The Bobster Cracks Down Hard on a Cute Columnist (not named Maureen Dowd)
MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2010
It never ceases to amaze. On a simple intellectual basis, it’s stunning to see how poorly equipped our highest elites really are.
Example: Kathleen Parker’s column in Sunday’s Washington Post. In this column, Parker accuses both major parties of “intentional manipulations of language to obscure truth.”
In fairness, politicians of both major parties do engage in such conduct at various times. But good lord! After giving a very solid example of such conduct by current Republicans, Parker offered a second example of “obfuscation through language distortion.” This time, the lady says, it’s Democrats who are at fault:
PARKER (12/19/10): Democrats are equally guilty of obfuscation through language distortion. How many times throughout the tax bill debate have you heard some variation of the following? Giving tax breaks to the rich will add to the deficit.
Pardon? How does money in someone's own pocket add to another's debt? This sort of logic is possible, of course, only under confiscatory rules of wealth redistribution.
Yet we have become quite accustomed through the repetition of this idea that the rich are somehow hurting the poor and disrupting the proper functioning of an engorged and profligate government.
That of course, would be, because they ARE!
Say what? Parker is offended by the claim that “giving tax breaks to the rich will add to the deficit.” But in a blatantly obvious sense, giving lower tax rates to the rich does in fact “add to the deficit.” (So does giving lower tax rates to the middle class!) Duh! If we adopt lower tax rates for some group, deficits in coming years will be larger than they otherwise would have been. This is a stunningly simple idea. But it has Parker bollixed.
Parker goes on to offer a muddy “example,” attempting to make her point even more clear. But her basic point is inane; her understanding is hopelessly muddled. One thing she says a bit later is true: Sometimes, statements by liberals do tend to “demonize ‘the wealthy’” in certain ways; this is often bad politics for liberals. But her basic claim is astoundingly bungled. Duh! Giving “tax breaks” to the rich (or to anyone else) will in fact add to future deficits. It’s stunning to think that the winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize is bollixed by such a point.
Kathleen Parker won a Pulitzer? It must be embarrassing. Just how many Pulitzer judges must a female columnist sleep with to win won? WE could ask the Dowdster.
We often call them a “D-plus elite;” in this case, that grade would be too generous. It’s stunning to see the way they reason, right at the top of a major nation’s journalistic pseudo-elite.
