http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/should-the-president-negotiate/?comments#permid=10204446
Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey, in the Wall Street Journal, and by extension, Mr. Douthat, conveniently neglect to be specific on the history of the debt ceiling authorizations, which is typical of the disingenuous use of statistics by politicians.
Let's be clear, one half, 50% of the debt ceiling authorizations were "clean". Most of the others were attached to continuing (budget) resolutions.
"Other times, the limit was paired with reforms, only some of which were related to the budget."
Note the purposely non-specific way this is stated. I am sure that for bone-fide journalists it would be a simple matter to find out exactly how many times debt limit legislation was attached to partisan (Republican) extortion - I suspect most of them were - but of course such specificity would be counterproductive to their (GOP, WSJ) insane position.
Mr. Douthat is obviously a frustrated speech writer, as he continues to use his blogs and columns to write fictitious speeches for presidents. This time, however, I think he has hit the nail on the head.
I would even go further and insist on passage of universal background checks, as well as up-down votes on all pending (judicial) appointments, just to give the GOP a taste of their own tactics...
Let's be clear, one half, 50% of the debt ceiling authorizations were "clean". Most of the others were attached to continuing (budget) resolutions.
"Other times, the limit was paired with reforms, only some of which were related to the budget."
Note the purposely non-specific way this is stated. I am sure that for bone-fide journalists it would be a simple matter to find out exactly how many times debt limit legislation was attached to partisan (Republican) extortion - I suspect most of them were - but of course such specificity would be counterproductive to their (GOP, WSJ) insane position.
Mr. Douthat is obviously a frustrated speech writer, as he continues to use his blogs and columns to write fictitious speeches for presidents. This time, however, I think he has hit the nail on the head.
I would even go further and insist on passage of universal background checks, as well as up-down votes on all pending (judicial) appointments, just to give the GOP a taste of their own tactics...
No comments:
Post a Comment