The Only Tea Party Stat You Need to KnowThat anybody could have anything but the lowest of low opinion of the guy who created a $11 trillion hole in the world's economy is beyond me. This is the guy who fiddled while New Orleans sank below Katrina's waves. This is the guy who started a "war of choice, not necessity" in Iraq. This is the guy who tore up the Geneva Convention and turned the US into a torturer. This is the guy who stole an election by getting his right wing buddies on the Supreme Court to stop the recount in Florida in 2000. This is the business genius who ran his company, Arbusto, into the ground. This is the guy who used insider information to sell out his corporate holdings just before Harken Energy went bankrupt and the guy who used insider connections to become a "managing general partner" of the Texas Ranger baseball club. This guy was a slimeball. He was the most corrupt President the US ever had. He was the most incompetent President the US ever had. He was the most blinded ideologue the US ever had.
by Barry Ritholtz
There is a huge CBS/NYT poll and article (Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated) about the tea party members.
I was not surprised to read they skew older, white, Republican, better educated and higher income than the average American. I was surprised to read they favor Social Security and Medicare.
Towards the end of the article, I read a shocking data point. In the orgy of coverage of this poll and article generated, no one seemed to mention this:The percentage holding a favorable opinion of former President George W. Bush = 57%A substantial majority of Tea Party members hold a favorable opinion of the man that history will very likely deem the worst president in American History (Presidential Historians disagree as to whether he is in the bottom 3 or 5 as of today).
Its all you need to know about the Tea Party.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Tea Party Distilled Down to the Dregs
Here is a posting by one of my favourite business bloggers, Barry Ritholtz:
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3 comments:
RY;
I always think of Will Ferrel doing his impressions of Bush on SNL and one particular episode in which he made the statement; "I will be working for you 24-7, that's 24 hours a week, seven months a year". I remember at the beginning of his "presidency" thinking that the guy was never at work and how true this little statement that Ferrel made was. Very few have ever worked like he did and kept their job.
Thomas: Yes... I remember all those news clips of the "good ol' boy Bush" out clearing brush on his ranch. Just an ordinary guy. Needing lots of time to put his feet up and kick back. Needing to get away from Washington and all those "heavy" responsibilities.
Funny... his job was to be President, but he was too busy clearing brush. The real tragedy was in August 6, 2001 when the PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in America" was read to him. He was just too distracted by those brush problems to put his mind to this concern.
The joke was that the attackers were in America but they weren't being tracked because Bush, that great "defender" of America, didn't take the warnings seriously enough to tell the FBI and CIA to collaboate on tracking down any agents from Bin Laden who might be in the US. The CIA knew of half a dozen it wanted, but they lost track of them after they entered the US. The FBI wasn't talking to the CIA but observant citizens were already reporting about a number of strange "student pilots" who were interested in learning to fly big commercial jets but not interested in learning to do takeoffs or landings.
This should have been a red flag and a four alarm bell fire inside agencies. A companion to Ramzi Yousef -- the guy who had already planted a bomb in the World Trade Center -- had been captured after planting bombs on planes in the Phillipines and had confessed to other plans by Ramzi Yousef to seize planes in America and fly them into buildings. This was in the late 1990s.
So it should have been no surprise. They knew there was a plan to attack, just like the PDB pointed out. They knew there were Al Qaeda in the country. And they had citizens reporting very bizarre "trainee pilots". They knew there was a lot of "chatter" indicating something big was imminent. But nobody crossed the Ts or dotted the Is because Bush liked to sleep through briefings and didn't take the above PDB seriously!!! That's the kind of "dedicated, hard working" President Bush was.
But, but...
Boys, now remember though we "knew" Al Qaeda was hanging out in Iraq.
Bush told me so.
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