Paul Krugman, please report under the bus!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Rachel joins Matthews and David: Last Friday, Paul Krugman said Obama should be willing to go down the fiscal cliff before accepting a bad “grand bargain.” To read his column, click this.

That night, he was mocked by Chris Matthews and David Corn, right there on The One Liberal Channel! See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/10/12.

Corn is billed as Our Man from Mother Jones. Even he wouldn’t speak up for Krugman, who’s just a columnist.

Last night, Rachel effectively joined them. No, she didn’t criticize Krugman; she pretended he doesn’t exist.

In a twenty-minute opening segment, she dreamed about the wonderful things Obama might do in his second term. She didn’t say a word—not one—about the near-term possibilities Krugman is warning about.

It’s called manufactured consent. To see a seven-figure cable star perform it, just watch this slickly performed cable segment. Eventually, you’ll see Rachel kissing Amy Klobuchar’s ass as comments like these are exchanged:
KLOBUCHAR (11/12/12): The people got engaged in this election. First of all, the message was balanced in bringing the debt down. There’s no doubt about it. When you look at some of those races, Heidi Heitkamp winning in North Dakota, the Indiana race, they rejected a lot of rigid ideology. They said, “Let’s get problem solvers in there that are going to get something done and bring this down in a balanced way.”

And I couldn’t agree with you more on what we’re hearing on the Republican side. Conservative commentator Bill Kristol just saying this weekend that we should look at, it’s not going to kill the country to look at raising some of the taxes on millionaires and that, in fact, we could look at—he suggested that the Republican Party should take President Obama up on his offer.

You have Speaker Boehner saying, “Let’s look at compromise. We have to do that.” So this is the time to bring that debt down. And we seriously have to do it. I don’t think anyone disputes that, but it has to be a mix of those spending cuts and the revenue.

And the one figure that I’d like to add here is how much revenue we get by just going back to the Clinton levels at $250,000 and above. That’s $700 billion in 10 years.

MADDOW: Wow.
"Wow," this corporate-owned hustler said, as Klobuchar kept glossing the question of how we should “bring that debt down.”

What is Klobuchar willing to do to accomplish that goal? Like a well-trained corporate child, Maddow never asked! She did agree to feign amazement about that $700 billion over ten years—in context, a rather small amount.

But what else is Klobuchar willing to do in the next seven weeks? Krugman is warning his readers about that question. But Rachel forgot to ask!

Go ahead—watch that tape! You will be watching seventeen minutes from one of the press corps’ biggest hustlers. You’ll see Rachel dream all sorts of dreams, even about some liberal goals the liberal groups in question are no longer seeking.

But you won’t see her ask the short-term question: What kind of deal are you willing to strike with John Boehner to avoid going over the cliff?

(Klobuchar may even have a good answer. With Maddow, Dems don't need one.)

Later in the program, Rachel had shiny objects to share with the gang. Every good liberal slept soundly last night, drunk on this manifest faker’s warm milk and her soft comfort food.

What your lizard brain is saying: Your lizard brain is telling you that this simply has to be wrong.

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman, report to the bus! Chris and David openly mocked you. With Maddow, you simply aren't there.

10 comments:

  1. Klobuochar: So this is the time to bring that debt down.

    Good column, Bob.

    Also, note that Klobuchar was apparently confusing "debt" and "deficit". Bringing the debt down is out of the question at the moment. It would require more than bringing the deficit down to zero. The debt would only be reduced if the federal government ran a surplus.

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    1. Thank you David. You are absolutely correct, Ms. Klobuchar is confused and has no idea what she is talking about. This Grand Bargain nonsense needs to stop or else our economic depression will persist.

      Our elite politicians have spent the last four years socializing trillions of dollars of bad private debt held by the major banks and now tell us that we must submit to austerity. Everyone needs to stop being selfish they say.

      My question is when do we finally call them on this BS? After Social Security and Medicare are cut? Or are we not allowed to push back because our Dear Leader's legacy is at stake?

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    2. Nice catch, David.

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  2. "Every good liberal slept soundly last night, drunk on this manifest faker’s warm milk and her soft comfort food."

    This is very odd, Bob. True, you *have* been accused, on several occasions, of misrepresenting Maddow. And many others have argued that she has no influence on the national discourse, or the Democratic party, and ain't worth the time.

    But enthusiastic defenses of Rachel Maddow and the actual content of her programming? Where are they here? Whose lizard brain are projecting into? Or is the "liberal world" -- whatever that means -- collectively culpable because Madow has a viewership on a corporate-owned TV, sufficiently large to draw advertisers and sufficiently compliant to avoid disturbing her corporate owners?

    Consider that lizard brain. You, after all, are the hagiographer of the Clinton/Gore era -- the same Clinton/Gore who deregulated the mass-media and financial services industries, to disastrous effect, and intended to privatize SS, but was thankfully prevented by a blow job.

    So while you're merely speculating about other lizard brains, your own lizard brain should be known to you, no? Why not begin the reform there?

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    1. It's pretty obvious that Anonymous #1 was not expressing thanks for Bush II being installed into the Presidency over Gore. Instead, he was bringing a much needed critical perspective to an Administration that promoted and signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, promoted and signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, and hinted at privatizing Social Security. It's hard to say what Gore's role was in any of that, but we should definitely not let Clinton off the hook.

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    2. Back to reading class for you, mejimenez.

      "but was thankfully prevented" is not really very hard to parse.

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    3. Anonymous #2: I don't know at what level your education stopped, but the notion that there are multiple ways to parse a statement should have been covered at some point. It should be clear to anyone without an axe to grind that Anonymous #1 was expressing thanks that the privatization of Social Security was prevented, not that Gore's presidency was prevented.

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  3. Could Rachel, or Bob, tell us the CBO forecast for the next 10 years of the total increase in debt, assuming taxes aren't raised?

    Then, could Rachel, or Bob, compare item the total forecast increase in debt to the estimated $700 billion of additional revenue from raising rates on incomes greater than $250,000?

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  4. Obama has been working his ass off to cut the social safety net.

    He'll get it done. And the usual crowd will invent the usual excuses for it.

    George Carlin predicted it long ago.
    ~

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  5. Considering how critical you've been of Lawrence O'Donnell, it would be nice if you at least gave him and Chris Hayes credit for working to debunk the Fiscal Cliff scare mongering, which they've been doing consistently since Friday. Sometimes they get it right and they should be encouraged to continue.

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