From Friday’s Special Report All-Star Panel Appearance:
On the claim that initial media coverage of Occupy Wall Street and the tea party were roughly equal:
On the contrary. The media treatment of Occupy was positive initially, in contradistinction to the coverage initially of the Tea Party, which was to demonize them or to marginalize them.
On the future of Occupy Wall Street:
Occupy doesn’t have a future. I’m not sure it has much of a past. It doesn’t have a core or philosophy or a program. This is Big Government anarchism. Politics abhors that kind of contradiction in terms.
On one hand, these are people who declared liberation to the extent their camps are off-limit to normal law enforcement. On the other hand, if they have any demands whatsoever, it’s that the corrupt capitalism system that they rail against ought to feed them, forgive their loans, provide them jobs, and coddle them cradle to grave. That isn’t exactly a coherent message….
When the weather is tough in Northeast and Midwest, they will scatter like leaves. On the west coast — in San Francisco, Portland, Oakland, where liberal governments have tolerated them — the tolerance will run out and they will probably, rather soon, have to crack down and kick them out.
On the recent tax proposal by GOP supercommittee members:
Senators Toomey and Portman have proposed what is essentially the core of a Grand Bargain, which is Republicans agree to a net increase in tax revenues, while the Democrats agree to either a freeze or a cut in tax rates, and you make up the difference with cuts in loopholes. And that’s what they are offering, which is courageous given that there are a lot of Republicans who will not accept any increase in revenues….
The Democrats are dismissing it and I think it’s coming from on high — from the administration and the leadership on the Democratic side [which] has no interest in a deal.
On the administration’s decision to share but not release all documents related to Solyndra’s loan:
There is a reason that the administration is withholding. If you look at the documents you discover that Solyndra was protesting how much of a going concern it was to outside investors and to the administration (and incidentally was supported by the Energy Department in these protests)…by emphasizing how much sales were increasing, doubling every year.
Except that it was losing $3 on every panel, which cost it $6 to make. That is exactly the kind of accounting that made the Soviet economy such a remarkable success.