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Damn it, it's a center-right nation, and don't you forget it!

I swear to you that is the editorial slant taken by pretty much all the bobbleheads, but none so nakedly as This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Note the make up of the panel is basically four Republicans to one Democrat (with all their concern trolling, I generously figure that Brazile and Stephanopoulos together equal just one Democrat). What's with that ratio? The American public has soundly and decisively voted against the GOP policies and the Bush doctrine, so what are frightened little Villagers to do but put on some former Bushies, Matthew Dowd and Torie Clarke, along with conservative stalwart George Will.

George Will, the sagest one of all, metaphorically pats Donna Brazile on the head and suggests that perhaps all the doom and gloom on the economy is unnecessary, as if Donna Brazile is the one to blame for the bearish outlook. He suggests that the foreclosure rate isn't as bad as everyone seems to think, that the unemployment rolls aren't that bad (WTF? 94% of the people who want to work are working? WANT to work?) and that this is strictly a financial sector problem, ignoring the fact that if the financial sector cannot lend money, it becomes a disaster to the consumer and small business owner as well. Typical Republican missing the forest for the trees.

Meanwhile, former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke rings the warning bell that all these bailouts (not questioned when AIG and BearStearns came a-calling, mind you) are going to cause us to "out-France France"! Quel horreur! And Matthew Dowd insists that if Obama really wants to represent change from how things are done in Washington, he's going to have to reject a Democratic party-led program.

Um, huh? The logic of this escapes me. The American public has rejected GOP policies and rule and so therefore, Obama must reject a Democratic program? I have an idea for you, Matt (along with all of the ABC news bookers): how about we give a Democratic program (and a Democratic panel) a try for once? THAT would be a change.

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From the man who called the union benefits at automotive companies a "welfare state," we have George Will on This Week showing his compassionate conservative side yet again. I would like to see George Will working on an assembly line until the age of 65 and then let him speak out about someone retiring before that age or receiving benefits that they somehow don't deserve. Working for thirty years at a company while giving your blood in the process is not enough for these people.

John Amato:

Conservatives love to rewrite history so they can trumpet their own philosophy. Paul Krugman explains to George Will how FDR got America out of the Depression. Conservatives have been trying to unravel the New Deal ever since.

Krugman: There was a collapse of the financial system which was not restored for a long time. There was a deep slump in consumer demand and therefore no investment demand so we were stuck in this trap.

Update: The video links with the correct video should be working now.

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The panel on This Week discussing what McCain needs to do to pull out this election and apparently the last argument they feel he or any of the Republicans has left is fear of lack of a divided government. It amazes me that these talking heads in the media didn't have this mortal fear when the Republicans had control of everything. After admitting that the Republicans are losing the independents and the middle George Will makes this observation near the end of the discussion:

The need to Sen. McCain to rally the base and appeal to the base, first of all even though the base is as you said in the earlier segment much smaller than it was then, was implicit in the numbers from 2006, in 2006 Republican candidates in the off year elections got more votes from Evangelical Christians than Democratic got from African Americans and labor union members combined. Evangelical Christians by....(crosstalk)..I'm just telling you..that base is not just the base. It is almost the Republican party.

(h/t FDL)
You knew it was coming. To the conservatives that populate pollute the airwaves, Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama could only be because he is black:

STEPHANOPOULOS: We just found out that former Secretary of State General Colin Powell has said he's going to vote for Barack Obama. Big impact?

WILL: Some impact. And I think this adds to my calculation -- this is very hard to measure -- but it seems to me if we had the tools to measure we'd find that Barack Obama gets two votes because he's black for every one he loses because he's black because so much of this country is so eager, a) to feel good about itself by doing this, but more than that to put paid to the whole Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson game of political rhetoric.

First, I'm not even sure what "put paid to the whole Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson game of political rhetoric" means. And what do either of them have to do with Powell's endorsement?

Is Will trying to suggest that Powell has some variation of "white man's guilt" and is seeking to mollify it by endorsing Obama? Clearly, Will does think that the endorsement is more based on skin color than anything else, a projection that I find more illustrative of the simple-minded Republican groupthink support than anything else. It shows just how insulated and isolated the GOP is from the real world, where people look at more than just how much someone looks like you and considers larger issues.

Just as predictably, Rush Limbaugh chimes in as well:

Rush Limbaugh said Colin Powell's decision to get behind Barack Obama appeared to be very much tied to Obama's status as the first African-American with a chance to become president.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh
wrote in an email. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Um...hey Rush, how about George W. Bush in 2000? Maybe he wasn't "very liberal" (although he certainly portrayed himself as more centrist than he is in actuality), but he was definitely considered inexperienced on the national scene and you don't get much whiter than the Bush clan. Rush continues:

"I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star [General] and Secretary of State and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."

Really, you want to go diving into that "how ungrateful that black man is for all the white men have done for him" abyss? It's frightening to me how these conservatives don't to even try to hide their white hoods any more. Rush, I know that conservatives value ignorance, but you have to know that becoming a four-star General is not a political appointment. Powell earned that rank, and to suggest otherwise now because he doesn't agree with your water-carrying is just more of the Republicans' sick tactic of smearing the messenger.

  It's a cold day in hell when the entire "This Week" panel rails against John McCain and his utter confusion when it comes to the economy. Cokie Roberts raises the specter of Herbert Hoover, Donaldson rightfully pins the deregulation racket on McCain and Republicans, calling McCain's promise to champion regulation a "hard pill to swallow,"  and George Will says McCain acted "unpresidential" and that the issue of age should re-enter the debate over whether McCain is fit for the job.

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Quote of the segment, from George Will of all people:

John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful.

The Conservatives are out in force trying to bail John McCain out from Phil Gramm's ridiculous comments---you know---about calling us all a bunch of whiners.

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Think Progress:

"Phil Gramm was right of course," Will declared. "Absolutely

WILL: On two points. ... We're not in a recession as commonly defined. That is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We may be running there though. Even Bernanke says so.

WILL: We're not however. Unemployment is just about the post-war average at 5.5 percent. His second point that we're a nation of whiners: we are the crybabies of the western world. In fact, we have an extraordinarily low pain threshold.

Heather says:

Stengel follows with saying that no one wants to be called a whiner and cites one of their polls on the public perception of the economy and says those statements weren't helpful. You, think? Brazile notes that McCain had to distance himself from Gramm and says Phil is mental. Roberts follows with saying that it's just the old harsh style of politics and it's the wrong year for that. Oh, and the public doesn't understand McCain's jokes.

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Don't listen to the Federal Reserve or economists, dagnabit!  You're better off now than you were eight years ago.  George Will thinks so, and he's never wrong, correct?  The problem--as Will sees it--has nothing to do with economic indicators but with people like Robert Reich pointing out that the economy is benefiting the very wealthy and those in the middle class aren't seeing any improvement for them.

So for all you who haven't been able to find a job for months because yours has been outsourced and you've fallen off the unemployment rolls, or you purchased your home through companies like Countrywide, which used predatory lending tactics and are now facing foreclosure, whose IRAs and investment portfolios still haven't recovered from 2001, who have felt the pinch and had to make hard choices in your standard of living due to the higher cost of groceries and oil, quit yer whining!

Transcripts below the fold:

Continue reading »

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On This Week with George Stephanopolis, the roundtable discussion turned to the recent "threats" by the Religious Right (who apparently renamed themselves Social Conservatives) to run a third-party candidate as a result of their distaste for the all-but-presumed Republican candidacy of Rudy Giuliani.  

While Claire Shipman suggests that this may be a tactical way for the Dobsons and Perkins of the Religious Right to re-assert to the Republican party the need to cater to them, seeing as the Republicans can't possibly win this election anyway, so splitting off the vote is more statement than a way to win, George Will has just one thing to say to them: Grow up.

Social conservatives should grow up. If they want to rally around somebody, why don't try that? Huckabee needs support and money now. If the social conservatives are half as important as they think they are, they would rally around one of these people [..] And then decide what you care about. If you care about judges, then you're gonna get satisfied by Giuliani, then get in line and play politics. But there's a vanity in this group right now. They call themselves "values voters." I've news for them: 100% of the American electorate are values voters; they vote their values...And this, this, kind of semantic imperialism that they have where they say "we vote values". Everyone else votes what?

Anyone have an idea why the Religious Right isn't throwing their support behind Huckabee?  Seems like he'd be just their type of candidate.