Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sorry Kids. Daddy Broke The Markets.



This quote by Larry Sabato (from Fox News' Your World With Neil Cavuto) is unintentionally funny:

NEIL CAVUTO (host): To John McCain today -- he was talking about housing, but concerned more with all the pricey government programs aimed at fixing housing. Historian Larry Sabato says it is a decidedly different tact: Democrats proposing a government solution for people in pain; the presumptive Republican nominee risking no such solution for the vast majority who are not. So, Larry, how does this fall out? I mean, one of the things in that Hillary Clinton press conference a few moments ago was this notion that maybe John McCain was pulling a Herbert Hoover. Will that register?

SABATO: Well, Neil, without insulting the American public, I'd have to say a fair proportion of the public doesn't know who Herbert Hoover was. So I don't think that will necessarily sell. Look, when you analyze parties, you need to think of them this way: The Democratic Party is the mommy party, and the Republican Party is the daddy party. Now, you and I both love both our mothers and fathers, right? But they play different roles in many families. The mother is loving and caring and takes us back in and provides the safety net. The father is the disciplinarian -- tough love. He makes us face up to hard realities, at least in many families. Well, the mommy party is the Democratic Party. The daddy party is the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the economy, you look at the housing, the mortgage crisis, a whole wide range of things, you'll find that the parties fulfill these images.

It's that old Republican framing, sure. But it comes across differently, because the Republicans have been in power for the last seven years and so the mortgage crisis, the housing problem and "a whole wide range of things" are something they created.

Who is the Daddy Disciplinarian supposed to spank here? Himself?