State of the Outrage

Because Barbara Bush taught him to "use your words, George," her son the president, rather than actually mooning some Senate Democrats at the joint session of Congress on Monday night as he would like to do, will instead call them terrorist-lovers for refusing to give retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms in the FISA bill, and he will call them partisan obstructionists for wanting to extend unemployment benefits in the economic stimulus bill now pending.

Because the political media's machismo depends on admiring cynicism as realpolitik, when the Clintons claim victory in the Florida primary this Tuesday, the mandarins will pronounce it a brilliant chess move, rather than revealing it as a desperation-borne contempt for the rules of the nomination game they had previously agreed to, and as condescension toward those who still naively care about playing by them.

Because there is no accountability in punditry -- outside, that is, of Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann -- Rudy Giuliani's flameout in Florida, like Fred Thompson's before him in South Carolina, will occasion no reminders and no regrets for the jock-sniffing musk-addled crushes once harbored toward them by the Chris Matthewses and Bill Kristols of the political locker room.

Because there is nothing like necrophilia and hagiography to prolong our national addiction to historical amnesia, this week's Republican debate at the Reagan Library will prompt no admission that the sub-prime meltdown now dragging Americans into a painful recession, except for the nouveau gazillionaires insulated from it, is the godchild of the Reagan religion of faith-based deregulation, fundamentalist market worship, and a massive government-engineered transfer of wealth from the middle to the top.

Because "the surge is working" -- because, that is, of the indefinitely long presence of more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq, paid for by trillions of dollars that even the Bush administration no longer has the nerve to put in its budget, combined with the absence of any meaningful progress toward the administration's own benchmarks for political success, coupled with the media's inability to cover the war as anything except the kind of occasional traffic fatality story found on local TV news -- a presidential campaign that might have been a referendum on Republican deceit and incompetence, and a frank conversation about America's real security interests in the world, will instead be a moronic barrage of empty slogans about change.

And because the Framers were unable to anticipate the genius at gaming the Constitution possessed by the power-mad viceroys of a future King George named Cheney and Rove, nor could the Founders conceive of a corporate press hooked on revenue-generating junk and intimidated into abandoning its role as Fourth Estate, the year of onanistic Legacy coverage and good-poodle bipartisanship that will be kicked off this week by the State of the Union address will be left unspoiled by erased emails, unmarred by unenforced contempt citations, unsullied by unacknowledged high crimes and demeanors, and unblemished by disgraces that cannot be rectified by pardons for the past and pay packages for the future.

But hey, it's gonna be a great Super Bowl, Romney sure is good-looking, I wonder what kind of cake Jenna and Henry pick, Joe Lieberman really understands how to reach across the aisle, and did you know Obama's middle name is Saddam?

Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan

Comments

[Donald Wolberg]

Silly math remains silly and those proclaiming silly math and numbers are even sillier. Simple calculators exist to review what we say before we say it and fact checking makes sense even when unfounded opinions are put out for view. The late and phlegmatic and marveloulsly wise Senetor Everett Dirkson's oft quoted remark: "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money," does matter. Now, the supposed housing crisis is as manufactured as the notion of economic doom and gloom. No less than 95% of all the several hundred million mortgages in the United States are doing just fine and are being paid with usually minimal distress. Sub-prime home loans comprise about 5% of the total and of the 5% about 15% to no more than 20% of the 5% are in difficulty and it is likely 50% of the 15% of the 5% will find a way to not go into foreclosure. On the economy, pontificators again lose site of the real meaning numbers. A billion dollars is a lot of money, but there are 1000 million dollars in a billion and 1000 billion in a trillion. The U.S.GDP is somethinly like 14 trillion dollars or 14,000 billion dollars ($14,000.0­00,000,000­). Iraq error is costing us about 12 billion dollars a month (it may be as much as 15 billion--hard to tell). And this is a lot of money, indeed, but the cost, 144 billion each year is less than 1% of the U.S. GDP. On the matter of the supposed recession, U.S. growth is expected to be 1.5% in 2008, not 3% to be sure, but stilla huge amount of increased wealth in a 14 trillion (14,000 billion) dollar economy. Unemployment is about 5% (95% of the workforce is working), up from 4.5% (95.5% of the workforce working). In a workforce of perhaps 200 million, a .5% increase is a very small number compared to the whole. Doom and gloom seems moe a political posture than a realistic observation.

[wilso127]

Let's some of us cut out the crap about Obama's middle name being HUSSEIN, and that's a bad thing, somehow, because it's also the name of a departed dictator. Were Adolph Rupp and Adolph Caesar bad guys because they shared Hitler's name? And was John F. Kennedy a bad guy because he shared a name weith John Wilkes Booth? And is Bush a GOOD guy because he has the same name as Washington? C'mon, People!!!!!

[RamonBackwards]

While I do love the style of your posts, and this one is no exception, I think you'd be better served by focusing on some obvious, specific government policies that contributed to this bubble and the resulting collapse, rather than trying to make a larger point about the efficiency and effectiveness of free markets.

This bubble, like others before, is a result of government involvement, not a result of a lack of government involvement. When the govt gets involved, it distorts the operation of the free market and prevents free market forces from working.

So you may be opposed to free markets in principle, but you need to support your position with examples where the free market dynamics were actually the problem.

[LeonBNJ]

I refuse to watch GWB's State of the Union address this year. I can't stand him as our President or the way he talks and we all know of the crap he is going to throw out. I wish all of the Democrats would all sit on their hands and not clap at anything he says. That would be a huge message to the world that most Americans don't respect him or his policies.

[daleok]

Marty...gr­eat observations. But considering the fact that his approval ratings are at an all time low, the fact that he cannot put two words together to form a complete thought, the fact that his integrity is questionable, who really cares what he says? The public's confidence level in government is laughable and our economy is in a shambles. To think that anyone would take anything he says seriously is highly suspect

[Ramus]

Thanks for this..exac­tly, sadly, correct as usual. And the truth is that we are well on our way to becoming a country with guarded ultra rich..and everybody else scrambling for the crumbs. Then they can cut and privatize and remaining entitlemen­ts...like schools, social security.. I hope all your readers have read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein..wel­l documented, well written and frightening.

[fortuitous]

How dare he indeed! And how dare WE let him! Outrage at the lack of outrage is what we are all expressing! Why is anyone still calling him president, why are we still footing his bills, allowing him to eat gourmet food, flying him around the country, signing on to more spying ability, increased firepower for his illegal war?? Why are we not all marching our asses all over Congress and burning "voting" machines on a giant pyre, wiping our asses with newspapers that have no news in them? The collective tranquilized State of the People is my biggest concern. We should be ashamed of our acquiescen­ce...this makes Jonestown look like a birthday party.

[EagleBenny]

As true as it is disturbing.

[scooperss]

Even perino is getting in on the bi-partisanship jargon. Just read where she said this-----
"Heading into the speech, White House press secretary Dana Perino said it is unrealistic to expect Congress to take on big problems.

"They haven't been willing to do it in the past several years; there's no reason to think that they would do it this year," she said."

Bi-partisan blame. LOL LOL

[pfc1369]

That was a miniature masterpiece.

[wallyinindy]

Great post Marty.

[LeftRight]

Anybody here know that georgie boy is Babs' favorite child? Well, if you do, it sure makes Paul Simon's song "Loves me like a rock" make more sense:

And if I was the President
The minute the congress called my name
I'd say now who do
Who do you think you're foolin'
I got the Presidential seal
I'm up on the Presidential podium
My mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
Oh she loves me like a rock

[raptor]

Democrats should just boycott the State of the Union. That includes Nancy Pelosi, instead of sitting behind Bush and grinning. They can watch it on TV in their offices, if they want.

[janmB]

WHAT"S KARL ROVE BEEN DOING THESE DAYS ???

He and his henchmen have been doing a fine job of getting parrot--talk out there. Why doesn't anyone in the OBAMA or HILLARY camp figure that obvious out ??

One goal is to take Bill Clinton down and the media greedy for controversy will help.
The other is the Barack HUSSEIN Obama e-mail going around. Who keeps the name of a murdering dictator (Saddam ) as part of their name anyway running for Prez of the USA ?

[whatsthatsound]

He's a real nowhere man,
sitting in his nowhere land
preparing his nowhere speech...
...for nobody