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I’m not saying Dan Riehl definitely puts on lederhosen and fucks baby penguins.

That would be irresponsible — there simply isn’t enough evidence to say one way or another.

All I’m saying is, from what we know at this time, it’s premature to say for sure that Dan Riehl doesn’t put on lederhosen and fuck baby penguins.

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Originally uploaded by AyBeeDee

has joe the plumber ever had to dodge barrels flung by a rampaging ape? fuck that guy.

There’s flip-flopping, and then there’s this. Pheeew.

But in all fairness to John McCain, the disconnect runs deeper in the GOP. How do you premise your entire economic platform on keeping government’s dirty mitts off our sacred financial institutions, then insist the government bail them out when they inevitably succumb to the too-predictable consequences of unchecked, boneheaded, myopic greed? How to reconcile the yawning discrepancy between these two postures? Let me give it a shot…

Everybody knows that free markets are identical with freedom and state planned economies are evil. Taking over an entire industry is about the most evil thing a government can do, but only when that industry is successful. See, when a foreign government dares to nationalize a critical economic resource — let’s say oil — because its private owners — who, just for fun, let’s postulate have their home offices on Wall Street — have failed to handle that national resource in a way that sustains that nation’s economy or benefits its people… well, that’s bad. Real bad. We go to war over stuff like that when other people do it.

But when our own financial institutions get into trouble, the government has to take control in order to right the ship. Otherwise, the economy would suffer! It may seem unfair to expect taxpayers to bail out companies that do stupid, evil things that ultimately lead to their own undoing. But things will be even worse if we don’t. It’s all about the public good!

And so you see, it’s not that Republicans are against government oversight of private enterprise. On the contrary, when the shit happens they advocate the same policies as guys like Hugo Chavez. It’s just that they draw a key distinction between assets and liabilities: when a business is successful, hands off! As long as somebody somewhere can theoretically be making money off it, any form of government intervention would be oppressive. BUT, the moment that moneymaking enterprise ceases to make money and instead creates problems, it’s on the rest of us to dig the moneymakers out of the hole they have dug for us all.

I hope that clears up any confusion. You may now resume voting Republican on the principle that they’re good with money.