.
Meantime, over on the Republican side, I predicted Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. Okay, when you’re done laughing, I’ll continue. The BM got this one right, at least. They had John McCain leading all along, with Romney second and Huckabee third, which was the final result. This begs a question: How could the pollsters have been so wrong on the Dem side and yet accurately nail the GOP side? And here’s a timely question I haven’t heard the BM ask: Where did McCain, whose train wreck of a campaign was so broke that he was flying economy class a little over a month ago when his polling numbers were closer to Tancredo’s than Romney’s, get the sudden infusion of money to mount extravagant events in New Hampshire? The BM EZ-Read line explained away Cap’n War Hero’s win by saying it was all those NH independents who just love that ‘maverick straight-shooter’ John McCain – after all, he won here in 2000! That sounds like unrefined crapola to me. Independents in 2000 liked McCain, the one who opposed the Bush Boy, but I have yet to find any lately who care much for President Ruptured Lame Duck’s new Iraqi co-pilot. Not that it matters to the GOP, but it seems that campaign finance laws may have been breached to get Johnny the top spot in NH – isn’t this worthy of an investigation? Incidentally, anyone paying attention after McCain’s bungling victory speech might have noticed a telling moment: A blank and seemingly confused McCain surrounded by happy supporters looking like Grandpa Simpson wondering, “Who are all these people — is it my birthday?” I don’t see how he possibly goes all the way, but then no one predicted him winning New Hampshire, either.
All politicians lie sometimes, it’s part of the job description, but Willy Mitt Romney, number two to McCain’s number one, seems to be on some kind of holy crusade of deception. If Romney mumbled “Beautiful day outside” and the sun were shining in a cloudless sky, I’d go look for an umbrella. His penchant for deceit would likely be enough by itself to cinch him the GOP nomination, if he weren’t so unbelievably wooden and stiff that Ikea probably has plans for his bolt-together construction somewhere. Republican voters disturbed about his Mormonism need not fret – Willy Mitt worships only money and himself, and not necessarily in that order.
Third placer Mike Huckabee would be the strongest Republican threat in the general election, but party insiders fortunately don’t realize that yet. (Perhaps it’s just some irrational GOP prejudice against former governors of Arkansas.) Greeting the increasingly pathetic Rudy Giuliani by chance while out glad-handing for votes in NH just before the primary, he joked to the Mare, “I hope I can count on your vote.” He responded to Fred Thompson’s attacks in the last GOP debate by advising him to increase his intake of Metamucil. The guy has such a disarming sense of humor, especially for a Republican, to a degree that it almost excuses his religious craziness. I said ‘almost.’
I thought Ron Paul would do better than he did in NH – it just doesn’t make any sense: nearly every GOP-leaning independent and conservative I run into likes Paul the best of any of the Republican menu, yet he comes in fourth. Could it be he was ‘done in by Diebold’? Maybe we’ll find out soon.
Speaking of Giuliani and Thompson: Rudy’s broke and on the ropes and Fred’s a walking zombie — someone should put them both out of their electoral misery before this farce goes any further. Neither one is ever going to be president.
Finally, Duncan Hunter — should soon rhyme with “I quit!” and, yes, that’s another prediction.
Paul Krugman: Responding to Recession
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, January 14, 2008
Suddenly, the economic consensus seems to be that the implosion of the housing market will indeed push the U.S. economy into a recession, and that it”s quite possible that we’re already in one. As a result, over the next few weeks we’ll be hearing a lot about plans for economic stimulus.
Since this is an election year, the debate over how to stimulate the economy is inevitably tied up with politics. And here”s a modest suggestion for political reporters. Instead of trying to divine the candidates” characters by scrutinizing their tone of voice and facial expressions, why not pay attention to what they say about economic policy?
In fact, recent statements by the candidates and their surrogates about the economy are quite revealing.
Take, for example, John McCain”s admission that economics isn”t his thing. “The issue of economics is not something I”ve understood as well as I should,” he says. “I’ve got Greenspan”s book.”
His self-deprecating humor is attractive, as always. But shouldn’t we worry about a candidate who’s so out of touch that he regards Mr. Bubble, the man who refused to regulate subprime lending and assured us that there was at most some “froth” in the housing market, as a source of sage advice?
Read More Here