Friday, October 24, 2008

Charlie Sykes Spins Himself Into Irrationality

Mark the time and date: 10:30 a.m., Friday, October 24th, 2008:

Charlie Sykes said the possible election of Barack Obama as President, and Democratic control of both houses of Congress, is a factor in the stock market's dive.

As Charlie might say: "Oh, really?"

forget failed Wall Street regulation, greed, a trillion dollars spent on the Iraq War, ubiquitous bad housing debt sinking entire financial institutions - - the falling stock market and its impact on savings and retirement accounts is partisan.

And Obama's fault - - and he hasn't been elected yet, though Charlie is certainly waving a white flag.

This is the single most intellectually-unsupportable bit of spin I have heard on local talk radio.

1 comment:

Jim Bouman said...

I don't think I've listened to Sykes five times in all the years he's been on radio. But, each time I did tune in, listening to his ad lib riffs on the stories in the newspaper reminded me of those profs in college who never really prepared to teach their classes, just relied on what came off the top of the head to "lecture" to the captive audience.

He may be partially correct. The Democrats were a pretty timid lot--not entirely, witness: Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel-- from the sidelines these past eight years. Always too timid to really attack Bush/Cheney nonsense and venality.

The useful reaction is to simply ignore Sykes and his ilk. I suspect that his acolytes will tire of his bleating very soon. Advertisers will fall away. Charlie and Belling will be talking to a sorry remnant of sore losers, licking their wounds and plotting revenge, choking on their own bile.