Sleighing Hannity's army of Black Knights

[shockingelk]

I'd like to share a particularly typical thread at Hannity's forum from today, and a particularly embarrassing one for the Black Nights in GOPville claiming, "None shall pass!"

This was linked to in the first post: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/overview/..%5Ctables%5Coverview%5CTrends%5Cdebt.PDF - you don't have to look at it, it's a table of national debt as percentage of GDP up to 2001 with predictions afterwards through 2004, which of course ended up being horribly wrong. The poster of course made the claim that although the national debt was greater, it had gone down each year as % of GDP and warned everybody not to believe any Kerry spin.

A couple other Hannitized souls chimed in "great post, booming economy, tax cuts are working, doom and gloomers proven wrong ..."

I responded, Federal debt has sky-rocketedd during Bush. The most recent figure from the PDF you linked to is for 2001: $5.6 Trillion. As of 7/22/2004, the official figure for the debt is $7.2 Trillion. On the last day of 2001 according to the official figures it was $5.9 Trillion. So it's increased somewhere around 22% in about the last 2.5 years. If anybody doubts that, here's a link so you can confirm it yourself: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~www/opdpen.cgi

The original poster admonished me, "There you go trying to separate debt from the amount of available money," and asked me to clearly claim I was denying the debt ratio had gone down.

I responded, "No, I don't deny it, the debt as % of GDP went down from 1996- 2001," reminded him that the 2001 budget was set under Clinton, and linked to the actual 2002-2003 figures.

Then, predictably, the Clenis factor became the important thing: the response, paraphrased: "The point I was trying to make is that the Bush figures are better than the figures during the Clinton Administration, in his first term, it was around 67% of GDP!" Somehow, ignoring the fact Bush inherited a 56.8% debt ratio and increased it to 62.4% in two years was the easiest thing in the world to ignore.

In other words, "The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then ... Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off! "

The Black Knight:

[jpgray]

1. Do you mean 'slaying', or are we hooking them up to a sled? :-)

[aquart]

4. Yes, I pictured tiny reindeer politicians.

And the sled of state, loaded with gifts for one and all.

[shockingelk]

5. (red face)

I do enjoy the ride over there, so I suppose I could pretend I actually meant "Sleighing", but unlike the Hannitized, I am not adverse to facing reality. I really think my error is but a flesh wound, however.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Hannitized cheerleading....

>>A couple other Hannitized souls chimed in "great post, booming economy, tax cuts are working, doom and gloomers proven wrong ..."<<

Somebody buy that guy a set of pom poms.... and a yellow/green tutu. What freaking planet are they living on?

[Cat Atomic]

3. Ha! That is an excellent metaphor.

And good argument there as well.

"'Tis only a fleshwound!"