Quote of the Day

“A lot of people are very nervous about this whole Rapture thing, though a lot of people didn’t understand it. For instance, Sarah Palin said, ‘The raptures were the scariest part of ‘Jurassic Park.'” –Jay Leno

Debt or Default?

Here is a poll demonstrating how low-information voters are misled by Republican misinformation–Poll: More Americans fear higher national debt than default.

The impact of right wing propaganda becomes even more severe when the Republican Party, which has been responsible for running up the bulk of the deficit, now uses the issue to promote themselves. Recent history demostrates that we cannot trust Republicans with our money.

David Weigel notes that Bill Clinton has suggested that maybe we should default for a couple of days because most people don’t know what will happen. Weigel concludes:

…a plurality of voters have no idea what the hell is going on. The information failure on the debt limit has been… well, not surprising, but ranking pretty high on the Obama administration’s Parade of PR Failures. Part of the failure is reality-based. It’s theoretically possible, as Pat Toomey has pointed out, to hit the debt ceiling and start stripping the rest of the government for cash — selling off parks, selling Gold, holding up Social Security payments. That would force a crisis that would probably shift public opinion pretty quickly. Not enough people are worried about that, though, so the GOP has plenty of leverage.