STILL NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

The much anticipated House Republican “alternative budget” was rolled out today. It had a nice blue cover and an official looking logo, which House minority leader John Boehner kept waving around like, well, Neville Chamberlain. All 19 pages of it. AND NO NUMBERS.

Things got dodgy when Boehner was asked, to paraphrase an oldie but goodie: “Where’s the BEEF?” After much harrumph-ing Boehner and his cohorts had to concede that “details are forthcoming.”

Even the Obama Administration’s Mr. Nice Guy himself, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs got in on the fun:

"I think the party of 'NO' has become the party of 'NO NEW IDEAS.' The rhetoric inside the budget seems to be a road map for the failed policies that got us into this mess ... The administration's glad that the Republicans heard the president's call to submit an alternative. We just hope that next time it will contain actual numbers so somebody can evaluate what it means."

And then he said, with a sly grin: "There's one more picture of a windmill than there are charts of numbers. And there's exactly one picture of a windmill."



OUCH! When good guy Robert Gibbs rips you a new one without even breaking a sweat, House Repugs, you’ve reached a NEW LEVEL OF LOW. As Jonathan Alter said, “the first rule of holes is to STOP DIGGING.” Keep digging, Boehner, Cantor, Pence, Gingrich, Steele, Cheney, Palin, Jindhal, Ashcroft ...

STIMULUS, REPUBLICAN-STYLE: THE PARTY OF "NO" IS ALSO THE SHOVEL-READY PARTY!

Bernice Arndt, Village Idiot

Chicago has experienced a rash of teen shootings this year, in most cases the intended and unintended carnage of gang conflicts. One reader of the Chicago Tribune came up with a BRILLIANT solution. Bernice Arndt of Elmhurst, Illinois, gave us this gem:

There are far too many high school students being killed. Let the 10 Commandments be placed in every classroom. These are the words of God and a good reminder to all.

What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that! And as a side benefit, it would also remind the kids to stop carving and worshipping idols and having other gods before Yahweh. Sounds like a win-win to me. Bernice, enjoy the convention.

MEMO TO SENATE CONSERVADEMS

Evan Bayh (pictured below), self-appointed leader of a breakaway caucus of cowardly, traitorous, jelly-spined DINOS (Democrats in name only) ...

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S PRESS CONFERENCE, YOUR CRAVEN AND DESPICABLE DESIGNS TO OBSTRUCT HIS BUDGET ARE:

As per Lula's comment below...

The movie rights have already been optioned!

My Apologies

Thanks to Carlos for keeping things rolling. I am BURIED in a book deadline (and as Carlos could tell you, it will be a real page turner!) and have been nonstop workthink for the last couple weeks. I promise to return to my juvenile annoying self soon.

Musical Plea to President Obama: Why not the BEST?

Dear Mr. President:

Why haven't you enlisted the PEOPLE'S ECONOMIST, Paul Krugman, to take a prominent position in your team of minor economic luminaries?

-- Is it that Lawrence Summers and "Slim" Tim Geithner are such insiders -- Geithner under Summers with Clinton, who signed the Republican banking deregulation that got us into this mess in the first place -- that only those so contaminated by the crisis know how to get us out of it? Does anyone get this perverse logic? Perhaps you'll explain it to us tomorrow night, Mr. President, that is, if those sheep in the WH Press corps will ask the question.

-- Is it a Harvard-Princeton thing? Stupid Ivy League turf jealousies (Summers was a Harvard president) like the jerks who feel entitled to office by virtue of membership in the sexist, fascist, juvenile Yale Skull and Bones fraternity where GWB learned the virtues of alcoholism and prankish irresponsible behavior of the type that got us into the Iraq war? What happened to all that scripture stuff about "childish things" being over?

-- Or is Paul Krugman overqualified by dint of his Nobel Prize in economics?

Or maybe it's plain spiteful pettiness because Professor Krugman continues to RIP Geithner's economic schemes. Any administration with Rham Emanuel in a position of prominence could get a lot of that.