CSotD: Knaves. Definitely knaves.
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Kal sums it up.
We're beyond discussion now. The classic question, "Is he a fool, or a knave?" is no longer operable. There is no "fool" option anymore because nobody that dumb could possibly have risen that far.
And I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but I'm running out of innocent explanations. The only question still on the table is "Why are they listening to these people?"
"They" being the GOP leadership, that is.
Not the rank-and-file: They've been lied to, and, while you can criticize their judgment, the fact is, there are prominent people telling absolute lies. And those lies are being parrotted.
It doesn't matter at what level the lies turn into foolishness.
I've been in media long enough to know that some of the talking heads who help to spread these illogical analogies, deceptive intepretations and dyed-in-the-wool falsehoods are genuinely empty.
There was a very telegenic woman working for a TV station in a market where I was a reporter who was so foolish that watching people try to respond to her idiotic questions was a highlight of the job, like the time she asked a weather expert if the warm weather we were experiencing was evidence of global warming, to which he politely said, "No, it's just Indian Summer," which they used on the air.
And I heard her ask a question in a roomful of border patrol, customs agents and state police that caused such an outburst of guffaws that they couldn't have used it on the air if they'd wanted to.
She left to become a network correspondent where her job was to read what she was handed by field producers who didn't have her legs or hair but did have the brains she lacked, and I think of her whenever someone posts a clip from "Fox and Friends."
But not everyone involved in this gigantic mass deception is innocently stupid. Nor is the current crisis a case of "a pox on both their houses."
We've driven political polarity to the level where it seems like you're taking sides if you quote one and don't immediately offer a rejoinder from the other, but sometimes there simply isn't what the Fairness Doctrine referred to as "a responsible opposing viewpoint."
I'm old enough to remember the origin of Dan Akroyd's famous "Jane, you ignorant slut …" line: Sixty Minutes attempted a segment called "Point/Counterpoint" in which liberal Shana Alexander and conservative James J. Kilpatrick squared off, and Saturday Night Live's take pretty much nailed it: Overly earnest argument from Shana followed by dismissive arrogance from James J.
These contrived on-the-one-hand, on-the-other puppet shows that media outlets try to mount are nearly always forced, inauthentic and mostly laughable.
So despite the whining it might provoke from the wing of society that helped end the Equal Time provision so Rush could prattle on unchecked, let me quote the twice-elected president of the United States:
I shouldn't have to offer anything. They're not doing me a favor by
paying for things that they have already approved for the government to
do. That's part of their basic function of government; that's not doing
me a favor. That's doing what the American people sent them here to do,
carrying out their responsibilities.
I have said consistently
that I am always happy to talk to Republicans and Democrats about how we
shape a budget that is investing in things like early-childhood
education, rebuilding our roads and bridges and putting people back to
work, growing our economy, making sure that we've got the research and
development we need to stay at the cutting edge and that deals with some
of our long-term debt issues. But we're not going to accomplish those
things if one party to this conversation says that the only way that
they come to the table is if they get 100 percent of what they want, and
if they don't, they threaten to burn down the house. That's not a
negotiation.
The "opposing viewpoint" is that they want to undo what a legitimately elected legislative body decided to do and the Supreme Court has confirmed as legal.
The opposing viewpoint is that they want to burn down the house because the people of the United States won't support their agenda. (No? Tell that to President Romney.)
These people who so wanted a line-item veto when they held the White House have embedded a totally irrelevant poison pill in the continuing resolution.
These people who whine that Obama has not produced a budget — which is their job, not his — refuse to produce a budget.
And, next up, they will continue their deceptions by pretending that the debt ceiling involves future, not past, spending, and they will cloak it in the simple but completely bogus idea that national budgets and family budgets work the same way.
While, even then, not admitting that the solution to "not enough money" in a family is not to stop feeding the children or taking them to the doctor but to get a second job (ie, increase revenues, ie, raise taxes).
Isn't anybody going to help this poor country?
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