Why Are These Guys Laughing?

[Miss Authoritiva]

From Scriptoids

The Beltway Boys (Fox News)

Sometimes I have the nagging suspicion that Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke take to popping whippets before the show begins. How else to explain all the inappropriate laughter and then, as the high wears off, the crash back to reality before the end of the show?

Take for example this episode. The show starts off with the usual hyperbolic and collateral language:

BARNES: Hot story number one is battle station. I’m talking about the struggle over Social Security reform, which has begun full throttle, starting with the president’s State of the Union address on Wednesday and that was followed by barnstorming by the president on behalf of his Social Security plan in five states. Now, yes, watch him in Omaha. He was pretty good in Omaha.

And up comes a flattering video clip of the president uttering 6 short, coherent sentences in a row (possibly a personal best). Of course, the 6 consecutive sentences contain nothing substantive, but never mind. Curiously, the video clip does not contain this now-classic exchange:

MS. MORNIN: Okay, I'm a divorced, single mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic.

I suspect the dudes were back at the whippets during the video, because they then lose it over a picture taken at a statue of FDR.

BARNES: You know, Bush has staked out his political position. He’s on the side of the future and the side of reform.... And as if to prove his point that they represent the past, Democratic senators went over to the FDR memorial in Washington, you know, over by the Tidal Basin, to have a press conference and attack the president’s plan.
(LAUGHTER)

And then Barnes floats off into the ether layer of pundit-land -- total conjecture.

BARNES: You know, FDR, he was the father of Social Security, but he died 60 years ago. And he’d probably approve of having the plan updated.

You see, one of the top 10 rules of professional punditry: never pass up the opportunity to channel the dead.

The sillies hit real bad again after Barnes and Kondracke view a video clip of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader....

CONTINUE READING HERE

[libodem]

1. private accounts

would divert capitol from the collective principal that grows the interest that makes the money to pay for the programs. Somehow the repugs have the idea they should get back what they put into it. It doesn't work that way. Some people may never use theirs. Some people may be born receiving it. Some people pay a lifetime and never collect a dime. It's based on need. I don't think the rich ought to even collect their social security. They can live their lives out on their fortunes. Their 401-ks. I hear quite a bit of radio talk about : this is how much I put in a year-this is how much interest it could make -over this may years and this is what it adds up to and I'll never live long enough to collect all those divided monthly payments