Cut and Run

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:18am

Is there a single Republican pundit who DOESN'T appear on Fox News spouting off this same ol' crap?

Unfortunately, when I can't get to the tv to turn it off, our office has a television (for local news ostensibly) always turned to Fox. So, of course, I find myself inevitably drawn into the inane (INANE!) policy-supporting Faux News constantly tries to prop up as fair and balanced.
Now Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) is the current Republican spin-doctor crying about cut and run in the face of news that the Senate is prepping for a no confidence vote in Donald Rumsfeld.
And now, I as I sit here, they talk about a poll that voters say the economy is a more important factor in their voting, Hutchinson STILL managed to invoke the spectre of 9/11.
Cut and Run. 9/11.
Is there ANYTHING they can't "refute" with one of the two, if not both?

[DG]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:21am

I've been watching the increasing stream of positive economic spin going on the last couple of weeks, and wondered if the Dems realized that this was going to be the strategy.

"It's the economy, stupid."

As much as I disdain the group in power, they do play the game better.

[Calvin]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:22am

Kay is and always will be a BushBorg (look at me and my Star Trek references!). Having had the misfortune of hearing her speak and following her through the years, I have determined that she is utterly incapable of independent thought. And she used to be a journalist. For shame.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:25am

DG, they cannot possibly hope to trumpet the economy and win, not if voters are paying ANY attention (like the recent report that this is the FIRST year the povery gap didn't widen under Bush...but it didn't go down either; it remained the same).
Also, all polls show voters have very little confidence in Bush's handling of the economy but credit him with handling terrorism (same with Republicans in general).
So I don't have a lot of confidence in voters to REALLY, when the moment comes to pull the lever for a vote, to even know WHAT they think.

[DG]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:30am

"not if voters are paying ANY attention"

I would answer, but I think you answered yourself. If the three days leading up to the election are full of positive economic spin, then they will leap off the cliff accordingly.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:36am

I thought from the title of this thread it was going to be about your gassy co-worker.

[javero]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:49am

Right on DG!!!

The GOP does manipulate mass media much better than their counterparts on the other side of the aisle. As a federal employee, I try to avoid partisanship in these discussions but can't help but offer that the GOP speaks to the public's fears versus esposing good policy whenever it serves the party's interest becuase the rank-and-file can't wrap its brains around 'policy'. The GOP is also extremely effective at nationalising local/regional issues to breakup 'insurgencies' rising from the grass roots.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:51am

The GOP....Fear...Repression...Liars.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:53am

Sueleen, that'd be "Cut and Sit."

But, on topic, what's also amazing is the constant touting of a booming economy is, while not completely false, only partially true. I mean, when you have companies posting record profits while laying off employees, gutting benefits, capping salary increases for the middle class employees, you're right that the economy is growing, you're just being disingenuous about admitting on television who's benefitting from it.
Thing is, stupid idiots like some of those in my family will look at their $17,000 a year job but, because Bush and co. keep telling them they're better off, they'll think they are.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 11:55am

I hope this new volley of crap is returned in their face! This is fear mongering at its worst.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 12:00pm

Every time I hear the phrase, I think of passing gas and diarrhea.

I think this is another in the delightful series of recent Republican meme miscalculations we've been seeing, like calling everyone else in the US a fascist.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 12:01pm

I LOVE the irony - unreported by our "unbiased" news sources - in an administration that hides information, flouts the Constitution, ignores separation of powers, bullies other branches of government AND other legitimate countries' governments and then has the nerve to say dissidents are fascists.

[javero]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 12:18pm

I can't resist jumping back into the fray. Similar to another poster above, I have family members in the Old South who are content with their meager wages, threat of plant closing and attendant loss of jobs to some cheap labor den elsewhere, damned-near insolvent pension plans, paltry health insurance coverage, war-on-terrorism-induced-nearly-bankrupt-state-fiscal-systems and who broke ranks with the Democratic party in the last general election solely so that Big Daddy Dubya could guarantee that Bob would never marry Ted and that the world would not come to a near-end until all the 'Arabs' had been extended an offer to convert to Christianity AGAIN before their saviour returns. Nuff said.

Updated On: 9/1/06 at 12:18 PM