Tendentious Liberal Claptrap

President Obama has brought us the worst economic recovery since the great depression. His flaccid “recovery” pales in comparison to the mighty Reagan’s.

And by the way, now that Obama has ended one war and is winding down another, where is the dividend?

Liberals told us the war was costing over 500 billion per year! Where’s the savings?!! Back in the Bush years, a $500 billion drop in savings would have resulted in a surplus!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Left Blogistani Shaw Kenaw, bless her articulate soul, featured one of those ridiculous articles where a liberal invents some obscure meaningless statistic to “prove” that Obama isn’t a big spender.

Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s. (Nutting)

I accept the data upon which Nutting based his tendentious article, but the data is meaningless. He is measuring annual increases in spending from one year to the next to come up with the meaningless soundbite that spending is rising slower under Obama than it did under any hated Republican president, Reagan and Bush being the most mentioned.

It's a trick

First, he includes Obama’s White House projection for 2013 (which of course projects no spending increase), to bring Obama's average annual spending increase number down. The other sneaky trick is using averages instead of absolute values. Nutting averages the percentage increases, which hides the magnitude of the actual numbers.

An example...

Which is bigger 5% of 50 or 3% of 100? That is where the mathematical mischief lies. For the mathematically challenged, 5% of 50 is 2.5, and 3% of 100 is 3. Likewise, Obama’s smaller percentage increases work on a much bigger number, but dealing in percentages hides the gargantuan magnitude of his spending. In truth, he has spent more than Bush and Reagan combined.

Bush is by no means blameless. He blew $787 billion on the bank bailout, setting Obama a super-high budgeting baseline from which to compare annual spending. Obama didn’t need to dramatically increase spending, he just needed to continue the spending while looking responsible as he points to his modest budget increases (the propaganda Nutting is propagating). An honest president, as opposed to a corrupt Chicago Machine pol, would have reset the baseline to $797 billion less than what Bush spent his last year.

A question I have for the Obamabots is, What did Obama do with the extra $787 billion every year after Bush’s “one time” bailout? Were Obama the paragon of fiscal rectitude, his spending would have went down $787 billion for each subsequent year, since that was a one-time spike.  Since Obama is instead a big spending pol, he brazenly pushed through his dramatic spending programs and rewards to cronies with Bush’s stimulus as cover, allowing him to blow almost an extra trillion per year in progressive pet projects while absurdly claiming he has not increased spending. 

The Official Government Numbers Damn Obama's Record

Nutting does do us one favor: He links to official government data. I recommend you go through it yourself instead of letting partisan screwballs filter it for you.

I particularly recommend to you table 1.3, where you will see how Obama's deficits dwarf those of Reagan and Bush.

Table 2.3 is also useful.  In it you will see that even with their hated tax cuts, Reagan and Bush collected more revenue as a percentage of GDP than Obama.  

How did they do it?  They grew the economy, expanded it, instead of choking the life out of it as Obama is doing.  Look at table 10.1 and you will see that Reagan doubled the size of our economy, Clinton and Bush each expanded it by almost another 50%, with Clinton having the slightly better record on GDP growth and clearly the winner on reducing annual deficits. 

By Obama's own laughably Pollyannish projections, if he were to be reelected, he would barely add a third to our economy.  

The record is Clear.  Obama has been a horrible president, shriveling the economy and ballooning the national debt, while unemployment remains high and government grows.  It's not an opinion, it's a fact.  

Just found this.  James Pethokoukis explains it better than I ever could, with charts:  Actually, the Obama Spending Binge Really Did Happen

Polifact.com also does some excellent fisking of shady democrat "statistics."  H/T and muchas gracias to AOW for this most excellent find!

Liberals Exploiting Death for Partisan Gain

Democratic Party 2011: Never let a bloody tragedy go to waste

Not one scintilla of evidence has yet been uncovered linking righwing rhetoric to the Arizona murders, but that hasn't stopped the rabid left from shamelessly exploiting death and tragedy for partisan political advantage. But the American people ain't buyin' it.  The Demagogic party is playing with fire, and they're going to get burned.

Of course, if fact and reason were their foundation, the Democratic party would have collapsed decades ago.

"They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers," said the Democrat. "Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people." (Politico)

Leftwing America: A Nutball in every Pot, a Moonbat in every Belfry

The leftwing wackadoos won't let it go and never will, but these are the nutty nutballs that tune into red-faced ranter Ed Schultz and pompous gas bag Keith Olberman. Garbage in, garbage out. They call this killing spree "The Tea Party Massacre" and say stupid things like this:

"Sorry, Klanbaggers. You drew the crosshairs, and then you drew blood."

How pithy. People who take comfort in such low and shallow sentiments must really suffer poor self-esteem and a sense of uselessness, probably for good reason...

Even the sane ones can't give it up...
What I find more insidious and disheartening is what is going on in the saner corners of the left. Using their heads and being intellectually honest, there are good liberals who admit there is no connection between anyone on the right (or left for that matter) and the shooter. The nexus is just not there. The typical thinking liberal will concede that Palin and the tea parties are not to blame, then in the same breath go right back to subtly casting blame by condemning their rhetoric as "dangerous" and "irresponsible." I don't think most who do this are even conscious of the illogic of it. Here's a typical example:

I'm not sure which response has been worse: the 'Hey, we had nothing to do with it' hand washing of the right, or the irrational lynchmob attitude of the left (are they really comfortable blaming Palin for this, when there's not a shred of evidence that this guy was even slightly inspired by her?).

Even the more fair-minded liberals just can't let the right off the hook. They can't help wagging their fingers at us, attempting to hold us in some kind of suspended probation. They scold us even as they admit there is no evidence: "We know you weren't behind this, but we've got our eye on you!"

Lefties are Nostalgic for a more obedient America
Their purpose is to cast a dim light upon a conservatism that now attracts twice the voting populace that the tired, flaccid liberalism does. The left's only hope is to cast aspersions and stand us in ill-repute with our fellow citizens. They want to put us on notice, to hector and shame us, to stuff us back in a box we broke out of back in the 80's. Liberals sigh with nostalgia as they recall the day when an Eric Severeid or Walter Kronkite told America what to think. It's all so messy now, with all those noisy opinions flying around!

So they retreat to tired old talking points about handguns, civility, the fairness doctrine, speech codes... The only common denominator to these splintered and incoherent ramblings is a desire to snuff more liberties.

Shameless Exploitation is all the Left has left
Never letting a good tragedy go to waste, the left has hijacked this horrible incident to score cheap points. They follow up a senseless tragedy with a senseless spasm of stupidity and demagoguery. It is sickening and craven, and we need to press them on it. A full 57% of normal Americans disagree with the unhinged left, and reject the notion that rightwing tea party rhetoric had anything to do with this.

The left has lost, folks
They lost their sense of good governance years ago, they lost power last November, and now they are losing their minds. This is not a time for tea partiers to retreat or sit back and take it. Now is the time to press the attack on those deranged collectivist morons who so warp and twist the national debate. They've come unhinged, and they need to be held accountable for their irresponsible behavior. The truth is on our side, and so are the American people.

Here are some antidotes to the unhinged liberal rhetoric. Read them and use the information to throw it back in the faces of the hooting baboons on the left.  The true beauty of these links?  Half of them are from liberal publications, and they side with the conservatives.

http://www.salon.com/news/gabrielle_giffords/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/01/09/loughner_not_though
http://www.salon.com/news/gabrielle_giffords/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/01/11/culture_violence_giffords_poll
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/81168/the-arizona-shooting-not-product-right-wing-rage
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256765/hypocrisy-unending-jay-nordlinger
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41087
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011003685.html

Progressives Hate the US Constitution

Progressives hate the tea parties and they hate the constitution.  These are the two principle impediments preventing them from finishing what Woodrow Wilson and FDR started.

"The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness."

-- Woodrow Wilson

Liberal Propaganda Deconstructed

The liberal propagandists in the press tried branding us racists, but such blatant attacks don't work anymore, so they have adopted more subtle tactics.  EJ Dionne is the latest to deploy a deft combination I call the non-sequitur straw man.  Follow me as I deconstruct a piece of progressive propaganda.

Unlike God, the founders left us an amendment process

Dionne's neat rhetorical trick asserts that we tea partiers equate the US Constitution with the Holy Bible.  This is a neat trick because yes, we believe the constitution must be followed just as The Bible must be.  His unstated non-sequitur avers that since we equate the constitution with The Bible, we must also equate the founders with God Almighty.  This sets up the straw man argument that we worship the constitution and the founders.  It's a straw man because unlike God, the founders left us an amendment process.

Dionne starts out with an innocuous statement...

I offer the Republicans two cheers for their fealty to their professed ideals. We badly need a full-scale debate over what the Constitution is, means and allows -- and how Americans have argued about these questions since the beginning of the republic. This provision should be the springboard for a discussion all of us should join.

He plants a few little seeds of doubt there, but so far so good.  Next comes the premise for the non-sequitur straw man...

From its inception, the tea party movement has treated the nation's great founding document not as the collection of shrewd political compromises that it is, but as the equivalent of sacred scripture.

Note that this statement contains two elements, the first is plainly stated, the second one tacitly follows:  1) The constitution is a document like The Bible that government must obey; 2) Unstated:  If the constitution is the equivalent of sacred scripture, then the founders are the equivalent of an infallible God. 

Number 2 is the strawman that does not follow from the first statement.  Since EJ cannot argue with statement #1, he invents the non-sequitur strawman, statement #2, and then knocks it down: 

Yet as Gordon Wood, the widely admired historian of the Revolutionary era has noted, we "can recognize the extraordinary character of the Founding Fathers while also knowing that those 18th-century political leaders were not outside history. ... They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness."

See how he sets up the straw man so he can knock down those crazy rightwingers who want to tea party like it's 1776?  EJ Dionne is too smart to really believe that we deify the founders, so all I can conclude is that he is engaging in a deliberate propaganda smear.   

Progressives are not out to destroy the tea parties; they have bigger fish to fry:

An examination of the Constitution that views it as something other than the books of Genesis or Leviticus would be good for the country.

Yes, let's knock that dusty bit of outmoded parchment off its pedestal.  Good progressives like EJ Dionne and Ezra Klein are just following in the footsteps of Progressivism's great grand daddy, Woodrow Wilson.  They can’t quite muster the intellectual starch of this racist scholar and failed statesman, but it’s just the right pitch for the MSNBC crowd.  It's neo-progressivism reduced to valley girl vapidity:

"The constitution is, like, so old, and full of, like, so many old words that are, like, spelled funny.  Bogus!  It's like totally irrelevant, totally!"

They want a living, breathing constitution, to which Dr. Walter E. Williams has the perfect riposte:

How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be "living"? Depending on "evolving standards," maybe my two pair could beat your flush.

Indeed.  Those who crave power and control must have "living rules."  Oh, and they also want to hold the book, because some animals are more equal than others.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/03/celebrating_the_new_gop_majority_108404.html