Ross Douthat: Space Alien Man Child

Ross Douthat

It's a personal policy of mine not to read anything Ross Douthat writes. Not because he doesn't know anything. I assure you I read stuff by people all the time who don't know anything. I don't have any policy against that. Mainly just because he looks like a space alien is reason enough for me not to read anything he writes. Aside from my superficiality, the dude also has not a clue what he's talking about.

Douthat writes-- again--  in his latest Times column about his favorite topic, Republican Tea Baggers.  Douthat opines the country better hope the evil liberals aren't successful at labeling tea baggers as a simple faction of angry Bush voters because our financial future depends on it:

So the jury is still out. If Tea Party standard-bearers end up being as hypocritical on entitlements as most American politicians, then this liberal narrative, at least, will have been vindicated.

But for the sake of the country’s finances, liberals should hope that the Tea Party proves their most convincing story wrong.

The jury is not still out.  There was no jury.  Tea baggers are hypocrites that love government entitlement programs so long as the money is being spent on them and ushered in by Republicans.  It's only when Democrats have the reins do tea baggers care one bit about federal spending.  When Bush and the Republicans passed the largest expansion of Medicare since its inception, an expansion that was totally unfunded adding nearly a trillion dollars to the deficit, tea baggers were no where to be found.  When Bush ran up a $1.4 trillion deficit and more than doubled our national debt, tea baggers were too busy polishing their knobs to be concerned about petty items like fiscal responsibility.

To say, like Douthat does, unless politicians seriously adopt the tea baggers' grave concern for fiscal matters, that our country's future will continue to be perilous is mind-boggling stupid.  If it were a simple matter of fiscal responsibility, the so-called deficit hawks would fully realize this president has a very good track record on the issues they claim to care about.

President Obama has cut taxes for every single American that receives a paycheck. His stimulus legislation contained over $300 billion in tax cuts alone.  His signature legislation, and the most progressive bill to come out of Washington in 50 years, the Affordable Care Act,  is a deficit REDUCER.  The state aid bill passed in August is also a deficit REDUCER.  In fact, since taking office he has reduced the budget deficit by $122 billion.  He has lived up to his promise on Iraq.  And the Dow is up nearly 30% since Jan. 2009.  How would the narrative be any different if the president had done more instead of less?  It wouldn't.

How about the party tea baggers and Douthat vote for get held to the same standard they want to set for everyone else?