The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[SacTown Chronic]

Sounds like a Bush-ism, but if Palin had said it I suppose the response would be, "The fvck you doing in Washington, Sarah? You have no business there".

[Ghoulish Delight]

I hate Pelosi.

[Alex]

It is a stupid gaffe but I think the record will show that I generally don't find obvious verbal slips all that interesting as conversation fodder unless I have reason to believe they represent an actual lack of knowlege.

I have no reason to believe that Nancy Pelosi really believes that 500 million people would lose their jobs a month. So either it was a simple slip of the tongue (though even 500,000 would be an exaggeration of truth) or she was intentionally speaking hyperbolically (which I doubt).

If Bush had said the same thing I would have the same response. If Palin had said the same thing I think I would have the same response. But she did frequently show herself truly uninformed so I'd wonder more.

But I do agree that the hue and cry would have switched polarity.

[Moonliner]

There are days where I think these things are analogous to a magician's hand gestures. "Look over here! Ignore what the other hand is doing".

[scaeagles]

I think the real fear is coming from Obama right now, not Pelosi's stupid gaffe. Obama is saying if this (ridiculous) 900 billion dollar spending (not stimulus, spending) bill isn't passed that we may never recover.

[alphabassettgrrl]

He shouldn't be saying it quite so black-and-white. We will recover, even without the spending bill. Just will take longer.

[Alex]

I believe the intent of his statement was that if it takes too long things will have degraded beyond the ability of any action to cause recovery. Not that there would never be a recovery.

But that isn't what he said. And if that is what he meant, then unless he is relying on an economic theory with which I am not familiar (certainly a possibility) it is unlikely to be true (though if the global financial network and unbacked fiat currencies truly did break down completely we'd probably be looking at a couple centuries before recovery happened in any meaningful way).

Anyway, if nothing else it is good to see that the Republican side of the party has so quickly realized that ramming through government action on the back of overhyped fear is a bad thing. Overracting out of economic fear is a nice change of pace from overreacting because a brown person might know the atomic weight of uranium.

[Alex]

Just to provide an avatar for use by those keen on the "Obama Messiah Complex" meme:

[alphabassettgrrl]

Well, he should say what he means. We know he can.

[JWBear]

Bristol Palin named after ESPN headquarters

Two meanings in Bristol's name: I worked at the Bristol Inn, and Todd grew up in Bristol Bay. But also, Bristol, Connecticut, is the home of ESPN. And when I was in high school, my desire was to be a sportscaster. ESPN was just kicking off, just getting off the ground, and I thought that's what I was going to do in life, is be one of the first woman sportscasters. Until I learned that you'd have to move to Bristol, Connecticut. It was far away. So instead, I had a daughter and named her Bristol.

Thank goodness this moron lost. This country dodged that bullet!

The best part is the quote from the Mayor of Bristol Conneticut:

Bristol Mayor Art Ward tells the local paper that it's probably for the best that Palin stayed in Alaska.

"You can't see Russia from here," he said.