Wait for it: Some Republican hypocrisy I see coming down the pike. (UPDATED)
March 16, 2009

 
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Benjamin Franklin famously said:

“Only two things in life are certain: Death and Taxes.”

If I may be so bold as to try and improve upon Poor Richard’s sage observation, we can add “Republican Idiocy” to that list. The “Stimulus Bill” has already provided us with multiple examples last week. Republicans in both the House and the Senate railed against “earmarks” while happily accepting them. Governors Bobby “The Exorcist” Jindal (R-LA) and Rick “Governor Good Hair” Perry (R-TX) have both refused to accept stimulus funds that would go to extend unemployment benefits, but have no problem accepting billions in stimulus funds for pork projects in their own state.

Listening to recent news events, I can already see a couple of opportunistic Conservative double-standards coming our way VERY soon. Don’t call this “a list of predictions”. More like, “I told ya so” in advance. Be on the lookout for…

 

1) Following four straight weeks of losses on Wall Street, Conservative pundits (most notably Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) were blaming Obama for the recent slide in the stock market (a moronic falsehood I debunked a couple of weeks ago). Apparently, the current economic calamity began the moment Wall Street learned 2008 was an election year and Democrats were likely to win. (Uh oh! Sell!)

Then something unexpected happened last week: four straight days of GAINS in the Stock Market last week with the DOW closing up nearly 600 points, closing over the 7200 mark after several bailed out corporations announced the most tepid of good news: Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said he thinks the recession could be over “by the end of ’09” and “2010 could be a growth year” (thanks to recent policies enacted under Obama), and bailed out CitiBank reported “turning a profit” for the first time since late 2007. Add to that a report that retail sales fell by less than expected in February, and it was all enough to give a Market hungry for good news a reason to buy again.

The Wait for it! Moment: After weeks of “blaming Obama” for the Recession (despite being in office for less than seven weeks), should the Markets continue to improve, these same Republicans will credit George Bush for the turn-around in the economy. Yes, while they suggested Obama had the power to destroy the economy in seven weeks, he likewise will of had no power to improve the economy in that same amount of time. They will credit Republican obstructionism for… well, I’m not quite sure, but their stall tactics will be seen as “beneficial” somehow. They will point to the fact the Market rallied as soon as Obama signed Bush’s last budget from last October (the same budget they just finished saying he shouldn’t have signed because it was full of earmarks.) And they will credit the fact Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was appointed by Bush in 2006, as deserving much of the credit (Bernanke, by the way, during an interview on 60 minutes Sunday, criticized the very thing dozens of Republicans have suggested… “allowing banks to just fail”… as one of the things that turned the 1929 Stock Market Crash into “The Great Depression”.

 
(Update: WOW, that didn’t take long! Dana Perino Claims Bush Deserves Credit for Wall St. Rise (w/video))

 
2) If the name “Elian Gonzalez” rings a bell, the latest news of an American father that elicited President Obama’s help in securing the return of his young son, currently living in Brazil with his step-father, may sound eerily familiar. A New Jersey man whose ex-wife took their son to live with her in Brazil, died during childbirth last August and, reportedly “following his late wife’s wishes”, her husband is refusing to release his step-son to his father living in New Jersey. You may remember back in 2000 how Republicans howled in protest when the Clinton Administration used Miami police to enforce a court order, entering the home where young Elian was living with his late mother’s relatives, to seize the boy and send him back to his father in Cuba.

The Wait for it! Moment: Republican pundits that decried the Clinton Administration for forcibly sending little Elian back to his father in Cuba “against the mother’s wishes” will now do a 180′ to criticize the Brazilian government for refusing to force the step-father of 8 year old Sean Goldman to release him to his father here in the U.S..

 

I’m sure there’s more to come, but those are just two off the top of my head. Watch this space.

 


 

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March 16, 2009 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Politics, Predictions

One Response

  1. fastfeat - March 16, 2009

    Look for Perino and Tucker Carlson to start a new business for un- and underemployed RW pundits and Cabinet personnel to keep themselves relevant. Of course, they will ask for bailout money from the Obama administration to get it off the ground…

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