March 12, 2009 06:04 PM UTC

Take Aim At Foot! Fire!

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• by: Colorado Pols

We interrupt our normal coverage of Colorado politics to bring you an example of absolutely mind-blowing political stupidity too instructive to not point out. As Politico reports:

Nancy Pelosi said this week that she’s keeping the door open for a second stimulus bill.

She may be the only one…reaction on Capitol Hill has been almost uniformly negative – and much of the blowback is coming from Democrats.

“If there’s appetite, there’s not in my office,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). “Enough for now. No mas. No mas.”

“It is too soon,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “No sensible person is trying to guess what will be appropriate policy six months from now.”

“It sounds to me that would be a monumental lift,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Somebody’s going to have to convince me how they’re going to pay for it.”

Just three weeks after President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus package – and on the same day that he signed a $410 billion omnibus bill loaded with earmarks – the idea of spending more money to juice the economy was one that few members were willing to embrace…

Aides to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) also denied a CNN report that he has asked his staff to start drafting a second stimulus bill.

But the political damage was already done. Republicans seized on press reports about Pelosi and Obey, arguing that talk of a second stimulus was an implicit admission that the first stimulus won’t work.

Pop quiz: you just got done passing the biggest economic stimulus package in America’s history, an epic battle of messaging against an implacable obstructionist Republican Party, a bill that is going to define at least the first few years of the Barack Obama presidency. In that situation the best thing to do is:

A. Give the public and all the areas of the economy time to absorb what just happened, and encourage patience as the results begin to come in

B. Vigorously defend the bill against its critics, reminding them and public that it will take time and not be perfect and of the pressing need for its passage, or

C. Whack the whole effort at the knees by eagerly popping off about the need for a second stimulus, implicitly undermining the first one before it even has a chance to work–then embarrassingly backpedal when nobody agrees with you

If you answered “C,” you’re either Nancy Pelosi and David Obey or you are a goddamn idiot (true, those do not appear to be mutually exclusive), and either way you have no political sense about you whatsoever. We’re stunned. What an unbelievable gift to the GOP message machine.

The fact is, most economists agree that the current bill is going to have a significant positive effect on the economy, and that its passage was necessary. The need for any future additional stimulus may exist in the hypothetical but you can’t possibly expect to sell it to the American people until the effect of the first one can be assessed. The Democrats quoted above–we haven’t heard yet but fully expect our moderate Colorado delegation will agree this is crazy–are sensitive to their electorate in a way that Pelosi…maybe just isn’t.

Anyway, it appears the Josh Penry scale of tone-deaf has a new benchmark–not up there with “I hope babies get AIDS,” but definitely on the scale.