Most Ridiculous Moment – October 11, 2015

"Serious People”

It was a very exciting day on the Sunday talk shows. There were many Presidential candidates, a live Joe Biden-sighting, a celebration of Centrism, and a dustup between leaders of the two factions of the GOP which featured more actual fighting 

than Mayweather – Pacquiao.

Bernie Sanders was on Meet The Press saying he will force radical change through Congress by using the bully pulpit and organizing one million young people.

When he distinguished himself from Hillary Clinton by saying he's fought Wall Street for 25 years, Chuck Todd jumped into to assert he was really saying Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy.

He also said would use drones to kill terrorists, and that he is not a capitalist, 

but a Democratic Socialist.

Bobby Jindal was on ABC to say the American people want the Republican party to oppose the President more, but said he admired Obama for “fighting to shove what I would call socialism down our throats.” 

He bemoaned that “the idea of America 

is slipping away!”

On foreign policy, he said “We have got to hunt ISIS down and kill them before they attack us here,” that “the president has put political handcuffs on the military, won't let them go after ISIS and get the job done,” and “I think if this president were serious, we could wipe them out.”

On thousands of guns deaths per year, he said “We have got a moral decay going on in our culture. We've got graphic violence in our movies, our video games, our TV shows. We have got senseless violence being depicted in our songs. We've got a culture that doesn't value life. We've got millions of boys growing up without father figures, without that guidance at home.”

He also said, “We need a renaissance of decency. We need a spiritual revival in this country. Passing more laws to take away the rights of law-abiding Americans won't solve this problem, won't stop the next massacre, won't stop the next tragedy.”

Speaking of guns, Donald Trump was CBS, saying if somebody in that classroom in Oregon had a gun, the result would have been better, and if there had been an armed teacher, “you would have been a lot better when this maniac walked into class starting to shoot people.” He called for Republicans to threaten to default, saying “they're terrible negotiators.”

Trump also said “I'm the most military-based and the most militaristic person on your show. I want to have a much stronger military. I want it to be so strong that nobody is going to mess with us.”

On Syria he said “I might have gone in,” but also complained “what, are we going to start World War III over Syria?” He added, “I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming,” and “they should all get together and they should take a big swathe of land in Syria 

and do a safe zone for people.”

Ben Carson defended his defense of gun ownership by use of Nazi analogies, saying 

“if we have a time when we have the 
wrong people in office, and they want to 
dominate the people, the people will be able 
to defend themselves.”

Ben Bernanke was on ABC, where George Stephanopoulos asked him “When you look back, what do you think is the single most important thing you got right, the decision that made the biggest difference?” He responded “we needed to prevent the financial system from collapsing,” 
in other words, the bailouts.

He conceded something needs to be done about income inequality and suggested Better training and skills, and “getting people up to the point where they can compete in 

a global economy.”

Back to politics, Chuck Todd opined, “I think we are on the verge of the Cruz moment,” but mostly the punditry was a festival of centrism, with Ron Fournier insisting “most Americans hate what the way the political system is now” and hate “negative partisanship” and are “looking for disruption. They're looking for 

a major upheaval.”

Chuck Todd excitedly pointed out that Mike Bloomberg has not absolutely ruled out running for President, and complained “The middle feels as if you have Bernie Sanders pulling the Democratic party to the left. You have Trump and the Freedom Caucus pulling the Republicans over. There is this opening. 

I hear it from voters saying, 
'Nobody represents me in the middle'."

Kathleen Parker argued “Clinton has said she wants to continue the good work of Barack Obama. And that's not really a great selling point when you're trying to attract Independents.”

ABC had a particularly weird segment on Joe Biden, where reporter Cecilia Vega informed viewers “he could run as a write-in candidate and declare at the very last minute. But no one believes that that is actually to happen,” and “CNN has said that Joe Biden could jump in on the day of the debate, if he decides 

to do that. No one believes that he will.”

But the most absurd moments came discussing the fact that Republicans have a huge majority in the House but can't find anyone who hates themselves enough 

to lead them.

Hugh Hewitt suggested “You bring in some serious people like General McChrystal, General Mattis, you bring in Condi Rice, 

you bring in people like Larry Arnn and 

Bill Kristol,” and force them to make 

Paul Ryan speaker.

Chuck Todd had on conservative Congressman David Brat, who defeated Eric Cantor in a primary for being too soft, and Republican Charlie Dent from the blue state of Pennsylvania, to fight it out.

He asked Brat, what do you want? Brat said, “What we want is what the American people want,” and complained about “$100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.” He said “All federal revenues will be spent in 11 years on 

just entitlement programs and interest 

on the debt.”

After demanding cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he complained about Dodd-Frank, the EPA, the Iran deal and spending in general. He also cited John Maynard Keynes to argue we should be using the strong economic performance of the Obama years to pay down the deficit.

Dent pointedly responded “Some of us, the governing wing, want to use the process to advance good legislation. Others want to 

use the process to obstruct” and “For those 

who don't want to govern, we have to 

establish bipartisan coalitions to pass 
any meaningful legislation.”

That set Brat off, saying “So you want Nancy Pelosi to help determine our speaker,” and “you want to kick out conservatives out of 

our own conference. It's unbelievable!”

Hugh Hewitt hit them both, saying 

“A pox on both your wings!”

So, America is slipping away, and the answer is fewer songs and more guns; we should arm teachers in case we get an American Hitler; Ben Bernanke's best decision was giving taxpayer money to businesses that wrecked the country; the American people are inherently conservative centrist independents looking for major disruption and upheaval who think Obama is too radical; and the entire U.S. Congress is in disarray and may default on its debts because a small faction wants to cut Medicare and thinks bipartisanship is betrayal.

 

And that's the most ridiculous thing that happened this Sunday.