It’s Tuesday, but it’s really like Thursday because of the short work week. You know you want it – your daily open thread.
So what’s up? I think I’ve figured out why Republicans are having trouble figuring out this deficit thing. They aren’t so hot at math:
Reporting on the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll last night on Fox News’ local Chicago affiliate, anchor Byron Harlan employed some funny math in asserting that Sarah Palin is leading the pack for the GOP nomination in 2012:
HARLAN: It looks as if the rogue route is helping Sarah Palin. Her book tour has meant new support. A new Opinion Dynamics poll for 2012 shows her on top when it comes to landing the nomination. Palin is at 70 percent, about a third higher than this past July. Mike Huckabee stands at 63 percent. Mitt Romney’s 60.
There’s even a graph that shows who the 193% of Republicans surveyed support:
Math is hard!
Reading is also hard, at least if you listen to Congressional Republicans. There’s been incessant whining about the length of the health care reform bill. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for them. This is the job they signed up to do. Quit whining to us that your job is hard. If it’s too hard let’s find someone else who is a better reader. Analysis found that the health care reform bill was only 209 pages long if standard spacing and type was used.
The Associated Press, to its credit, looked into this.
The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy’s novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush’s education act tallied more than 280,000 words.
By now, the full draft of Reid’s bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner.
The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle.
It’s 209 pages.
In other words, the health care bill — the one that Republicans say is too burdensome to actually read — is shorter than Sarah Palin’s 413-page book.
I have an idea for Democrats – publish it. Sell it in bookstores. Use the proceeds to buy earplugs so that you don’t have to listen to incessant Republican whining. Better yet, buy me some earplugs so I don’t have to listen to it.