Tea Party voters are low-information who want a salve, not a solution; GOP leaders are just obstructionists

Paul Krugman

Via Matthew Yglesias, Gallup finds voters not that eager to crack down on large banks and financial institutions — but substantially more eager to crack down on “Wall Street banks.”

Republicans account for most though not all the difference, leading Yglesias to suggest that it’s dislike of New York that does it. Maybe; but I think what it really tells us is how little voters — and, I dare say, Republican voters in particular — understand the issues. My bet is that a lot of people really don’t realize that when we use the shorthand of referring to Wall Street, we’re actually talking about high finance in general. Scary — and it’s a lack of understanding that the likes of Mitch McConnell are happy to exploit.

And it extends farther. It extends to dubious statements by elected officials like Bobby Jindal who, in criticizing government spending, asked why the government would want to spend.... just read:



It's nonsense, it's selling balms and salves instead of solutions. It's Sarah Palin proving herself to be an idiot.

Steve Benen

Sarah Palin criticized President Barack Obama on Saturday for saying America is a military superpower "whether we like it or not," saying she was taken aback by his comment.

"I would hope that our leaders in Washington, D.C., understand we like to be a dominant superpower," the former Alaska governor said. "I don't understand a world view where we have to question whether we like it or not that America is powerful."

As Benen points out:

Reading comprehension isn't one of the former half-term governor's strengths, so perhaps it's not surprising that Palin is badly misquoting, and deliberately misunderstanding, what the president said.

Palin, who is painfully, conspicuously unintelligent, wasn't quite sharp enough to understand the president's remarks. Perhaps he should have chosen words with fewer syllables.

He didn't say there's a potential problem with the U.S. being a superpower; he said it's important for Americans to appreciate the global responsibilities that come with that power when conflicts arise, and the sweeping effects of these conflicts on the country's global interests.

It's Republicans, so eager to rip Obama for anything, that they'll attack their own sacred cow in a fit of hypocrisy.

As Obama signs a deal to reduce nuclear arms, and as he hosts 47 world leaders to secure loose fissile material to prevent it from falling into their own hands, he's being ripped by the right. But Obama's actions are an extension of Reagan's dream:

Progress in Action

Ronald Reagan said that nuclear weapons are “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” … “[F]or the eight years I was president,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.” … “We live in a troubled world, and the United States and China, as two great nations, share a special responsibility to help reduce the risks of war. We both agree that there can be only one sane policy to preserve our precious civilization in this modern age: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.”

It's outright obstruction on 101 non-controversial nominees just to hold up progress. It's about saying "No".



And finally, it's the individual Tea Partiers who obviously don't even understand what they're protesting. Maybe they should just say "we don't like black Presidents". Disgusting.