Dartblog

Ariana Huffington & Co. believe they have heard the first imperfection issue from Sarah Palin’s lips. They explain it thus:

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” The companies, as McClatchy reported, “aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.”

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

“You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country’s mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn’t speak well for her, I’d say.”

Ignore the bit about “economists pounced.” When a biased reporter wants to write something he feeds the line into a machine, and the machine produces a chirpy pocket-sized expert to whom that very line can be attributed.

The important thing is that the author’s story is entirely incorrect. Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are two companies which are, indeed, too expensive for the taxpayers. The tremendous genius of the two companies—well, genius if you are F.D.R.; folly if you are living in enlightened, modern times—is that Fannie and Freddie are private-profit/public-loss companies. When they make money, they make money. And when they lose money, they are guaranteed by the government.

Well, guess what, baby? Their balance sheets aren’t healthy, and the loss belongs to the government, and the government is the public, and the public are the taxpayers. Sarah Palin is not only not a fool—she’s terribly lucid, concise, and clear in speaking about these complex matters.

UPDATE: Hoah, man. The Huffington Post is all Palin, all the time, all not entirely true. Creationism? Raised taxes? Iraq as Christian Crusade? What are there, only two moves in the How to Respond to a Biographically Superior Republican Opponent before absolute mad raving scandalism?

At least some Democrats acknowledge the silliness of their aspect. Here’s Wonkette, linking to a wild piece from Mother Jones: “Why is Sarah Palin hiding a secret stash of a million sexy racist emails sent to the Alaskan Monarchy? And why is Husband Todd always CCed when none of the emails pertain to snowmobiling?” Presumably she infected one of the emails with Down’s Syndrome, but then didn’t erase it because of her special kind of love.

It is true, at least in part, that Republicans have, outclassed, decided to do the vanity vamp. But, lo, they’re good at it! Intellectual liberals like Marty Peretz have screwed-up their faces and clicked together their heels because after a long period of being able to inject their thinking into the bloodstream of the nation through the backdoor of personality, they are now miffed they’ve lost their monopoly on the procedure. C’est tout.