Understanding Rush

Countdown with Keith Olberman gave us a great glimpse into the liberal mindset the other night. Olberman's guest was Janeane Garofalo who, with Olby cheering her on, conducted a Freudian analysis of Michael Steele, Rush "Limbow," and anyone who listens to Limbaugh, including the women who love him. It was quite a tour de force.

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There's something immensely amusing about a woman covered with tattoos saying that other people have problems. She admits that she despises herself, but so does Rush, she avers, and besides she's a much better person than he is, presumably because she's a liberal and her hatred, directed as it is at conservatives, is socially and politically correct.

Watch the whole thing. It's rare that liberals so plainly put on display their own confusions and distempers.

RLC

Four Crises

Terence Corcoran at National Post sees four crises which will result from the implementation of President Obama's economic vision. The four are these: Fiscal, Investment, Financial, and Energy.

Here's what Corcoran says about the first two:

Fiscal crisis: Mr. Obama is clearly using the current economic mess as cover for scores of leftist programs and projects. Americans don't like to be called leftists or socialists, especially American leftists and socialists. They're liberals. Whatever they call themselves, they will drive the United States into a succession of trillion-dollar increases in the national debt, on bailouts, stimulus and health care. Nothing wrong with debt in principle, but it's a recipe for a fiscal nightmare if the debt and interventions undermine growth. No growth, no tax revenue to pay down the debt, equals debt spiral.

Investment crisis: The stock markets have already pronounced on the Obama economic strategy. If a live market ticker had been running through his Tuesday night speech, viewers could have watched confidence drain out of investors in real time. The Dow Jones average plunged almost 200 points in opening trading yesterday.

While claiming to support enterprise and entrepreneurship, Mr. Obama promised to continue waging ideological war on capitalism, on bankers, high income earners, Wall Street, the financial system, investors and free trade.

He warped concepts, dishonestly calling tax cuts to high-income earners "an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy." Cuts actually mean not taking wealth from the wealthy. He promised to raise taxes on the top 2% of American income earners, as if trillions were sitting in the pockets of Bernie Madoff's clients.

No one, not even Paul Krugman, Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleader at the New York Times, thinks Obama will be able to limit tax hikes to just the wealthy. Krugman, in one of the most self-contradictory editorials I've read in a while, doesn't see how the administration can refrain from imposing a middle class tax hike down the road.

I know, Obama promised he wouldn't do that, but he also promised transparency in government, an end to lobbyists in his administration, and an end to earmarks in appropriations bills. So much for promises.

RLC

Economics 101

Economics is an arcane, daunting field of study. Many find it incomprehensible, and even some of us who don't serve in Washington are mystified by it as well.

As a public service, therefore, Viewpoint offers this simple lesson on the various economic systems that will make some general principles of the "dismal science" perfectly plain. The lesson teaches the differences between the major economic "isms" of the world. Here's how they work:

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It's expensive and sour. Meanwhile, no one works and the cows drop dead of starvation.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both, sells you the milk, and shoots you if you complain.

OBAMANOMICS: You have two cows. First the government pays you not to milk them. Then it regulates what and how much you can feed them. Then it taxes you for the cows until you can no longer afford them. Eventually, the government takes both cows, uses one for food, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Meanwhile, you go on welfare.

AMERICAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Simple, no?

RLC