Inskeep Pwns Erickson; or Flailing and Struggling Just Makes You Sink Faster, Mitt

If you, dear reader, flipped on your local NPR affiliate this morning for Morning Edition you would have heard RedState.org's Erick Erickson's operating his mouth hole to make the words come out.  The purpose of the having Erickson on seemed to be an attempt to find someone to defend Mitt Romney's now infamous dismissal of half the country as victimized welfare queens who are in the pocket of the Democratic Party.  If you know anything about Erickson's blog, his politics, or his wherewithal, you know exactly why he was the only one stepping in to pinch-hit for Team Romney.

Incidentally, if Team Romney takes Erickson's advice and "owns" his comments - it appears that this is their new strategy, by the way - then we have just witnessed the point where the election was won for the President.  This type of straw-man argument will surely energize readers of RedState, but there simply aren't enough folks on the far right to counteract the ever growing share of votes the President will win from the remaining 80% of the country.

Anyway, back to the point.  There are areas of common ground that we all can agreed on.  Despite the fact that Erickson was badly outmatched intellectually by Steve Inskeep - he masterfully led Erickson to back away from the crux of the argument - and despite the fact that Erickson has no factual basis to back up his position - simply mentioning "Barack Obama" next to the word "unemployment" doesn't mean anything of substance, Erick - there actually is something we all can agree on in what he said: the number of people on food stamps and unemployment has grown.  It's a consequence of the recession.  Maybe you heard about it.  It was in all the papers.

Republicans love debt.

Where Erickson and the rest of the Very Conservative White Men go wrong is in their proscription to fix those realities.  Cutting taxes and spending won't do it.  Actually, according to this analysis that plan will grow the national debt even faster, which is exactly what Erickson is railing against the most.  As we discussed in Monday's post, Robert Reich has a good idea to stimulate demand.  Demand for goods and services is depressed right now, and austerity measures will only exacerbate it.  When demand goes up, jobs will be created.

Look, there are Really Big Problems that need serious attention to find effective solutions.  In fact, most D's and R's will agree exactly what they are.  Straw-man arguments, bad fiscal policy, and demagoguery won't cut it.  Stop by tomorrow or Friday to catch a post we are cooking up on an approach to change that should make sense to anyone...anyone with common sense, that is.

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