Always Bet On Blink
The Pantload is hedging like John McCain and Phil Gramm spreading the social security fund in dozen bets around a Vegas roulette table:
I think there’s something unseemly to scoring the financial crisis on political terms, but that’s apparently how everyone else is responding too.
I think there’s something unseemly about appearing in public with donut jelly dribbling down your chin, but … well, actually I just think that’s unseemly. The larger point, though, is that MCCAIN HAS BLINKED! Didn’t he get the message? Snowbilly POW McAmericavericks are NEVER supposed to blink … or the economists will win!
I saw the beginning of The Today Show this morning. Their set-up piece (by Andrea Mitchell, fwiw) made it very clear McCain is on the defensive on the economy again. Earlier in the day he said ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong.’ Obama seized on that, ridiculed McCain, cut an ad attacking him for saying it etc. …
McCain shouldn’t apologize for his initial statements. Indeed, McCain should stop being defensive about his political instincts in areas like this.
For once, I agree with Jonah. McCain should absolutely go with his gut on economic talk. And never, ever, under any circumstance, blink.
Obama wants this to be about ‘the economy’.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha … ‘the economy’! Is that even a real thing? Only to dirty blinking hippies!
McCain’s instinct is to make this about leadership in a crisis. That’s the right instinct. Obama sees nothing wrong with screaming that the sky is falling during a stock-market meltdown in order to score political points. McCain’s impulse was to argue for calm at the moment when it is needed.
Perhaps. Alternatively, McCain’s impulse was CYA with a dash of personal exposure in the developing investment bank meltdown. But what do I know? I periodically moiston the surface of my peepers via lipid secretions triggered by the relaxation of levator palpebrae superioris muscles affixed via tendons to thin folds of skin nestled in my ocular orbits.
Real leaders don’t even own meibomian glands! Before giving up ground so easily on ‘the economy’, McCain should remember that he is made of sterner palpebral stuff.
Is it true that Sarah Palin thinks Lehman Brothers is an appliance store in Fairbanks?
She doesn’t shop there because it’s owned by “those people”.
Why worry about the economy or global warming when filthy brown peeps are pouring over the Canadian border to clean our toilets, destroy our skyscrapers, pick our lettuce, take all the good parking spaces, pay taxes and unplug our braindead ladies on life support?
Jebus is coming soon, and if you don’t vote the right way, he’ll make you stand in the corner for eternity and you won’t get to go outside at recess. Or a priest will molest you.
And you don’t want that. At least, I don’t think so.
Semi-on topic, Jon Stewart did a segment last night entitled Sarah Palin Won’t blink.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Third video down. Actually, the entire episode last night seemed much better than their iffy convention coverage.
Shorter version of all wingnut posts:
Any problems that occur that are the fault of republicans should be ignored.
If any problems that occur that are the fault of republicans can be spun to be the fault of Democrats, do it.
Any problems that occur from noon on inauguration day to exactly 4 years later under any Democratic administration are an undeniable cause for extreme distress, hand-wringing, whining, and fault-finding.
Liberals are to blame for everything that goes wrong.
If a problem was caused by a republican and there is absolutely no way to spin it as being the fault of a Democrat, then said republican is actually a Liberal in disguise.
If intellectual dishonesty and spohistry were a currency, Jonah would be the Cheeto tree.
Beware the weeping angel.
Yes Jonah, we understand that your instinct is to stick your fingers in your ears and go “lalalala” – the “if you ignore it then maybe only poor people will suffer” strategy. But WTF do you mean about the thin line between hope and fear? That’s kinda like asying “there’s a thin line between greed and generosity” or “there’s a thin line between apples and oranges” or “there’s a thin line of urine running down Jonah’s pants”.
According to Max Brooks, a zombie’s eyes are just like a normal human’s eyes but appear cloudy because of the damage caused by their not blinking. Just saying.
They don’t give up, do they? Any normal human being would have slunk away in shame by now.
Obama: “Now that the ship is beached on these rocks, I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that we may have been, as I have been saying for several years now, headed in the wrong direction.”
McCain: “Let’s just reduce
greedspeed and hold our course.”Press: “Oh mighty unblinking aged wise man, you are the POW of destiny! Untold billions of disappeared dollars will have no choice but to reappear if you continue to be very old and a POW and not blink.”
Why worry about the economy or global warming when filthy brown peeps are pouring over the Canadian border to clean our toilets, destroy our skyscrapers, pick our lettuce, take all the good parking spaces, pay taxes and unplug our braindead ladies on life support?
Ah, the common misconception that us filthy brown peoples have just started gettin up north. The white man does not understand how we have bonded with the Other filthy brown natives, spawning a race of superbrown people:
The Meskimos.
Seal tacos motherfocker!
> Beware the weeping angel.
Who?
Why worry about the economy or global warming when filthy brown peeps are pouring over the Canadian border to clean our toilets, destroy our skyscrapers, pick our lettuce, take all the good parking spaces, pay taxes and unplug our braindead ladies on life support?
Ah, the common misconception that us filthy brown peoples have just started gettin up north. The white man does not understand how we have bonded with the Other filthy brown natives, spawning a race of superbrown people:
The Meskimos.
Seal tacos motherfocker!
“The white man does not understand how we have bonded with the Other filthy brown natives, spawning a race of superbrown people”
Whew!
Good thing I married me one’a them superbrown wimmin! Or maybe she’s ultrabeige? I never paid much attention to her exact shade.
The Meskimos have more than 100 words that mean border-crossing.
I can’t think of where I heard it, (it all kind of blurs together) but some wingnut talking head was lauding McCain for being the “voice of calm” like a real Fearless Leader, while Obama was only making investors panic by telling the truth about the shitstorm on Wall Street.
Real leaders use the Noble Lie, uppity smart-guy liberals tell citizens “the truth”, and if that makes Wall Street panic, well, it’s the liberals fault for anything bad that happens.
As usual.
“some wingnut talking head was lauding McCain for being the “voice of calm” like a real Fearless Leader, while Obama was only making investors panic by telling the truth about the shitstorm on Wall Street.”
Calm investors buy, and can thereby be taken advantage of.
Skittish investors sell, thereby taking their money elsewhere so that Repig bankers cannot lend it out at 30-1 leverage.
Why do skittish investors hate America?
Showing they don’t have a clue about that real courage is; only what it looks like in gladiator movies.
Why they watch so many gladiator movies… is for another thread.
McCain was just telling the American people what his stock broker told him:
“Sell? No, no — big mistake! You’re in it for the long haul, aren’t you? Just ride it out. You’ll be fine.”
McCain only blinks (POW) because of what the NVA did to him in that POW camp years ago. (POW) How dare that dirty fucking hippie Jonah criticize McCain (POW) for something he cannot help?
POW
The RW spin seems to be:
Iraq — woulda been perfect from DAY ONE if the Liebruls hadn’t been so, like, doomy and gloomy about it and then, like, the terrists blew stuff, like, up. The Liebruls WANT America to fail!
Wall Street — Wouda been fine if the Liebruls hadn’t been so like, doomy and gloomy, and then, like, everyone panicked. The Liebruls WANT the economy to fail!
EVERYTHING is the Liebruls fault!!!
Obama sees nothing wrong with screaming that the sky is falling during a stock-market meltdown.
Al Gore sees nothing wrong with screaming that the sky is warming during an ice-cap meltdown.
There you have it. The conservative worldview. Never EVER acknowledge reality.
HEY!!!!
John McCain = POW = Blackberry Creator
U R = Fagz
JoeyJonah, do you like movies about gladiators?
“Joey” is supposed to be in strikethrough.
FYWP.
I’m sorry, but I could have sworn that Jonah Goldberg just wrote a column decrying fear-mongering. I’m sure I must be mistaken, because that would defy parody, and no rational person could possibly believe that he’d write such a thing.
WTF? Does anybody ever get the feeling that “hte pantload” is just fucking with us? I’m still not able to comprehend his level of stupidity.
Here’s the thing that’s amazing about Jonah: he’s not afraid to admit that there are facts out there somewhere, he just doesn’t care about them. He straight-out admits that the stock market is in free fall, and then cheerfully asserts that the real problem is that Obama is talking about it.
It’s at times like this that I have a momentary frisson of admiration for the dishonest little legacy-hire. He doesn’t have much, but he does have cojones.
The BushCo plan was to prop up the markets until after the election – & it almost worked. But now, their folly has just made the paybacks even harsher. Looks like somebody didn’t QUITE think their cunning plan all the way through here. Karma is a bitch, huh?
If the GOP is still high in the polls a week from now, it might be time to check the nation’s water-supply for heavy doses of narcotics.
But the REAL narrative is that the GOP has cornholed the US economy YET AGAIN with its addiction to cronyism & its repeatedly-refuted “free-lunch uber alles” approach to economics, & is now leaving the “little fish” YET AGAIN blindfolded, strapped down & lubed up for the Big Boys to violate at their leisure. Ah, the Magic Of The Free Market (provider not responsible for side-affects; use at own risk)!
There’s a dump-truck about to T-bone your station-wagon, America, & your engine just died – but if you have enough “hope” to “be a grown-up” & DO NOT BLINK … maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay. The solution is obvious. Time to get ANOTHER credit-card & max that bitch out to show how patriotic you are!
Doughy Pantload lecturing everyone on “the truth” – LOL!
“I’m talking straight out of my ass – indeed, that is central to my delusion.”
Hint: Lehman Brothers survived the Dirty 30s, & it’s fucking toast as of Monday – which seems to suggest that perhaps FDR quotes are a tad less than apropos here.
ya know, for a bunch of people who love screaming ‘terrist’ whenever they can, loadpants’ call for calm just sort, ah, falls flat.
they built their entire existence on fear and now standing around saying stay calm is gonna get them what it got kevin bacon in animal house.
Are you serious, There’s a thin line between hope and fear, and Obama is crossing it. and McCain needs to be the nothing to fear but fear itself guy to Obama’s “it’s time to panic” guy. Bonus: That happens to be the truth. from the “ZOMG THERE ARE TERRORISTS UNDER THE BED RUN AWAAAAAY!!!” party? Christ almighty.
>McCain Blinks
Hmm, Jo,nah missed the real cause behind the blinking.
From Ka-POW, Again:
>>because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country.
Shorter Jonah Goldberg:
John McCain shouldn’t be ashamed about his efforts to confuse shit and Shinola.
“McCain’s impulse was to argue for calm at the moment when it is needed.”
Please. McCain’s impulse was to repeat his talking point about the “fundamentals” being strong until his campaign realized that he sounded like an out of touch moron (I’m guessing that the booing clued them in).
Beware the weeping angel.
Duck, Sally Sparrow!
Hey! We’re not confused! John McThuselah is who’s fuckin’ confused, buddy!
McCain’s instinct is to make this about leadership in a crisis.
Right. Like Kevin Bacon provided leadership in that scene in Animal House when he stood up to a maddened herd of citizens and insisted they calm down!
I’d like to know if Cindy lost any money this time around? Is her shipping & distributing company loosing money thanks to people loosing jobs & cutting the consumption of beer, or (sad thought) is beer consumption rising?
As for her cash and investments, how are they doing? Is her money safe in Switzerland or the Caymans? Does she worry (like me) that her savings are being used by the BofA to back empty loans?
Lecter / Verger 08! Vote for the non-blinking ticket!
He’s broadly right though. Obama’s line is “OMG this is horrible” and McCain’s is “I’ll fix it”. Obama gives an honest appraisal of a fuckedup world that he has no hope at all of fixing; McCain says he’ll get you your pony. People like ponies.
I think beer consumption will fall as the destitute shift over to Mad Dog 20/20.
Watching McCain on TV, he actually does seem to blink a HELL of a lot!
Once you notice it, it gets seriously distracting.
“The BushCo plan was to prop up the markets until after the election – & it almost worked. But now, their folly has just made the paybacks even harsher. Looks like somebody didn’t QUITE think their cunning plan all the way through here. Karma is a bitch, huh?”
Ha ha! Yeah, me and my bank account are really enjoying this ironic turn of events. Boy, are those Bush guys taking it hard!
In all seriousness, though, this is all going to seem a lot less funny if McCain wins, but also, if McCain wins, it’ll seem a lot less funny from Canada, because that will be the sign to me that this country no longer cares about its own survival.
Don’t look away, don’t cut taxes, and, whatever you do, don’t blink.