Friday, January 29, 2010

Friday Mashup (1/29/10)

Also, I posted a video here.

  • In today’s WaPo, Michael Gerson opined as follows on the subject of President Obama and jobs (here)…

    …the State of the Union raises serious concerns about Obama's economic approach. From either a conservative or liberal economic perspective, his proposals seem timid -- insufficient in scale to encourage a swift return to job creation.
    Gerson may actually have a point about that (right message, wrong messenger, however), though it made me a bit curious to find out how many times Gerson’s old boss referred to jobs in prior State of the Union addresses (Gerson was Dubya’s main speechwriter from 2000 to 2006).

    Here is the number of times the word “jobs” appeared in State of the Union addresses from Dubya while Gerson worked for him:

    2002 – 10 (not bad)

    2003 – 2 (this, by the way, was one of the most grotesque examples of wall-to-wall lies I’ve ever heard or hope to hear again)

    2004 – 6

    2005 – 4

    2006 – 6

    Total mention of jobs under Dubya/Gerson – 28
    Now, do you want to know how many times Obama mentioned jobs in his SOTU address the other night?

    23
    So basically, Obama very nearly matched in one SOTU speech all of the times Dubya/Gerson mentioned jobs over five years.

    Now you tell me which president’s economic policies were “insufficient in scale to encourage a swift return to job creation.”


  • It’s been a little while since I checked on the latest journalistic malpractice from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times, but as you can see from here, he’s up to his old tricks…

    Spending and also deficits have shot up as voter concerns in recent polls, even as the hallowed healthcare legislation went on life support. This is because the community organizer's claim that giving health insurance coverage to 30,000,000 more Americans would actually save money sounds about as likely as those late-night TV commercials promising an extra $20,000 a month with a simple 800-phone call.
    In the matter of “Spending and also deficits (shooting) up as voter concerns,” this poll from December tells us that “the public’s deficit sensitivity does not translate into a view that deficit reduction is a more important priority than jobs and the economy,” according to Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress.

    And this tells us that the health care reform bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Max Baucus (warts and all) was projected last October to reduce the deficit by $81 billion over the next decade (which shows better fiscal sense than the Repugs, who passed Medicare Part D when they were in charge with no regard for its addition to the deficit). Even though it remains to be seen what the final bill will look like, the Dems are doing a better job of managing our money on this than their counterparts ever did when they were in power.

    You’re a joke, Malcolm. Go away.


  • And finally, I give you Christine Flowers of the Philadelphia Daily News, waxing indignant here over the inclusion of a pro-life Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow, proving once again that conservatives never decide to tactfully declare victory and depart when they have an opportunity for a hissy fit instead (funny that Flowers doesn’t even identify Tebow’s team, the Florida Gators – I should explain that Tebow is a pro-life cause célèbre because his mother supposedly was advised against carrying him to term, but did so anyway)...

    You don't have to agree with Pam Tebow's decision to put her own health on the line to give her baby a fighting chance. But what you shouldn't do is start pulling out your hair in some wave of hormonal rage and try to prevent the spot from airing.

    According to the Washington Post, a coalition of women's groups including the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority and the Women's Media Center have demanded that CBS drop the ad.

    In a letter to CBS, they wrote, "By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers." (Frankly, a network that's survived "Two and a Half Men" doesn't have to worry about a 30-second spot extolling the virtues of life.)

    The reaction of the Chicken Littles amazes me. They talk about fundamental rights, free speech, autonomy and being able to think for yourself, all the things that you check with a "yes" on the Progressive Club application. But when it comes to information about something they disagree with, those virtues become optional.
    Here’s another reason why those “Chicken Littles,” as Flowers calls them, may be a bit peeved.

    I’m sure we remember the 2004 Super Bowl for “The Tit That Wouldn’t Die,” if you will, the utterly staged (IMHO) wardrobe malfunction by Janet Jackson that worked all those fundamentalist zanies into a furor while Number 43 and Turd Blossom no doubt enjoyed a good laugh, knowing they could reliably count on their votes that November over “values” issues.

    Well, there’s another reason why the ’04 Supe was noteworthy, and that is because the “Third Eye” network refused to air an ad from Moveon.org as part of its “Bush In 30 Seconds” campaign; this describes the rejected ad…

    It's a short, pointed ad questioning President George W. Bush's budget policies. It depicts children wearily working adult jobs, and ends with this simple question: "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?"
    Gee, I would say an ad like that would have truly done this country a service (though it probably would have helped John Kerry also, which would have been fine with me). Still, though, we might not find ourselves wallowing in the debt we currently face (with the $1.2 trillion for 2009 projected before Obama was sworn in, as noted here).

    And Flowers makes reference to ‘New Orleans' miraculous rise from the waters of Hurricane Katrina”; I wish that were completely true, but these pics of the Ninth Ward from last February tell a different story.

    And how funny is it that Flowers says that Tebow “has a right to speak his heart, and we have a right to hear what he has to say” when she plainly does not believe that Moveon has that very same right?

    Actually, the only “right” Flowers supports is that to shut up and obey what our “betters” have to say, and the fact that CBS is a “fellow traveler” in that philosophy is one reason why I have no intention of watching the Super Bowl on that network (though I would like to see the Saints win – it would be a great “shot in the arm” for the Crescent City).

    Oh, and in a related story, you can file this under the heading of “someone desperately trying to remain relevant in our national discourse somehow.”


  • Update 2/1/10: Click here to sign a petition protesting CBS on their decisions about which ads to run during the Super Bowl.

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