American Patrol

"But if logic wouldn't work
Neither would a magic wand..."
-- Phoebe Snow

Old friendships can pay off in big ways, as I was reminded of again last Thursday when one of my oldest dropped me a line that managed to sum up neatly some of the things that had been rattling around my brain lately. The Turk, who claims to be apolitical but sometimes can't seem to help himself, sent me a Bernie Sanders video and the following: "Suddenly the GOP are all anti-deficit again. Our whole political discourse, if it can be called that, seems to revolve around amnesia. Everything would be so different if the media and its consumers remembered basic stuff dating back as far as, oh let's say three years."

And selah. Notably lacking from the current discussion of the opposition's macroeconomically idiotic anti-deficit mania is the fact ("stupid things," per conservative icon Ronald Reagan) that deficit increases over the last thirty years have occurred preponderantly under Republican administrations, and that they've been in all cases whoppers. The Republicans have practiced a tax cut and spend anyway philosophy as a cornerstone of their something for nothing electoral strategy and their revised standard Clap For Tinkerbell economics.

Selah as well to the media reference. When it is considered news that Senator X said something, but not news that his utterance was stone cold chapter and verse counterfactual, reason itself goes begging.

"It's going to be a great year for Republicans," said David Brooks on this Sunday's Press the Meat, and if he's right, a lot of the reason for it is right there.