Facts Lie

So what did we learn here?  Oh come on, we're Americans, we already know everything we need to know and if fact and experience differ from received wisdom?  Facts lie.

What did experience have to say about the shutdown?  That we love our National Parks says CNN, but did we learn that Democrats want to shut them down and keep veterans from seeing veterans' memorials?  Depends on whether you're a Palinist or not, because veterans weren't actually kept out of such places even if she did the dance of the Sugar Plum Furies at the WW II memorial. If you saw it on Fox you'll do doubt see it that way - a humiliation for Obama.

We believe what we want to, and if you think Obama was "inflexible" in refusing to bend over and let the minority party nullify the law,  you still think so. Why should a false equivalence be anything but false?   If you still think the failure of years worth of legislative initiatives and court battles and seditious propaganda crusades against the Affordable Health Care Act means the will of the people is not served by Democracy you still think so.  If you think a system of providing universal care opportunity at lower cost using private insurers who compete in the free market  is Marxism, then you must think the Swiss are Marxists who hate Capitalism and  will sleep soundly through the cognitive dissonance.

And you know, people who can support the plan designed by Republicans  as long as a Democrat isn't selling it never have a problem with that dissonance, now do they?  Losing in the courts, losing in Congress, losing in public estimation isn't a learning experience for people like Rising Star Ted Cruz. He wants to do it all over again, because after all doing something than has never, ever worked needs to be done until it does. If you think that's stupid of him, you probably never supported him in the first place.

No,  Instead of acknowledging error, instead of recognizing that the public doesn't share their double-thinking delusion; instead of admitting that the principle of nullification has been rejected by the courts for over 200 years as being unconstitutional, the Republican Berserkers will simply reformulate their views in some new way.  A way that still supports their old opinions and makes true their old lies, and with the confidence that comes from blind stupidity we'll see it all again.  It's America and November 2014 is a long, long time from now.

George who?

Here's a history quiz for you.  Which President of the United States do we see on the left, telling the incompetent Mr. Brown he's doing a "heckuva" job responding to hurricane Katrina?  

29% of Louisiana Republicans said in response to a TPM poll that it was Barack Obama - still only an obscure freshman senator from Illinois who bears most of the blame.  44% weren't sure just who was responsible for the poor response to the devastating hurricane. George who?

These people vote.  These people say Liberals are retarded. These people are happy to lecture you about history and science and laugh at your education. George who?


I credit Libby at The Impolitic for bringing this to my attention, but I wish she hadn't.  Of course, being a Floridian, I'm glad for evidence for the argument that Florida isn't the Stupidest State as long as we have Louisiana, but none the less; how can I not feel despair at reading a poll showing, as she says, that "73% of Louisiana Republicans don't remember who was president when Katrina hit NOLA."