Scheer Lunacy

The Strib editorial page was...an embarassment of riches? No, the Strib editorial page was rich with embarassment yesterday.

Of course, every time they print the execrable Robert Scheer, it's throwing chum to the fisk gallery. Yesterday's installment, "A bid to divert attention from GOP's record", was no exception.

However you feel about Gray Davis, the fact is, this recall has become a shell game, led and paid for by Republicans, that conveniently distracts from the alarming failures and frauds of the White House.

I think it'd be more accurate to say that Bush's alleged failures are a shell game for Scheer to draw attention away from Gray Davis.

That includes the Bush administration's blind eye to the energy sting that robbed the California government of a good chunk of its past budget surplus.

The "Energy Sting" was made possible by Clinton-era changes in accounting regulations, and California's loopy-left regulations on new power plant construction.

The giddy media spectacle of porn stars and action heroes seeking to lead the world's sixth-largest economy should not divert us from the fact that the key black marks on Davis' resume -- the energy crisis and the budget shortfall -- were both messes created by deregulating, tax-cutting Republicans.

Scheer is wrong. Both "black marks" - as if there are only two - were direct results of Democrat meddling: the hyperregulation of the power industry, which created vast regulation with no increase in available power, and the collapse of the Clinton bubble.

In dealing with both, Davis has not pulled any rabbits out of his hat, but he has been a competent leader who minimized the damage. The red ink in California is a mere needle prick compared with the hemorrhaging of trillions in future debt thanks to President Bush's tax cuts for the rich, the invasion of Iraq and other disasters.

Future debt?

"OK, so there's not so much of a problem now, but someday, boy oh boy, that Bush is gonna be in trouble...

OBLIGATORY CONSPIRACY THEORY:

Suddenly the Republicans care not a whit about those social values they have been prattling about, or anything else but defeating a prominent Democrat. They brook no opposition, even from a conservative Democrat; their goal is a one-party system.

Read: "Not only are they ickypoopy, they want to crush democracy".

Say what you will about the recall - and I think recalls for anything short of felonies are a lousy idea - but Scheer's response, "Oh, yeah, well, Republicans are worse!" isn't going to save Davis. Or make Scheer any less of a comic fisking extravaganza.

Posted by Mitch at August 18, 2003 05:44 AM