Classic Liberal Blog

Last Thursday, economist and author of Meltdown, Thomas E. Woods Jr., gave the hate-inspired left-wing media a well-deserved fisking, with the "progressive" tabloid Wonkette as his example.

Wonkette is a left-wing, progressive blog that thinks of itself as "cheeky and iconoclastic while endorsing only the most exquisitely conventional, establishment-approved opinions."  Progressives do not think for themselves, in fear of bringing down the wrath of their god-king Obama, the highly-evolved "Lightworker."

The Wonkette's of the world, especially don't like Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-R), because, well, um,  Bachmann doesn't share their fear and wonder of the Mighty Overlords.  As Woods explains in his article Establishment Chic:

In order to remain as predictable as possible, Wonkette’s writers have decided they really don’t like Rep. Michele Bachmann ... Of all the geniuses in Congress, they select for special ridicule one of the tiny handful who actually ask an interesting question now and again. By “interesting” I mean the kind of question no one at Newsweek, MSNBC, or, for that matter, Wonkette itself, would think to ask ... because they’re not designed to flatter our overlords, portray them as indispensable, or show them the kind of reverence that Pravda once displayed for the Politburo.

How dare she question the Almighty Rulers!  Bachmann is certainly a terrorist!

One of the most heinous crimes comitted by Michele Bachmann (according to Wonkette), is she insisted on asking Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner a real question!  As Woods notes:

... when 60 Minutes interviewed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke several months ago, the questions were on the order of “What are the dangers now? What keeps you up at night?” ... Instead of asking how this guy could have been so wrong about practically everything he’s said since 2006—e.g., there’s no housing bubble, lending standards are sound, the housing bust should be over by December 2008—the establishment left wants to know what is troubling our great overlord, and how he intends to use his potions and incantations to slay the evils that afflict us.

Rep. Bachmann actually had the audacity to ask Geithner where he got the Constitutional authority for his actions (how dare she!):

Surely this is an area in which the real left and the real right might join in happy concord, no? I mean, the left coined the phrase question authority, right?

As it turns out, they really meant question authority except the Treasury secretary in a Democratic administration, or the Fed chairman, or the Washington Post, or the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus, or the regulatory establishment, or Paul Krugman, or the SEC, or the medical establishment, or the central bank, or the Officially Approved Version of American History you were taught in fourth grade ... Yes, yes, question authority and all that, but none of that applies to people and institutions that exist for your own good ... you’re not deranged and anti-social, are you?

Michele Bachmann asked Geithner the simple question, "where in the Constitution does this authority come from?"  He couldn't provide an answer of course, so Geithner just mumbled a series of random words:

Oh, well, the Congress legislated in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act a range of very important new authorities ...

Every action that the Treasury and the Fed and the FDIC has been using authority granted by this body, the congress.

So the Treasury Dept., and its partner in crime The Federal Reserve is counterfeiting money to buy up large companies under the guise of "bailouts," and the Wonkette's of the world actually believe Geithner's answer was good!  But as Woods says:

Exactly how smart do you need to be to recognize that that is not even close to an answer to the question? Geithner then says something about “the laws of the land”—again, perfectly irrelevant. Where in the Constitution does this authority come from? An answer to that question is not even attempted.

So the Treasury secretary has no idea where the authority comes from to bail out some of the most reckless, idiotic, parasitic parties on Wall Street, and Wonkette thinks the person to condemn here is not the Treasury secretary himself but the member of Congress who corners him?

In yet another atrocious crime comitted by Rep. Bachmann (according to Wonkette), She's interested in learning (gasp!) Austrian Economics!  Woods continues:

That the Austrians predicted the current crisis at a time when Wonkette’s heroes were calling for the very policies that brought on the collapse (and yes, that includes Paul Krugman, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding) impresses them not a whit. The Austrians, who constitute the oldest continuously existing school of economic thought in the world, are out of favor with the establishment, whose boots it refuses to lick, and that’s pretty much all Wonkette needs to know.

But what's Bachmann's real crime, her most offensive, felonious act (according to Wonkette)?  I'll let Thomas Woods explain:

Rep. Bachmann has been learning this material recently, and other people have been glad that a member of Congress is showing interest in business cycle theory—a subject that is probably not at the very top of the reading lists of Chris Dodd or John McCain. Now you can understand Wonkette’s ridicule, right? She has attended lectures on the subject and read books. (What is that in your hand, citizen? A book?) We can’t have that—the most urgent need right now is for American congressmen to keep their present level of knowledge right where it is.

In particular, Rep. Bachmann has been reading my book Meltdown, which gives the free-market reply to the drones who tell us the crisis was caused by the “free market” and “deregulation.” Ron Paul, who wrote the book’s foreword, invited me to discuss it before a small group of congressmen in his office several months ago.

Now we really can’t have that. Why, this is an unapproved opinion! And since no one at Wonkette is familiar with Austrian business cycle theory, which pinpoints the roots of the boom-bust business cycle outside the boundaries of the free market, it can’t possibly amount to much. If it did, they’d already know about it. QED.

Sad, but true.  In the "progressive" world, learning, attending lectures and heaven forbid ... reading books (I'm shocked, shocked!), is crime that must be ridiculed.  It explains a lot about our Left-wing run public schools, doesn't it?  But I digress ...

Perhaps indicative of the intelligence of Wonkette readers are the comments that follow. One chap writes, “Is Austrian Economic theory the one where they march in wearing brownshirts and take all the businesses from the Jews? Laissez-faire, uber alles!” In case you think that’s a moronic remark that no conscious person would utter, or a stupid and blockheaded smear of an entire country, recall that people who live in Austria are Officially Designated Oppressors who can be smeared and insulted in perpetuity, without provoking the sensitivity sessions, candlelight vigils, and all-around tears and sorrow that accompany insults to other groups. Wonkette, natch, will decide for us which groups belong to which categories.

Piling on a bit, if I may, consider that the greatest of the Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises, was a Jew who was forced to flee Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in the United States in 1940 almost empty-handed and not speaking a word of English. The Nazis, who destroyed his library and papers, detested him because his message of freedom and the international division of labor was rather at odds with the autarkic, controlled economy of National Socialism. So the least we might say is that our friend’s Nazi joke doesn’t really work. He doesn’t strike me as the thirsting-for-knowledge sort, though, so I rather doubt he’ll one day come upon the truth and feel embarrassed.

Summing it up perfectly, Woods ends by explaining their progressive delusions:

The Wonkette kids are like the popular group in high school that wanted to belong to the fashionable causes, since that’s what the other popular kids did, but made sure they weren’t too ostentatious in their devotion to those causes. We can’t be too different, you understand. Just cool ...