The earth is flat

From Josh Marshall's TPM, this past Thurday:

This week, out on the broad wastes of cable news drekdom and the uplands of Beltway journalistic drivel, a simple fact has gone almost entirely unreported: virtually everything congressional Republicans are saying about the Stimulus Bill wouldn't cut it in remedial economics. Not that there aren't legitimate policy differences and criticisms to be made of the outline plan before Congress.

But to call the complaints “policy differences” would be to engage in what that old president used to call the soft bigotry of low expectations, as though a political party with as legitimately proud a history as the GOP could not be expected to produce more than economic illiterates.

The ground under our feet might feel firmer if this were just standard order rhetorical abuse. But the truth of it is genuinely frightening, especially since these fellows are planted in Congress rather than on one of the sidewalk corners in Union Square ranting about Socialism and Fluoride or Lyndon LaRouche.

LaRouchies indeed!

Marshall sees flickers that the tide may be turning.

While Marshall hammers these “flat earthers” on their economics, a new History Maker Monday hits the blog tomorrow (or possibly late tonight), making the historical case for reality-based policymaking.