Hullabaloo

Monday, October 13, 2008

 
To Incoherent For the Republican Party?

by digby

Is that possible?

David Frum is having some trouble with his fellow Cornerites because he doesn't think Sarah W. Palin is ... well ... quite smart enough:

Do my correspondents (and now my Corner colleagues) truly believe that - but for my pitiful media and social ambitions - nobody in America would have noticed that Sarah Palin cannot speak three coherent consecutive words about finance or economics?

[...]

Perhaps it is our job at NRO is tell our readers only what they want to hear, without much regard to whether it is true. Perhaps it is our duty just to keep smiling and to insist that everything is dandy - that John McCain's economic policies make sense, that his selection of Sarah Palin was an act of statesmanship, that she herself is the second coming of Anna Schwartz, and that nobody but an over-educated snob would ever suggest otherwise.

Oh my. That is a problem. Frum is getting slammed by his own side for being an inconvenient truth-teller about Palin's incoherence. How could they?

I suspect it may because Frum was positively giddy about the man who said this:

"Because the—all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those—changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the—like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate—the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those—if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."—Explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

and this:

It means your own money would grow better than that which the government can make it grow. And that's important."—on what private accounts could do for Social Security funds, Falls Church, Va., April 29, 2005

I actually feel sorry for McCain on this one. He had every reason to believe that the conservative intelligentsia would support putting a functional incompetent on the ticket. After all, people like David Frum wrote glowing books called The Right Man about the current functional incompetent in the White House. How was McCain to know that these rats would scurry over the side squealing about "competence" and "intelligence" all of a sudden?

Seriously, this is just nonsense. These people supported someone who was without any intellectual capability whatsoever, for years. They extolled his "gut" like it was some sort of magical vessel filled with wisdom instead of hot dogs and candies. Their newfound concern for the intelligence of the leadership of America rings just a bit hollow in light of their absurd glorification of the fool who brought us to this place. I don't blame the Cornerites for feeling betrayed.


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digby 10/13/2008 09:00:00 PM |