Morning Joe 9/7/2012 -- Why politics makes fools of smart people

Once again I could stomach only so much of the foolishness from MSNBC's Morning Joe show. The usual suspects were on, Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, Ed Rendell, Sam Stein, and so on. Scarborough and crew praised the content-free speech given by Obama last night, and Scarborough said several times that the Democratic Convention put the Republican Convention to shame.

There are two points I want to make out of all the foolishness put forward on Morning Joe. At one point this morning Scarborough said that negative economic numbers will not sour the great impression made by Obama and co. last night, that if anyone thinks negative economic numbers trump big impressions, then they don't understand politics. I looked behind Scarborough at the crowd listening to the show, then I thought about Morning Joe's viewers at home, and what Scarborough is saying is that facts don't matter to these people, only marketing and impressions. Of course, Scarborough knows the real scoop and that the economy is in terrible shape, but, according to Scarborough and pundits like him, the average American is moved by big impressions, not economic reality.

Another point I want to bring up is what the Morning Joe pundits said about Obama's strategy of using the auto bailout to help with midwestern states. In his speech, Obama said his administration reinvented the auto industry. Scarborough nor any Morning Joe guest analyzed this statement to see if the auto bailout claim is valid. Remember, only Big Impressions count, so if Obama says he saved the auto industry, then that's what counts. It goes without saying that news outlets like MSNBC are in the bag for Obama and the Democratic Party, but this is pathetic.

The sad state of affairs in America, though, is that intellectuals in general are made foolish by politics. Surely someone on Morning Joe knows enough about the true condition of GM to question Obama's claim that he has reinvented the industry. This is absurd. Surely someone on Morning Joe understands how government interventions have caused such great uncertainty among business people that the economy has seized up, therefore they would question Obama's call for more government intervention.

Are American voters too stupid to understand that interventionist government is the problem and not the solution, or are voters mesmerized by Big Impressions? I don't know what Scarborough's political angle is but I'm pretty sure he has one, or maybe placing politics over reason has made him permanently foolish -- many in the political realm are going to be suprised in the next few years.

Media ignore auto bailout story

I haven't been able to find one mainstream media source that has pushed back on the Obama campaign's claims that the auto bailout was a success. In fact, the media is going along with the claims without providing context. Reason online and few other alternative media sources have covered the story, but MSM have been complicit in the dishonest claims of unqualified success regarding the bailout.

If GM perfoms without a hitch at the top of its game, and economic factors fall in GM's favor, then the US taxpayer might lose only a few billion, but, if as is likely the case, GM continues to face revived and greatly improved competition from Japanese companies, and the unfunded pensions hit hard in 2014, and the European economy continues to stagnate, then after the election, after the GM propaganda has been swallowed by voters, GM will have the same problems it had at the time of its bailout. Many voters will feel stupid when they hear the truth about GM in 2014.

If the Obama administration valued the truth, they would say that the auto bailout has been partially successful, but GM is not out of the woods and could continue to face financial problems. Why Republicans have a blank stare on their faces when someone makes the claim of auto bailout success, I don't know, because there's a great comeback to the claim. I don't understand the Republican campaign -- they have a great story to tell about the unintended consequences of government intervention, but they either don't don't understand how to tell the story, the causes and effects, or they aren't sure they want to win.

Meet the Press 3/25/2012 -- Obama, Trayvon and America

On Meet the Press David Gregory presented David Plouffe with an opportunity to put on an ad for Obama. Plouffe made statements like there would be no auto industry if not for Obama's bailout actions. How someone who hosts a show like Meet the Press, which has traditionally been a reputable program, even if it always had a liberal bent, can let a statement like this go by with no challenge is incredible. By allowing Plouffe to make this outrageous statement, Gregory shows extreme bias and therefore forfeits all credibility. We have to start holding public figures responsible for what they say. There would be an auto industry if the bailout had not happened -- it would probably be a healthier auto industry. GM has not dealt with it's union pension problems, and, after the election, GM will likely start falling again.

The panel discussion centered on Trayvon Martin -- the guests were David Brooks, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ben Jealous and Haley Barbour. The same trite things were repeated that we've heard all week. One thing I want to answer. Several of the guests said, and I've heard it on other shows a lot, that they can't believe that "we" as a society can still profile a young black male like Trayvon Martin as dangerous. Uh, "we" didn't profile Martin -- Zimmerman did, and he had called the police about 45 times since the first of the year. It's clear Zimmerman had some kind of obsession with law enforcement and was prejudiced toward African-Americans. Extrapolating too much from the Martin case is unwarranted. I don't know of very many people who would've looked at Trayvon Martin, hoodie or not, and thought that he was dangerous. All types of people are profiled -- men with tatoos and long hair; young, blonde women with large breasts; southerners with a thick accent playing a banjo; etc., etc., and even if white reaction to blacks is still a problem, we can't say that all, or most, whites react this way or that it's only a problem of white reaction to blacks. And even if we could say that most whites react this way, it says nothing about why whites react this way. If we're going to have a race converstaion, let's have one, but if it's going to be the usual liberal white-guilt which patronizes blacks, then let's skip it.

I imagine I can find victims who were wearing suits who were killed in a robbery because the robber thought the person had a lot of money, when it could be a guy coming from an interview in the only suit he possesses who is in foreclosure. Yes, it's true that many whites react negatively when they see a black man in a situation they would not react the same in if the person in question were white, but this goes both ways -- it's a complicated issue. It's too simplistic and misleading to say that "society" is responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. We don't know all the facts, but if what is being put forth is true, Zimmerman is guilty of killing Trayvon Martin -- no one else. It's unfair and unnecessarily inflammatory to blame "society" or "whites" for the actions of an individual.

The choice between two philosophies in 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/us/politics/obama-proposes-mortgage-relief-with-romney-in-mind.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Obama is proposing that government intervene in the housing sector and force banks to renegotiate loans, whereas Mitt Romney has proposed allowing the market to work -- removing regulations so that jobs are created and economic growth resolves the housing problem.

Obama crows about bailing out automakers, as if regular bankruptcy wouldn't have worked. Obama intervened in the auto industry and ensured unions did better than they would have done, while forcing other investors to lose more than they would have lost. Romney was against the bailout. Taxpayers are still on the hook for billions due to the bailout, but the unions did alright.

GM is still not out of danger and will likely be in the same condition in 2014 because they haven't really resolved their major problems -- the bailout was a temporary, political fix. Obama will campaign on saving GM and turning the company around. Only after the 2012 elections will we see the truth regarding GM. 

This is our choice in 2012 -- a return to free market principles so that we can gradually recover from previous government interventions, or we continue with government interventions in the economy, suffering unintended consequences, then reaching the point of pay-back where short-term, political fixes no longer work and collapse is the outcome.

Is the left becoming irrelevant?

I ask this question because I no longer believe the ideas on the left are resonating, and we're seeing example after example on the left of subterfuge and unified messaging bordering on propaganda which suggest the message is weak and has to be strengthened by lies, manipulation and media repetition.

Plus we're seeing the use of racial smears against the right and an attempt to demonize George Bush -- the message appears to be -- "We have no answers and our poicies are not working, but we aren't Bush and we aren't racists."

This is not a strong message. Then there's the messaging that claims we haven't given the statist plans long enough to take effect and that the economy is better than it would have been without the statist actions. Bush could claim that his tax cuts kept the country from collapsing under the weight of Katrina, 9/11 and two wars -- would the left believe this?

This claim of success was offered the other day regarding the auto-bailout, as if GM and Chrysler are booming, but, unless we forget, GM is still Government Motors. Through financial manipulation, the actual loan of 6 billion was paid back, but with government money. To hear the reports, you'd think GM is back on track -- they aren't. Plus, we still don't know what was behind the campaign to destroy Toyota, but it looks bad for the left.

Claiming that things would be far worse can't be known for certain and the American people know it. This continuing spin from the left is growing thin and the public will get to the point of not trustin any reports if all the reports are massaged and basically untrue or unknowable.

Just recently, Media Matters accused Glenn Beck's producers of something they didn't do by replaying a clip from the Beck radio show which was doctored -- there was no outrage from the left like there was against  Breitbart. Hypocrisy is also a main reason for the left's growing irrelevancy -- no matter how bad the right has become, if the left is as bad or wore, then the righteous criticisms don't resonate, they only signal hypocrisy.

The left is imploding and it's apparent that the Democrat Party is going down with the ship. With 15% real unemployment, with the Afghanistan quagmire, with businesses rebelling against heavy-handed intervention, with the left playing the race card and unnecessarily causing racial tension, with Rangel and Waters hanging over their heads, with civil rights violations still taking place -- you would think that powerful Democrats would stand up and call for reform and a re-evaluation of direction, but it appears they have opted for circling the wagons, plotting to smear and silence their critics and praising one another in an echo chamber.