Political Pundit Posturing Perversion. Okay, look... My college degree is in Political Science. It's basically a worthless degree as far as the real world goes, but I can argue politics all day long with the best of them.


So today I'm listening to NPR and they are going on about the new economics package that Pres. Bush has announced. They have a couple of guys on the show that are going to comment on the package. One is a democrat, and one is a rebublican. Which... right there... starts me to thinking that it ain't gonna be all that informative.


Let me back up and say that this listening is going on in the afternoon... HOWEVER, on my morning commute, I am listening to NPR and they are also talking about the same thing, and they have on several guests, from varied backgrounds. I can't remember all the specifics of the people, but suffice it to say that one of them is a Stanford economics professor, and one of them is a Cal Berkeley economics professor, and one of them is the controller of the city of San Francisco... Anyway they are really talking about the economics package in real life terms, and are being fairly honest about it. The conservative guy is saying things like it's not the greatest package, but it has its benefits. And the liberal guy is saying basically the same thing. No one is cutting anyone off in mid-sentence, no one is calling names, and the best thing of all... The station is giving the guests enough time to make their points. Even when it seemed like the person was swaying a little from the topic, the mediator showed patience and waited for them to make their point. And low-and-behold, the point was actually relevant... I remember thinking to myself, "This is AWESOME! Because it's not some cheesy sound-bite show, where some really smart guy is given 10 seconds to sum up some really complex topic into a buzz-word laden catch phrase."

Skip forward to the afternoon... So like I said, the show has a republican, and a democrat. I can't remember the exact title of the guys but suffice it to say that the introductions were impressive enough for me to think to myself (remember the morning show) that it was gonna be really interesting. They were both professors at distinguished schools, or held positions of significance, or something to that effect. Here's how it went down....

The democrat starts by saying, "If the White House wanted to create a package to stimulate the economy they couldn't have done a worse job." (emphasis mine)... interject here a LONG dramatic pause... and picture me with a stoic look on my face during that pause... "...they couldn't have done worse." What a recklessly extreme statement! How about if they proposed to raise the taxes of all the people making 30k or less a year, cut off all unemployment benefits, stop paying out social security, and bought tickets to the super bowl for all members of congress... Would that have been worse?! Well... according to this man's opening statement NO! Because... "...they couldn't have done worse." Then he goes on to make some trivial points, that I couldn't even concentrate on because of my complete and utter disgust at such a ridiculous opening statement.

Enter the republican... I don't remember exactly what his actual opening statement was all about, but at one point early on he said something about the democrats suggestion to just give everyone a $600 dollar check as a tax rebate was just silly! (emphasis mine) picture me using a kindergarten voice here and repeating over and over "... it's just silly! "... it's just silly!" Look... giving someone a rubber chicken as a birthday gift is "silly"... the three stooges are "silly"... the antics of the characters on Frasier are, "silly"! Are there absolutely no reasons to consider giving our tax rebate checks to the public as a means of stimulating the economy? Apparently not! Because it's just... SILLY

Please folks... can we get over the "name calling"... can we get down to the topics. I was beside myself. Especially because each one probably had some legitimate points to make. The democrat was talking about the fact that the short term effects of the package were probably insignificant... And the rebublican was basically saying about the $600 tax check that, if you give a man a fish he eats for one day, if you teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime... BUT I COULDN'T LISTEN, because all I could hear was "silly"... and "couldn't have done worse".