Since the producers of ABC’s This Week apparently have no regard for their journalistic credibility, there should be a rule that George Will not be allowed to speak unless Paul Krugman can discourage and clean up the disinformation.
Anyone who follows This Week knows there is a strong correlation between the absurdity of Will’s statements and Krugman’s absence. Today, Krumgan was not there, freeing Will to express these gems (and I only caught the last 15 minutes):
Will on whether we need another stimulus: Bush had his stimulus in early 2008 and unemployment got worse; Since Obama’s stimulus, unemployment has gotten even worse. Therefore, anyone who argues for another stimulus can’t count to three.
Will: The only result from the Obama stimulus was to prevent some states from firing unionized state employees (and that’s bad because workers who are in unions deserve to be laid off).
There should be another rule that Bob Woodward and Cokie Roberts never be asked their opinions, ever.
Bob Woodward: No one has every explained how a stimulus changes the economic fundamentals, so why should we do this? [Apparently, Krugman, Galbraith, DeLong, Baker, Stiglitz et al have never written on this topic, nor did this guy.]
Cokie Roberts: there’s no political will for a new stimulus; after all, neither she nor George Will nor Bob Woodward understand it.
Cokie Roberts explains the politics of health reform: The political reality is that the Senate can’t agree on a bill; so the House bill will be out there calling for $500 billion in new taxes, so health care reform won’t be supported.
Cokie was unable to report in the same thought that the House-proposed $500 billion would be transferred only from the very wealthiest Americans — people like Woodward, Roberts and George Will (who would prefer to tax everyone else), that it’s over 10 years, that it’s offset by comparable amounts in reduced Medicare payments. Nor can she recall that in the exchange, we would provide coverage for nearly 40 million more Americans and end fraudulent practices like rescission, end prior condition exclusions and create a public choice for everyone else.
They then all nod that America can’t afford to cover everyone, because, you know, other countries who do that for less than we pay don’t exist if you don’t mention them.
But ignoring all those facts, and failing to note massive public support for a public plan and and willingness to pay higher taxes to achieve expanded coverage, Cokie concludes health care reform will be unpopular because . . . the Democrats want to raise $500 billion in new taxes. Why didn’t Stephanopoulus just invite John Boehner so we would know not to watch?
Sincere condolences to Sam Donaldson and Donna Brazile who valiantly tried to counter this avalanche of nonsense. ABC doesn’t seem to mind misinforming Americans as long as we watch. So don’t.
Probably not the worst, stupidest panel ever, but I don’t watch Fox.
Update: I spoke too soon. Bob Schieffer continues the decline of Face the Nation by asking two lame questions on health care, because he really wants to spend more time asking about Sarah Palin, whose perils and coverage are making us all dumber.
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There should be a contest for Biggest Village Idiot.
Maybe structured along the lines of a high school homecoming queen contest (since so many of the villagers seem to maintain their high school idiocies).
Will supports the VAT, a tax on consumption. Stupid George, we are in a depression because consumers aren’t buying, so we should increase the cost of purchases.
These people are beyond redemption.
The republicans always outnumber the democrats two to one on this show.
Check out all the health care clients of her brother’s law firm and you understand Cokie Roberts remarks
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…..nt_clients
Crony Journalism strikes again.
you can read the entire will shpiel at his column at the wapo. wont link to it here.
it is bizarre to think that cokie has not even spoken to an unemployed person or twelve to ask them how getting a weekly check has enabled them to eat or having COBRA payments reduced has kept them from adding another million to the uninsured list.
she should get out more. reporting from the back of cabs or your house in georgetown or the plane to your ancestral home in LA is not all that inclusive.
it’s like sunday morning visits to the institutionalized, the feeble-minded, the mentation-challenged, those who need help feeding themselves…
neill’s maxim: if you don’t watch the teevee, you don’t hafta eat the shit.
He’s in with the Queen, and a card carrying monarchist. The VAT is right up his street.
A VAT might have some merit in the long run, but not now. For now, I suspect the trade off between a surtax on the wealthiest and increased spending on health care is probably a net positive in multiplier effect. But I haven’t seen anyone do that analysis.
Between Face The Nation, Meet The Press, and This Week, the latter is the least horrible of the three. That isn’t saying much, the only time an intelligent word is spoken is when Krugman is on the panel.
Television is not capable of dealing with complex issues. The Right has long recognized this and exploited it.
In the world of television the shortest and simplest answer to any question wins virtually every debate.
Television is capable of dealing with complex issues. Bill Moyers does it every week. See last night’s Bill Moyers Journal on health care reform. Must-view.
But I agree that television news/political comment divisions have concluded they can’t make enough money by covering complex issues well.
I saw it. I enjoyed it. But, I think that has more to do with my poitical predisposition than it does with Moyers covering a complex issue well.
What we need is a Village Idiot Hall of Stupid.
Al are members of the “Village”. They seem to be high bred idiots who, if not for TV, would be working idiot sticks(an idiot stick is a shovel with an idiot leaning on it)on road repair crews. All the current “journalists” and TV “pundits” are village inhabitants whose IQ is very suspect. I really doubt that any of them could actually get a “real” job as all are totally unqualified to do anything. This goes for the so called hosts of the sunday news shows also. 30 years ago the hosts of these programs might have actually been working journalists, the program Meet the Press was, as I remember it, the host questioning real reporters about the stories of the week. I do not remember pols giving the party line ever being on the show. Now of course what we have is millionaire “reporters” asking their neighbors questions, which are, of course, real soft balls.
I stopped watching the sunday news programs many years ago due to the change from actual newsmakers to celebity politicians along with the “gotcha” hosts like the fake journalist tim russart-timmah was a fake and to see all the current crop of “hosts” on NBC and MSNBC eulogize him so much is gag inducing
Would have to be a very large hall but we could put it at Bush’s liberry.
I ‘loved” the way Senator Kyl told George that people with high medical bills can “write off” 7% of the costs.
As if everybody is a millionaire that doesn’t have to worry about the everyday bills. I guess everybody is in that financial shape to these republicans – who wouldn’t know what the hell to do if they were only making minimum wage!!!
No, we don’t need health care reform nor do we need another stimulus package. Big government can’t do everything. Big government always crowds out individual freedom….always.
And yes, it’s a terrible shame state workers can’t be let go just because they are in a union. It sounds like France…..where nothing (and no one) works.
That is the essence of it. This Week is millionaires talking to millionaires. They don’t know what they are talking about but their wealth and position are supposed to give what they say weight.
I keep coming back to Upton Sinclair who nailed it so well so long ago:
Salary, wealth, position are all powerful reasons for those who work in the MSM not to understand anything beyond which side their bread is buttered on.
You really don’t understand anything about anything, do you? A bunch of unsupported generalizations that make no sense even on their face. It wasn’t Big Government that created the financial meltdown or the crisis in healthcare. Medicare for all its flaws does a much better job of insuring that our oldest and often sickest get healthcare and does so for much less than private plans. It would be doing even better if conservatives weren’t trying constantly to underfund it or administratively hobble it.
In defense of George S., Cokie and Sam are usually only on the show during the holidays or vacations when the more credible or interesting regular guests are not available. These retirees are just keeping the seats warm, while the other regulars are in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. That said, George really needs to develop a better stable of fill-ins. Sam and Cokie (and George Will and Donna Brazile, for that matter) add nothing to the show, and it’s time for them to be replaced.
Are there some among the smart folks here @ FDL who remember Vietnam and LBJ imposing a surtax to pay for [part of] it?
As you can tell, if I’m old enough to remember Vietnam, I’m old enough to forget everything about it, but I have this recollection that at one point LBJ proposed — and as I recall got through — a surtax specifically designed to raise funds for it. It could, on the other hand, have been Nixon. Or it could have not happened at all.
In any case, I was hoping someone might recall or do a little research, ’cause a surtax on the rich fuckers seems like a pretty good way to go to raise some $$$ for health care. [I mean really, why does ANYONE need the millions of dollars that the AIG + hedge fund folks are receiving per year in bonuses? How many chateaux in France can you own?]
When Krugman is there it makes up for at least 5 of them.
Often wonder are these people this stupid or willing to look comically misinformed so as to deceive Americans ?
Cokie Roberts, George Will and Bob Woodward are just shills for the villagers. Why do I bother to pay attention to these idiots. They tell me what I should think, but I’m always smarter than they are….
I don’t remember the surtax, but I do remember the embargo on imports of Japanese products under Tricky Dicky. (Mostly because my parents bought their first Toyota in the short period between the end of the longshoremen’s strike and the beginning of the embargo.)
Hugh, I’m going out on a limb here, but I think torgo2009 was writing snark. I usually write without the /s because I think that it loses its edge if you have to tell someone that it is sarcasm. If it was not intended as snark, then it is just another troll with rethug talking points and deserves a real smackdown.
In response to the surtax question: the surtax was a tax on your tax payment. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but if you paid a certain amount of taxes, you then had to pay another % of that to complete the amount that you owed the government. It was not popular.
I DO remember that part!!!
Oh, Cokie!! I admired her SO much growing up, but now… Well, at least she and ol’ Woodie & Will still beat their CNN competition hands-down.
-Abigail
PS: And if you find our news heroes aren’t putting you to sleep like they should, you might check my company’s website for more information on a top-notch memory foam mattress .