Videos of the Day: Is Gordon Brown a Devalued PM? Who is Tim Geithner's CEO?

As a frequent reader of British MEP Daniel Hannan's Telegraph blog, I was happy to see his thundering denunciation of Gordon Brown afforded the full Drudge treatment here in the United States. It's an Tony-worthy performance, full of wonderfully crafted (and seemingly extemporaneous) insults. Bonus fact: Hannan still refers to his German colleagues as "Jerries" on his blog.

Compare Hannan's ruthless interrogation of Brown to this clip of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Jonestown), questioning Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about his current "CEO's" ties to Goldman Sachs, that company's plot to sell crack to her constituents, fund the Contras, and fake another moon landing.

Comments

[ChicagoTom]

The Waters video is painful to watch.

She continually mis-speaks and then gets impatient with Geithner when he tries to answer the questions he thinks she is asking.

[Spoonman]

That's the most intelligent thing to come out of Britain in quite some time.

[shrike]

I'm no expert on the Brit media, but perhaps they don't have pundits pumping conspiracy theories into them 24/7 and instead they read books.

examples = truthers, birthers, Federal Reservists, One-Worlders, Barney "Franks" caused it, Goldman Sachs runs the Treasury, etc.

Conspiracy theories gone wild!

Americans have to be the most gullible people in the modern world.

[Warty]

Federal Reservists

That's a new one.

[the innominate one]

The Brits do everything classy, even outrage.

[SugarFree]

Americans have to be the most gullible people in the modern world.

You might be right, they did elect Obama after all.

[TofuSushi]

Rep. Maxine Waters is one of the greatest Democratic Party members in all of history. Truly a shining star of the party.

[Warty]

Brit politicians do analogies better than ours do, don't they? I can't imagine anyone in Congress managing to keep a ship metaphor coherent for that long.

[energized democrat]

You might be right, they did elect Obama after all.

your kidding right because thats the first thing theyve done right in a decade! what was gullible was thinking that bush was able to deal with a crisis that he created by not letting go of his ideology to do whats right. shrike is right you all are some of the most gullible people on earth and will believe anything so of course when things go right you cant see it.

[TofuSushi]

At least Obama got Bush out of office. Try arguing with that!

[Spoonman]

Brit politicians do analogies better than ours do, don't they? I can't imagine anyone in Congress managing to keep a ship metaphor coherent for that long.

Good point. They'd be talking about throwing kerosene on the boiler or something suddenly.

[KD]

You'll notice (if you click the link to his blog) that the short bio of Mr Hannan mentions that he is a writer.

He is not a lawyer nor a community organizer. D'ya suppose that may have something to do with his ability to speak coherently?

And at the very least, stuff sounds more coherent when delivered with a plummy English accent.

[BakedPenguin]

Tofu - you're trying too hard. The satire's showing.

[Jerry]

Hannan FTW.

[Gabe]

OMG, Moynihan is so right. Geitner is a hero and Goldman Sachs is doing their best to help the country get out of this mess. If we could just stop all these conspiracy theories then I'm sure the bailout packages that Bush/Obama/Paulson/Geithner have all endorsed would start to fix things in this country. Look at the dumb lady in the video. If someone who is stupid is questioning Geitner then that is PROOF that Geithner is good.

[Jerry]

And I think he only looked down twice or thrice during his speech. Obama stumbles when he even looks a second away from his teleprompter or big-screen television strategically positioned in the back of the White House press room.

[Episiarch]

"in that wooden and perfunctory way"

Awesome. Can you imagine a Senator dressing down Bush or Obama like that? Never, but it would be incredible.

[Xeones]

Maxine Waters is a terrible human being.

[shrike]

Why did Goldman send one of their CEO's over to run New Jersey?

Corzine must be working over the New Jersey people!

[TofuSushi]

Maxine Waters is a terrible human being.

Oh please! She was the last Joe Biden.

[Kreel Sarloo]

I'm no expert on the Brit media,...

And the rest of your post proves it.

Someone who believes that Americans are more gullible than other nationals clearly does not know many of the latter and has not travelled far from home.

If you think trutherism is big in the USA try Germany.

And check out the Brit's own top ten conspiracy theories.

On the other hand believing, that politically connected businessmen are wheelbarrowing money out of the Treasury is not that big a stretch even if people like Maxine Waters put a bizarre twist on it.

[Orange Line Special]

Odd, I've seen a few attempts to mock Waters over that clip. Did she unwittingly hit a nerve down at Kochtopus HQ or something?

[Warty]

Shut the fuck up, Lonewacko.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Naturally, the conspiracy theories of folks in other countries almost always have something to do with AmeriKKKa.

Oh and I usually have a pretty good idea of where to put commas but I messed up in the last para in that post.

[shrike]

Been all over Europe, KS, but you're wrong - Americans are definitely more gullible. Look at fundie church attendance and Creation theory, for instance.

Us Yanks eat the bullshit with both hands.

As for lawmakers carrying money out with a wheelbarrow - more crap.

They don't need a wheelbarrow. They use legislation.

[TofuSushi]

Been all over Europe, KS, but you're wrong - Americans are definitely more gullible. Look at fundie church attendance and Creation theory, for instance.

Exactly! And look at how they ignore Global Climate Change vs. Europeans.

[Chas]

Is this woman the result of an affair between Forrest Gump and a tree?

[Technomist]

Kreel Sarloo, the survey quoted in your link was an online poll by 20th Century Fox. Not exactly an organisation representative of what most people would call the British media, though it was uncritically iused as a filler in the Guardian for reasons best known only to themsleves.

With a self-selecting sample of only 1000, is it very unlikely to be representative of the British public. Not knowing the exact questions it is hard to comment further, but as it says nothing at all about the way Blair got Britain into the Iraq war, which is probably one of the most fertile sources for widely held conspiracies theories heard down the pub in recent years in the UK, I suggest this is unreliable evidence.

[shrike]

But thanks to Kreel I have a new favorite conspiracy theory - Microsoft is sending messages encrypted in Wing Dings.

That is gold.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Damn, I knew I shouldn't have trusted anything from the Gruniad.

Shrike, you must know smarter foreigners than I do.

If you look at stats on belief in conspiracy theories, pseudo-science (astrology, homeopathy etc) and you'll find 'mericans have competition for the gullible everyewhere.

Fundie xianity might give us a slight edge, though. So I'll give you that.

[Ken Shultz]

"Odd, I've seen a few attempts to mock Waters over that clip. Did she unwittingly hit a nerve...?"

I don't think Maxine Waters' line of questioning was necessarily antisemitic.

[Ken Shultz]

I mean, insinuating that Goldman Sachs is a cabal that's infiltrated the government and brings about or feeds off of financial crises for its own greed, that doesn't necessarily reek of antisemitism.

I mean, sure, just because Goldman Sachs has been a target for antisemitic cranks since, well, since they first appeared on the scene, I guess, well that doesn't mean that's what's going on here.

Maybe this time it's different. I don't know why it would be. ...and just when I didn't think I could think any less of Maxine Waters too!

[Ken Shultz]

"Odd, I've seen a few attempts to mock Waters over that clip. Did she unwittingly hit a nerve...?"

Oh, and guys, I wouldn't read too much into LoneWacko for this. Just because he seems to be defending this god awful tripe, that doesn't necessarily mean he's antisemitic either.

[Kolohe]

There is something to be said for the undeniably true fact that top people of Goldman Sachs have more than usual working relationship with top people in the government - and are periodically the same people at different points in time.

[ev]

If that is indeed the EU building in Strasbourg, France, I've stood behind the main podium. They have really nice chairs.

That was remarkable; I agree that I've never seen any US politician (maybe on any level) with the ability and balls to just rip on the higher echelons.

Although when I saw Luger speak on foreign policy he was outstanding.

[Brent Royal-Gordon]

Been all over Europe, KS, but you're wrong - Americans are definitely more gullible. Look at fundie church attendance and Creation theory, for instance.

Americans do tend to be more susceptible to religion, but I'm studying in the UK, and you would not believe the popularity of what I can only describe as "woo". New Age, crystal healing, tarot, spirit mediums, astrology, psychics, the whole nine yards-Europe just eats it up.

Europeans (or at least Britons) are no less gullible than Americans; they're just gullible in different ways.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Brent

That's what I was driving at.

But guys like Shrike are only happy when America is No 1. 🙂

[Fascitis Necrotizante]

One of the handful of things I liked about McCain was his promise to appear for question time before Congress. We could've seen him in rhetorical jousts with Ms. Waters!

[Fascitis Necrotizante]

And what I wouldn't give to see someone rip into Obama the way whatshisface did Brown.

[mediageek]

Hannan was on Neal Cavuto's show just a short time ago, and when Cavuto asked him about who he liked in the US presidential elections, he said he liked Ron Paul.

[nj]

Yeah, Hannan is a libertarian, so not that surprising that he like Ron Paul

[MaterialMonkee]

More strange rumblings in the EC

EU president Topolanek on the stimulus package

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dLxTcdHIfM

short and to the point!

more here

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/25/europe/union.php

[Paul]

She continually mis-speaks and then gets impatient with Geithner when he tries to answer the questions he thinks she is asking.

You have seen Maxine Waters before, no?

At least Obama got Bush out of office. Try arguing with that!

Tofu: Technically incorrect. Term limits got George Bush out of office.

We just chose the replacement.

[Paul]

"You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it's nonsense. "

This is gold. Pure gold.

[Gullible American]

Been all over Europe, KS

Europe is part of Kansas. I know that because I read it on the internet by someone who toured the whole thing.

[joe]

that is racist.

[KD]

"Make it so."

Kansas Europe

[Lou Skannen]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2008/03/21/why_im_for_barack_obama

[Kreel Sarloo]

I finally got to watch the speech. My firm blocks videos, so I had to wait til I got home.

Sorry, but as cool a guy as Daniel Hannan (and he is, eloquent and well informed) is, this speech was in a normal session of the EU parliament, not some mano a mano confrontation in the House with the dour(dewrrrr) Scotsman.

My political memory goes back to the Eisenhower administration (I was actually born during the reign of the exerable Harry Truman but I only know how bad he was through stories) and I recall denunciations of sitting presidinks in the House and Senate absolutely as scathing. Were they as eloquently and intellectually framed, perhaps not, but they certainly let the listener know exactly what the speaker thought of the object of his scorn.

As for the M Waters piece, for what it's worth, while she's an an insufferable nincompoop, many of the questions she asks are ones that "the people" ought to be concerned about hearing the answers to.

[Kunal]

Bonus fun fact for Lonewacko: Dan Hannan is a PeruvianImmigrant.

[MJ]

To Obama supporters: Daniel Hannan is what a truly eloquent and intelligent politician actually sounds like.