The Obama Economic Surge?

The Dow Jones has rebounded 623 points in the last three days, a 9.5% gain. I'm waiting with bated breath for all the "Obama Recession" bastards to give him credit for having the foresight to throw money at the problem and stem the tide.

The Obama economic "surge" worked! Why can't they admit that? Say it. SAY IT!

ADDING... Of course, I'm kidding. My point is that one has nothing to do with the other. It's all speculation based on insider news and confidence.

It's just very interesting and obvious that while the markets are doing poorly, President Obama's face is plastered all over the DJIA ticker, but when the markets are rallying, rags like Andrea Mitchell are trying to say the White House is taking credit for it while the MSM remains mum. Oh, they'll tell you the Dow is up, but the very next line isn't, "Is President Obama doing too much?" That's only reserved when the numbers are in the red. And please show me a quote where the White House taking credit that isn't intended as a joke, Andrea. And while you're at it kick your husband, Alan Greenspan in the scrotum. That scumbag was part of the problem.

The Right Wing Noise Machine Continues

So not only is the push for the situation we're in being characterized as the "Obama Recession," now we have wingnuts like Mary Matalin claiming that the Reagan 1981 recession was worse and for that matter, so was the Bush 2001 recession.

MATALIN: I don’t want to say I’m panic-free... but I do have the perspective we’ve been through worse. Reagan had a worse recession, and arguably George W. Bush, I was there in that pre-9/11. We inherited a recession. We acted quickly, and the recession, in combination with 9/11, was shallow and short, and we went on to have 52 months of consecutive growth. I’m not doing talking points here.

Nice qualifier, huh? "I'm not doing talking points here." Except for the "we inherited a recession" part and the "52 months of consecutive job growth" part.

Well, Matalin must have not seen February's 651,000 job losses which officially puts us at a deeper loss than the '81-'82 recession. And do I need to remind anyone that we weren't in a 18 month nose dive when Bush took office, nor was 9/11 to blame for the mild (in comparison) recession Bush oversaw which started in March of 2001?

(Chart from TIME Online)

That brown line, which only shows losses through December 2007, is the current recession as opposed to the Bush recession shown by the orange line. In fact, this chart also shows that every other recession was deeper and recovered faster than that of Bush's two term clusterfuck.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Mary Matalin/James Carville household.

(H/T Think Progress)

GOP Identity Crisis

What is the future of the Republican Party? Who will the future leaders of the GOP be? All the talk has been focused on Sarah Palin, and although the thought of Palin dragging the party down to Titanic depths is very appealing to me, I don't think the Republican Party can stand nor will they choose another George W. Bush in Armani jackets and Prada pumps.

Still, here's Chris Matthews having a debate with Pat "Even A Stake Through The Heart Won't Kill Me" Buchanan and Republican strategist Mike Paul. Buchanan and Paul get into it at about the 8 minute mark.



Well, that was a very interesting debate. Mr. Paul was correct. For the Republican party to remain relevant, they're going to have to change the way they cater to the elite in this country and the party as a whole needs to examine itself and try to get minorites (soon to be majorities) on their team, to which Buchanan responded, "Why dont you examine yourself?" I don't know what he meant by that, but Pat's brain isn't as sharp as it used to be - carrying water for the GOP has a numbing effect on your synapses.

"Why dont you examine yourself?" Buchanan always refers to 1964, 1968 and Nixon (probably the only time he was actually relevant) but that was FORTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, PAT! It's a shame that they can't see or perhaps don't understand that lip service and wedge issues are no longer going to be enough. What your party does while it's in power will be dragged out onto the mat and there will be accountability.

This election was a reckoning. Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado (did I forget one?) jumped into the blue paint vat because the old GOP system is broken. Did anyone ever think the Democrats would win Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana in one cycle?! It shows that their system of politics is broken - the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove style, while working well in the 80's and 90's and the notion that there could be a permanent Republican majority - burned white hot and extinguished itself out in four short years. (I say short in the grand scheme of things - I know they were four very long years for most of us.)

But I don't know how they can fix it. Being a fiscal conservative is one thing. But being anti-union and forcing religion into the public arena is another. I'm an Hispanic and I can't for the life of me understand why any Hispanic or African-American would vote against their own self interests by voting Republican. I'm dumbfounded by the likes of African-American Republican strategists Ron Christie and Joe Watson on the air. What are they thinking?! How do they sleep at night after bald-faced lying on the air daily?

Mike Paul was the first African-American Republican strategist I've seen who made any sense, but his basic premise is to change the party. The thing is if you remake the party, if you change the party for the better ethnically and demographically, if you change the philosophy of the party to attract more people of color, then is it really still the Republican Party we all know?

There will always be a base that you can spoon feed the red meat to - just look at Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity making asses out of themselves with the latest wingnut talking point, "The Obama Recession" - but it's no longer enough. The Republicans that listen to the hate mongering who still think that their party is what it was 40 years ago are dying out, their base is shrinking and unless they really start paying attention to the fact that caucasians will soon be the minority in this country, the GOP will go the way of the dinosaur, the automat, and $1 per gallon gasoline.