(Political) Death Becomes Them
What can you say about the Democrat Party other than that it is completely unserious?
Listen to what some of them rudely hooted at last night:
"Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before.
"For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra 200 billion dollars to keep the system afloat — and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than 300 billion dollars. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."
"If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be drastically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs."
"NOOOO!" "WAAAAAA!" "BOOOOO!" the Donks cried.
Yet the President's words were not partisan boilerplate. They were a statement of fact. The particular years in which these mileposts of actuarial decay ultimately fall may be estimates, but the direction of Social Security's finances is unmistakable. Whining and bitching and moaning aren't going to change that. As no less a hero of theirs than Bill Clinton himself pointed out repeatedly during his moist tenure, Social Security is in trouble and must be reformed and modernized if it is to survive. Yet it is Democrats - usually the biggest crisis-mongers on the face of the Earth - who are dead set against doing anything to save it.
Look at the pathetic PR stunt they pulled today - a photo-op at the FDR memorial where it was claimed that Bush's private account plan will "cut Social Security benefits by 40%," even though that will actually be the ultimate result of the Dems' own obstructionism.
One wonders what FDR would have to say about such mental midgets and the havoc they are wreaking with his legacy.
Speaking of mental midgets, Nancy Pelosi didn't take Newt Gingrich's advice.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday afternoon to change her rebuttal to tonight's State of the Union Address, saying the language she intends to use referring to U.S. troops in Iraq as "an occupying force" is "outrageous."
"I hope before she says it tonight that she will withdraw that phrase and does not use it tonight," Gingrich told radio host Sean Hannity. "That's like describing American forces in Germany during the Cold War as an occupying force instead of a force that was protecting the German people from the Soviet Union."
Mr. Newt states the obvious. And the above is obvious to everybody who doesn't hate America. And it's equally clear that Mrs. Pelosi is not in that category.
Here's the full relevant graf of her "rebuttal":
"We all know that the United States cannot stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to be viewed as an occupying force. Neither should we slip out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos."
Is that "outrageous"? To me it's just simply wrong. Inaccurate. Delusional. The Iraqi election five days ago buried this "occupying force" fiction for good. So did the scoffing of Iraq's interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, who the other day dismissed the whole "exit strategy" angle as "complete nonsense."
Another sound adjective would be "incoherent," since "slipping out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos" is precisely what Ted Kennedy insisted upon last week and what Dirty Harry Reid, her Senate counterpart, called for a few days ago. Don't these people even meet to ensure they're all on the same muttonheaded page? Maybe political nincompoopery is just tougher to coordinate. But it leaves the listener baffled as to just exactly what the unified Democrat message on Iraq now is. Which doesn't matter much, I guess, since they're made themselves as irrelevant to foreign policy as they're making themselves to its domestic counterpart.
Dirty Harry also made an ass of himself, it should not fail to be pointed out. For example, he asserted that the Bush plan to save Social Security would take our already record high 4.3 trillion dollar national debt and put us another two trillion dollars in the red, arguing "That's an immoral burden to place on the backs of the next generation."
Leaving aside his party's jeering of the President's call for a return to spending discipline, this was simply another Democrat lie:
The Social Security program faces a long-term debt of $11 trillion. By enacting a Bush-style reform plan, which changes the indexing for future generations and creates personal retirement accounts, that debt is eliminated. While this change requires an initial infusion of funds, it is not new debt; rather, it is a payment toward the debt the system already faces.
Meanwhile, after denying that Social Security has any problems whatsoever and should absolutely, positively not be reformed in any way, Reid called for - I swear I'm not making this up - a "Marshall Plan for America," a reference to the massive, US-financed rebuilding of devastated post-WWII Western Europe. To even call this the grand bull moose gold medal winner of mixed metaphors is to flatter it egregiously. The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to revive Western Europe as soon as possible so as to remove the conditions that would make it ripe for Soviet subversion and exploitation via indigenous communist movements. Or, in contemporary parlance, to "drain the swamp" before it could start breeding little Stalins.
It was, in short, a foreign policy initiative that was not fundamantally altruistic. Near as I can tell, Dirty Harry is suggesting a reprise of the New Deal in a time of economic plenty and fiscal hemorrhaging. Of course, the New Deal included Social Security, which he adamantly insists is just fine and should be completely left alone. I guess he means the rest of the New Deal. Or he's waiting for our homeland to be devastated by global war. Or something.
I just love GOP fact-checking. I especially enjoyed these two nuggets:
5. Reid: “Do We Believe That Big Corporations With Powerful Lobbyists Should Get Special Favors And That The Wealthiest Should Get Special Tax Breaks?” (Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, “Democratic Response To State Of The Union Address,” Press Release, 2/2/05)
But Reid’s Own Family Gets Plenty Of Special Favors – Reid Introduced Legislation That Benefited Sons’ Firm. “What Reid did not explain was that [The Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002] promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms, federal lobbyist reports show. … Other provisions were intended to benefit a real estate development headed by a senior partner in the Nevada law firm that employs all four of Reid’s sons…” (Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper, “In Nevada, The Name To Know Is Reid,” Los Angeles Times, 6/23/03)
10. Reid: “My Life Has Been Very Different From What I Imagined Growing Up, But No Matter How Far I’ve Traveled, Searchlight Is Still The Place I Go Back To And Still The Place I Call Home.” (Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, “Democratic Response To State Of The Union Address,” Press Release, 2/2/05)
“[Reid] Is Soaking Up City Life In A DC Ritz-Carlton Condo That He And His Wife, Landra, Bought In 2001 For $750,000.” (“Where Bush’s Brain Lives,” Washingtonian, 1/05)
Harry Reid is Tom Daschle without the charisma. And Nancy Pelosi is like Carol Burnett's "Nora Desmond" character, a classic depiction of Gloria Swanson on her deathbed, a crazy, overmade-up old lady who displays her wrinkled cleavage like she was still the "hottie" of her youth.
I guess that makes them fitting leaders for a party spiraling toward irrelevance: two old people who never grew up.
Maybe "Death Becomes Her" will be their next metaphorical chapter.
Listen to what some of them rudely hooted at last night:
"Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before.
"For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra 200 billion dollars to keep the system afloat — and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than 300 billion dollars. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."
"If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be drastically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs."
"NOOOO!" "WAAAAAA!" "BOOOOO!" the Donks cried.
Yet the President's words were not partisan boilerplate. They were a statement of fact. The particular years in which these mileposts of actuarial decay ultimately fall may be estimates, but the direction of Social Security's finances is unmistakable. Whining and bitching and moaning aren't going to change that. As no less a hero of theirs than Bill Clinton himself pointed out repeatedly during his moist tenure, Social Security is in trouble and must be reformed and modernized if it is to survive. Yet it is Democrats - usually the biggest crisis-mongers on the face of the Earth - who are dead set against doing anything to save it.
Look at the pathetic PR stunt they pulled today - a photo-op at the FDR memorial where it was claimed that Bush's private account plan will "cut Social Security benefits by 40%," even though that will actually be the ultimate result of the Dems' own obstructionism.
One wonders what FDR would have to say about such mental midgets and the havoc they are wreaking with his legacy.
Speaking of mental midgets, Nancy Pelosi didn't take Newt Gingrich's advice.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday afternoon to change her rebuttal to tonight's State of the Union Address, saying the language she intends to use referring to U.S. troops in Iraq as "an occupying force" is "outrageous."
"I hope before she says it tonight that she will withdraw that phrase and does not use it tonight," Gingrich told radio host Sean Hannity. "That's like describing American forces in Germany during the Cold War as an occupying force instead of a force that was protecting the German people from the Soviet Union."
Mr. Newt states the obvious. And the above is obvious to everybody who doesn't hate America. And it's equally clear that Mrs. Pelosi is not in that category.
Here's the full relevant graf of her "rebuttal":
"We all know that the United States cannot stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to be viewed as an occupying force. Neither should we slip out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos."
Is that "outrageous"? To me it's just simply wrong. Inaccurate. Delusional. The Iraqi election five days ago buried this "occupying force" fiction for good. So did the scoffing of Iraq's interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, who the other day dismissed the whole "exit strategy" angle as "complete nonsense."
Another sound adjective would be "incoherent," since "slipping out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos" is precisely what Ted Kennedy insisted upon last week and what Dirty Harry Reid, her Senate counterpart, called for a few days ago. Don't these people even meet to ensure they're all on the same muttonheaded page? Maybe political nincompoopery is just tougher to coordinate. But it leaves the listener baffled as to just exactly what the unified Democrat message on Iraq now is. Which doesn't matter much, I guess, since they're made themselves as irrelevant to foreign policy as they're making themselves to its domestic counterpart.
Dirty Harry also made an ass of himself, it should not fail to be pointed out. For example, he asserted that the Bush plan to save Social Security would take our already record high 4.3 trillion dollar national debt and put us another two trillion dollars in the red, arguing "That's an immoral burden to place on the backs of the next generation."
Leaving aside his party's jeering of the President's call for a return to spending discipline, this was simply another Democrat lie:
The Social Security program faces a long-term debt of $11 trillion. By enacting a Bush-style reform plan, which changes the indexing for future generations and creates personal retirement accounts, that debt is eliminated. While this change requires an initial infusion of funds, it is not new debt; rather, it is a payment toward the debt the system already faces.
Meanwhile, after denying that Social Security has any problems whatsoever and should absolutely, positively not be reformed in any way, Reid called for - I swear I'm not making this up - a "Marshall Plan for America," a reference to the massive, US-financed rebuilding of devastated post-WWII Western Europe. To even call this the grand bull moose gold medal winner of mixed metaphors is to flatter it egregiously. The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to revive Western Europe as soon as possible so as to remove the conditions that would make it ripe for Soviet subversion and exploitation via indigenous communist movements. Or, in contemporary parlance, to "drain the swamp" before it could start breeding little Stalins.
It was, in short, a foreign policy initiative that was not fundamantally altruistic. Near as I can tell, Dirty Harry is suggesting a reprise of the New Deal in a time of economic plenty and fiscal hemorrhaging. Of course, the New Deal included Social Security, which he adamantly insists is just fine and should be completely left alone. I guess he means the rest of the New Deal. Or he's waiting for our homeland to be devastated by global war. Or something.
I just love GOP fact-checking. I especially enjoyed these two nuggets:
5. Reid: “Do We Believe That Big Corporations With Powerful Lobbyists Should Get Special Favors And That The Wealthiest Should Get Special Tax Breaks?” (Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, “Democratic Response To State Of The Union Address,” Press Release, 2/2/05)
But Reid’s Own Family Gets Plenty Of Special Favors – Reid Introduced Legislation That Benefited Sons’ Firm. “What Reid did not explain was that [The Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002] promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms, federal lobbyist reports show. … Other provisions were intended to benefit a real estate development headed by a senior partner in the Nevada law firm that employs all four of Reid’s sons…” (Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper, “In Nevada, The Name To Know Is Reid,” Los Angeles Times, 6/23/03)
10. Reid: “My Life Has Been Very Different From What I Imagined Growing Up, But No Matter How Far I’ve Traveled, Searchlight Is Still The Place I Go Back To And Still The Place I Call Home.” (Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, “Democratic Response To State Of The Union Address,” Press Release, 2/2/05)
“[Reid] Is Soaking Up City Life In A DC Ritz-Carlton Condo That He And His Wife, Landra, Bought In 2001 For $750,000.” (“Where Bush’s Brain Lives,” Washingtonian, 1/05)
Harry Reid is Tom Daschle without the charisma. And Nancy Pelosi is like Carol Burnett's "Nora Desmond" character, a classic depiction of Gloria Swanson on her deathbed, a crazy, overmade-up old lady who displays her wrinkled cleavage like she was still the "hottie" of her youth.
I guess that makes them fitting leaders for a party spiraling toward irrelevance: two old people who never grew up.
Maybe "Death Becomes Her" will be their next metaphorical chapter.
posted by JASmius at 7:21 PM
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