I wonder if Gov. Bobby Jindal came cheap?

By Richard K. Barry

Can I be your VP? I promise to say whatever
you like. And I'll check my integrity at the door.

I honestly don't care about the over-the-top nonsense GOP talking heads like to throw around about Democrats actually disliking capitalism. One wing of the conservative bullshit machine claims Obama is too close to Wall Street; another claims he and his administration don't believe in free enterprise.

I know how politics works. You say all kinds of nonsense to see what sticks. So Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has a new attack ad in which he actually says:

I suspect that many in the Obama administration really don't believe in private enterprise. At best, they see business as something to be endured so that it can provide tax money for government programs.

Add to that the incoherent claim that President Obama is inexperienced, which, as Steve Benen points out, is an odd claim after

eight years in state government, four years in the U.S. Senate, and four years as the president of the United States during a time of crisis -- as being inexperienced.

Yes, they prefer Mitt Romney, "the least-experienced major-party presidential nominee in more than 70 years." Republicans are always fighting the last battle.

Anyway, Mitt Romney has been running around claiming the same thing about Obama's attitude about capitalism, that the President is turning American away from being a "free-enterprise nation." I know, the Tea Party crazies have been calling Obama a socialist from day one, which can only mean one thing: they are first class idiots. Only someone who has no idea what socialism is would consider President Obama a socialist.

Then again, this is the wing of the party that never really went away after Goldwater's defeat in 1964. Barry Goldwater himself once stood up in the Senate to tell Eisenhower, as Rick Perlstein describes it, that he was a betrayer of the people's trust and a quisling in thrall to Democrats' "economic inebriation.' Goldwater also said that Eisenhower embraced, "the siren song of socialism."

You have to figure if the people who gave birth to crazy-ass conservatism were willing to call President Eisenhower a socialist, what chance does Barack Obama have?

My point is that radical Republicans have always said these things about anyone who thought government had a role to play in ensuring equality of opportunity and fairness in our capitalist economic system. Every now and then these people pick up their heads to say if you are not a pure laissez faire capitalist, you are dirty fucking socialist. It comes in cycles, and, lucky us, we're living through one now.

But I have to ask if this stuff resonates with anyone? Let me qualify that: Does this stuff resonate with anyone who is not already predisposed to think that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are actually communists, as Rep. Allen West (R) claimed not that long ago? Does this stuff work with people who are not already convinced that Democrats are really zombies intent on destroying free enterprise?

It truly has become baseless name calling, and Mitt Romney is right in the middle of it, as is Bobby Jindal for whom some people seem to have a modicum of respect, although I can't understand why at this point. Guess Bobby really wants that VP slot and doesn't care what he has to say to get it.

I suppose they test these attack lines. I suppose they had a meeting where someone said, "let's say that Obama is against capitalism," because, you know, he had the nerve to say Mitt Romney is a blood-sucking son-of-a-bitch who never gave a damn about the jobs destroyed through his vulture capitalist activities.

I get it. I get it. I get it. I know what they're going for. Maybe it'll work. I don't know. I don't think so.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)