Be Bold Good Fool

James Carville got his panties in a knot today when a CNN "reporter" asked him what he would advise Obama to do in the face of political disaster. I know Carville talks all the time, never shuts up actually, but his advice to Obama makes him seem like more of a superfluous twat then normal.

Here are the steps he lined out:

1. Fire People - This certainly seems like a good idea, the people working in the White House are incompetent indeed and should be put out to pasture. The only problem is that Obama has canned a few people, Van Jones comes to mind, and has replaced them with equally incompetent know-nothings. Obama doesn't know any really talented people and even if he did he wouldn't have the sense to put them in power positions. He finds clones of himself and hires them. He's incompetent and so are they. Changing the names won't help unless you change who picks them.

2. Indict People - Carville is referring to Wall Street execs here because they of course are the scum of the earth and deserve to be lined up and shot for ruining the economy. Or so Carville thinks. The real truth is that any criminal investigation into bad economic practices would only lead back to Washington and hurt members of Congress. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank come to mind first but there is plenty of blame to go around, especially with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Janet Reno threatening lenders over redlining. Carville thinks harassing execs who were responding to federal regulations will appease the people angry over the economy. Putting rich people in jail won't help poor people.

3. Make the Case Like A Democrat - Carville is saying that Obama should forcefully defend Keynesian economics, big spending liberal policy, instead of going along with Republican austerity programs. He cites some mythical world where we're doing worse now after spending cuts than we were doing during stimulus. The problem here is that we've never tried any austerity program here. Never. Big spending liberal policies have sadly ruled the day and everyone knows it. Even the Ryan plan was fairly timid in the face of the danger. The people know what we've been doing and O can't defend it with any credibility.

4. Hold Fast To An Explanation - This is a good idea. Flip flopping around on every issue looks weak and confuses the electorate. Unfortunately this is hard to do when you are actively trying to deceive people on topics you really know nothing about. None of his explanations work so he's just scattering shots hoping to hit something.

EXTRA - here are some of the attacks Carville wraps up the piece with, explaining his fear of a crazy person being elected:

creationism-loving: belief in God is mainstream.
global-warming denying: that's because its a lie.
immigration bashing: no, illegal immigration bashing.
Social Security cutting: would you rather tweak a program or have it become insolvent?
clean air hating: I assume he means greenhouse gases which are necessary for all life and quite different from smog.
Morally fascinating: I have no idea what this means. Pro-life maybe? Welfare reform? Standards at all?
Wall Street protecting: Have you seen who has been getting all of the stimulus money from Obama? Unions and Wall Street. All of it.

If conservatism can't flourish in the face of this kind of delusional incompetence then it never will.