David Broder Flunks Math

It has only taken two weeks or thereabouts from the date of the Democrats' overwhelming defeat in 2010's off-year elections for their flacks and toadies in the MSM to start reconstructing The Narrative.

Usual suspect David Broder, still writing columns for the Washington Post but no longer on staff, tries to frighten the bejeebers out of everyone today in a feeble, laughable piece entitled "The GOP's lame-duck hardball." Broder somehow arrives at the conclusion that the Republicans already possess omnipotence in the Senate without even having achieved a majority in the recent election--and without their new members capable of constitutionally assuming power until just after the first of the new year, 2011.

Broder is not just calendar-challenged, though. He's math challenged as well. Bemoaning the terrible fate of the country, Broder wrings his hands over the fact that "the rich" might even get their Bush-era tax cuts extended beyond 2010. And then he tosses in this whopper:

On the face of things, Democrats hold the high ground rhetorically. When it comes to taxes, Obama is calling for extending the Bush cuts for every family making below $250,000 a year, which he says will take care of 98 percent of the population. Only Republicans are holding out for the millionaires to be included. 

Let's give Broder a pass for his initial, silly, faux-observation that Democrats "hold the high ground morally." Is that sort of like, "The Washington Redskins lost by a score of 50-2, but they played a very physical game"? But now comes the fun part.

Obamanation wants to generously extend the Bush tax cuts for those making up to $250K a year which is apparently the Democrats' cut point for being "rich." (Which the Prez didn't intend to at all prior to the Dems' shellacking at the polls.) But those rotten Republicans are holding out for "millionaires" to be included in this largesse, right? Well, no, they're holding out for the individuals, families, and small businesses pulling in $250,001 and higher to be included. And, unless my mathematical skills fail me here, the band between $250,001 and $999,999 doesn't include one single millionaire. Which makes this observation inoperable.

Well, don't blame me--read Broder's logical leap again. Either the guy needs an editor, or he assumes we're too dumb to see how his already feeble reasoning is smithereened by a mathematical leap of faith that conveniently omits a significant batch of non-millionaires.

You can see how trial balloons begin here. New Jerseyites earlier were told that a proposed "millionaire's tax" would salvage the bloated state budget. But it turned out that an awful lot of those "millionaires" were actually in the income bracket we just described above. I.e., they're NOT millionaires, but let's use that term anyway, shall we, just to fudge the issue a bit. It's a standard leftist tactic. Yell something loud enough and long enough, and even if it's not exactly the truth, everyone will think that it is.

Both the Jersey Democrats AND Broder know full well that their pitifully weak arguments in favor of creeping socialism aren't working any more either on their merits or lack thereof. So the next refuge of these scoundrels is in, ah, achieving the "rhetorical high ground" by shouting "millionaire, millionaire" over and over again until somehow, "millionaires" encompass a sizeable demographic that earns a pretty good living but isn't close to achieving a million dollars of annual gross income let alone a million dollars' net worth.

Voters have wised up to these sallies into the land of rhetorical high ground highjinks, and they don't work anymore, Tom. Pity an editor didn't catch your gaff today. (If you even have one.)

Your column today, Tom, demonstrates to your few remaining readers, if they don't already know, that you were, are, will be, and always have been in the tank for the Democrats and are more than happy to spend the twilight of your career flacking for a party of scoundrels. And sowing fears about those terrible Republicans who don't run the Senate now and who won't run the Senate in 2011 either. Why don't you just retire to your swell vacation paradise on Beaver Island, dude, and spare us the hyper-partisan drivel and scare tactics? Geez.