Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Megan McArdle Develops Psychic Powers!

In a stunning new advance for science, Megan McArdle, economics blogger for The Atlantic, has developed psychic powers that enable her to read others' minds. In a recent post McArdle demonstrates her ability to determine the thought processes of liberals. Note that she does not state any names or quote any words; everything she states is pulled directly from liberal minds.
There's a lot of sadness on liberal blogs these days. What happened to Hope and Change? Climate change is coming sometime next year, maybe. Financial regulation also isn't coming anytime soon, and what's proposed is the minimum set of politically feasible propositions rather than a sweeping overhaul. And health care? What the @#%! is Congress doing messing around with expensive, incremental [expletive deleted]? How can such a popular president be so powerless?

McArdle has my deepest sympathy. It must be hell to have the profanities of random persons inflicted upon her mind. It reminds me of the ordeal suffered by Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris' entertaining supernatural mysteries. Poor thing.
But two things are also clear: the Democrats overestimated the boost they'd get from both the crisis and Obama's popularity. And they dissipated a hell of a lot of the money and political capital they'd now like to spend on the stimulus and the GM bailout. They got very carried away with visions of 1932.

It's true that someone publicly stated that liberals partied like it was 1932 when Obama was elected, rejoicing at the opportunity to create a New New Deal, but that person was McArdle herself, so we can still accept this statement as psychic.
What's happening now is precisely the kind of political gridlock I--and a lot of libertarians and conservatives--predict when it comes time to actually cut costs in healthcare. Why can't we tax employer health benefits? Liberal answer: because Ben Nelson is a big fat jerk. My answer: because then the awesome health care package that Democrats want to run on in 2010 would come packaged with a
non-awesome hefty decline in everyone's weekly paycheck. The number of people who would get a benefit out of the program would be much smaller than the number of people who would pay a noticeable cost.

I googled "Ben Nelson is a big fat jerk." and can assert that no liberal said those words, and therefore McArdle is indeed psychic.
Many Democrats thought this time was different, and I confess, so did I: Obama was popular, the war was not, the financial crisis offered cover and rationale for sweeping change.
This statement puzzles me, for I am not psychic and know little of their ways. Surely some Democratic minds remember the routing Clinton received when he tried to implement national health care. McArdle must have just read the minds of younger, less literate Democrats, who are unfamiliar with the 1980s. Still, her achievement is stunning, and I can only imagine the advantage that mind reading gives to a pundit. One still might be led astray by the mistakes of others, but psychic abilities surely are an advantage all the same.

12 comments:

Susan of Texas said...

Now she has a post up saying that she was right about Krugman. Nothing will ever penetrate that thick skull and she has no shame. Bradley will keep printing her crap until he gets tired of losing money. (After he bought the Atlantic he said it was no longer losing 12 million a year--it was losing less than 5 million a year.)

Ken Houghton said...

Now that she has said it, though, we can start using "Ben Nelson is a big, fat jerk. -- Megan McArdle" as a tagline?

(This is the same Ben Nelson whose explanation for voting with W. all the time really did invoke "the Divine Right of Kings." His opposition to King S/o/l/o/m/o/n/ Obama is very newly minted.)

Downpuppy said...

While Megan yet again doubles down on stupid, Froomkin is canned. And Kevin McHale!

The Washington Post is as suicidal as the Atlantic.

clever pseudonym said...

And right after that post, Susan, she's got one filled with self-righteous indignation over convicted felons being denied DNA tests to prove their innocence. She asks for her "legal genius" readers to explain how this could be. No, Megan. You are a supposed to be a friggin' journalist. Finding out the reasons before you write about it is your stinking JOB. It's called RESEARCH. Look it up yourself before you go pontificating on the horrors of a supposed misjustice you know NOTHING ABOUT.

God, she makes me so mad I'm shouting in all caps. Reading ever day about decent, qualified journalists being thrown out of work while this know-nothing moron still sits in the offices of the Atlantic makes me angry.

ChicagoEd said...

All she has to do is read the fucking Supreme Court opinion she's criticizing to find out the reasoning of the majority. It should take all of 20 minutes. And since Megan's a speed reader, it should be a snap for her. You know, Megan, Supreme Court decisions are in fact written in the English language and require no charts or "simple words" to fully understand. But you're so lazy it doesn't even cross your mind to actually read the fucking decision. You're awful.

Susan of Texas said...

Firing Froomkin, while McArdle contemplates her navel lint and shares it with the rest of the world. Sigh.

Susan of Texas said...

Read the source material? Why should she do the very minimum when she's made it this far by doing nothing?

clever pseudonym said...

I did not check the link she had, so I didn't even realize that it was that much easier for her to understand. She wouldn't even have to research. She'd only have to read the very link she provided herself. How many times have we had to read this fool bragging about her expensive education and how smart she is while this kind of crap appears on her site on a daily basis?

Jesus, that's charting whole new territories in stupid. How in the WORLD does she get away with being this big of a dumbass day after day after day and still have a job as a writer?

Susan of Texas said...

She must have been hired to spout this garbage. Anyone who read her old blog would know exactly what she was capable of.

Kathy said...

In Thorne Smith's book "The Passionate Witch" the problem of maddening mind reading was overcome by drinking alcohol, lots of it.

Dillon said...

"...the problem of maddening mind reading was overcome by drinking alcohol, lots of it."

Megan McArdle a.k.a. Our Lady of the Appletini, Patron Saint of Girl-drink Drunks, should have no problem with this prescription.

Kathy said...

I have the reverse problem, actually. When I drink too much I KNOW exactly what people are thinking. Oh yes, they can deny it, but I KNOW.