Sunday, May 04, 2008

If We Had a President...

What the hell is Hillary Clinton talking about?

"Senator McCain has said take off the gas tax, don't pay for it, throw us further into deficit and debt. That is not what I've proposed," Clinton said, adding that she wants the oil companies to pay the gas tax instead of consumers this summer.

Pressed to name an economist who supports such a holiday, Clinton demurred. "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of his presidency, we would decide it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."

Uhm, does Hillary know something we don't know? Because she was talking about implementing the plan "this summer," but goes on to talk about using the tools of the presidency to do it right. Surely she's talking about Bush doing this, but there isn't a chance in hell that Bush would do this. In fact, I have no doubts he'd veto the plan. So she's basically saying that she has some secret plan that nobody else knows about that won't possibly be implemented. And we're supposed to take her seriously because...?

Is she perhaps suggesting that there might be some way she could become president in time to implement this policy in time for Memorial Day? Not that I suppose it would be such a bad thing to replace Bush before he's allowed to complete his final year, but I'm not quite sure that there are any good options of making that happen. And does she even mention how the plan could be done "right"? No. I'm guessing it involves some temporary suspension of the laws of supply & demand, though I'm not sure that even Bush's vast expansion of executive powers was enough to grant her that authority. This sort of thing would surely reside in the fourth branch of government, and I've just been assured by Lord Cheney that it is absolutely impossible for his power to be usurped within his first fifty-year term.

And it's embarrassing enough when her supporters suggest that every economist is wrong about this, but for her to suggest it is absolutely nuts. I'm sure it must suck to have all the experts disagree with you, including the ones who support you, but that's no reason to go into Rush Limbaugh territory and pretend as if you've got some secret weapon that the experts just haven't thought of. Especially as the secret weapon in this case are magical presidential powers that the actual president would strongly oppose using.

But it's quite obvious that Hillary abandoned actual reality right around the time of the Iowa caucuses, though there are many signs which indicate that "Hillaryland" has always existed outside the restraints of our dimension. Even her continued campaign is a sure example of wishful thinking, which is the hallmark of the conservative movement. While her actual strategies have been horrible, her ability to say anything without being limited by the boundaries of reality has been both a blessing and a curse.

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