GOP Bizarroworld 2012 edition
by digby
I thought after Paul Ryan’s bizarroworld statement that Democrats are trying to enact European austerity was probably an anomaly. It certainly couldn’t be that we were going back a decade where Republican leaders routinely told the American people, “you can believe me or you can believe your lying eyes.” But it appears they are:
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican conference and a lead critic of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, warned Sunday against jumping to the conclusion that the $2 billion loss JP Morgan Chase incurred on a risky bet means regulations need to be tighter.
“We need to make sure we get all facts before jumping to conclusions about the need for greater financial regulation,” he said on Fox News Sunday, “it is important that we make sure we have got some good safeguards in place but in a way that doesn’t impair their ability to mitigate risk and to protect themselves and their balance sheets as well.”
I think we can all see the absurdity of that statement, can’t we? The vaunted risk managers JP Morgan Chase just acted like a bunch of degenerate gamblers and lost at least 2 billion dollars. But the worst thing that could happen would be to inhibit their ability to mitigate risk? Is he implying that government regulation is what caused JPMC to act like riverboat gamblers? Could be. In the opposite world of modern GOP economic theory, when too-big-to-fail banks place gigantic risky bets, the worst thing that can happen is if the government makes it harder for them to place gigantic risky bets because it interferes with their ability to stop themselves from placing gigantic risky bets.Or something.
We are not just in bizarroworld, we’ve also gone back in time. This is from Michelle Goldberg in Salon back in February of 2005:
It’s a good thing I went to the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Otherwise I never would have known that, despite the findings of the authoritative David Kay report and every reputable media outlet on earth, the United States actually discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, vindicating all of George W. Bush’s pre-war predictions. The revelation came not from some crank at Free Republic or hustler from Talon News, but from a congressman surrounded by men from the highest echelons of American government. No wonder the attendees all seemed to believe him.
The crowd at CPAC’s Thursday night banquet, held at D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Building, was full of right-wing stars. Among those seated at the long presidential table at the head of the room were Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and NRA president Kayne Robinson. Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular CPAC speaker, gave the keynote address. California Rep. Chris Cox had the honor of introducing him, and he took the opportunity to mock the Democrats whose hatred of America led them to get Iraq so horribly wrong.
“America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd,” he crowed. Then he said, “We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq.” Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation.
When all else fails, just pretend that up is down and black is white and your “team” will follow, no matter how absurd it is.
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