It's Worse Than I Thought

TPM has this clip up of a Hillary "surrogate," the hacktacular Senator Menendez (D-NJ) defending the gas-tax holiday:

Things to learn from this, and why this is an even lower low than before:

1. This is a glimpse to what a Hillary administration would be like - denying reality, and good policy, just to rustle up votes by assuming the voters are dumb as dirt.
   
2. On the other hand, the press - who gave Bush a free ride when he did the very same things - is going after Hillary's idiocy. Democrats get press scrutiny (as we saw in the 'first' Clinton administration) and that has to be factored into everything.
   
3. As noted by TPM reader GP, while the press is mocking Hillary for having no economists, they aren't challenging the 'surrogates' over the fact that it won't actually save the consumers (voters) ANY MONEY. Not a cent. So why not ask that? The press is allowing the Clintons to pull their "Bush" and attack the elitist economists who, in Menendez' words don't know what it's like to have to pinch pennies to get by. Barf.
   
4. Just wondering why people - sitting senators! - are willing to shill such destruction to the party by helping Hillary this way, so late in the game. Hillary is not worth it at this point, why is Jersey Bob doing this?!

Just to highlight the folly of the Clinton supporters, I wrote this reaction to the TPM about a letter they printed from some moron who supported the "Clinton as Gut Fighter" myth:

I vehemently disagree with the sentiment of reader "RP" in the mega-meta post, especially in light of David Kurtz' MSNBC clip. First of all, the whole "Hillary as fighter" canard doesn't play in reality. Her fighting may have gotten her a few-popular-vote pushes every few days before critical primaries, but she is still losing. Bottom line, her fighting can't even get her to win Democrats, so how is she going to get independents. It's a Hillary-supporter myth that her fightingness is an asset.

But the MSNBC clip shows something more sobering which is that the press does not give Democrats the same free-ride that was given to Bush (and now to McCain). We saw this under Bill Clinton; the press was all over everything he did. In fact, I'd assume one reason why you started your blog was because of the lack of scrutiny given to what Bush did in the recount (and for the whole primary/general in 2000).

Hillary (and Obama) will be given heavy crazy scrutiny. Her bellicosity and dirty tricks won't get any traction against McCain because the rules are different. But just as she didn't understand the rules for the primaries, she - or her supporters - don't understand the rules for the general either.

Update: Menendez tries to ratchet down the crazy here.