Jon Chait wrote an excellent takedown of Peggy Noonan's latest column. In it, Noonan makes the baseless claim that President Obama is racking up enormous deficits and he needs to cut spending now.
She was saying the same thing on Morning Joe the other day. In fact, Joe has been saying this on Morning Joe for months now. The only problem with the urgency of their "Deficit! GAAAAH!" mantra is that they're simultaneously saying the president needs to create jobs -- or else. So how does that work? Tax cuts? Tax cuts create deficits. See also Bush's tax cuts for the rich -- more than a trillion unaccounted-for dollars right there.
The fact remains that President Obama is actually being responsible (too miserly in my view) with the necessary spending he's been ushering through. Yes, there's a lot of spending, but there's also a lot of attention being paid to reducing the deficit. Chait brings us this graph:
Wow. Look at that. Deficit reduction. But I guess it's just easier to ignore the facts in lieu of the tired, antiquated "tax and spend liberal" script.
Speaking of which, something for your Noonan Insufferable Poseur score card: she used the word "trope" and rolled out the "frog boiling" metaphor. Serious! Very!