When candidates get stupid

Dave Ross Commentary – Listen: When candidates get stupid

They arrive in my e-mail after every political debate — the FACT CHECKS. Lists of the candidates factual screw-ups. Like Michelle Bachmann saying Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs, or Mitt Romney claiming Massachusetts didn’t raise taxes to pay for Romneycare.

And all these fact checks have one thing in common: They are boring — and nobody reads them. OK that’s two things – thanks for checking.

But Dave you say, candidates SHOULD tell the truth. Yes, but they CAN’T because the TRUTH is that rich people need to pay more taxes and defense spending needs to be cut, and if you say that you lose. So candidates HAVE to say stupid things.

Like this idea from Tim Pawlenty for cutting government spending:

“We can start by what I call the Google test.”

By which he means if you can Google a service yourself on the Internet, government doesn’t need to provide it. There’s is no point in fact-checking that — it’s too clever. So last night comedian Stephen Colbert simply embraced Pawlenty’s idea, took out a computer, and discovered you could completely eliminate our most expensive entitlement: MEDICARE:

“Seniors, if you’re feeling chest pain, go to WebMD, self diagnose your arrhythmia, search some message boards for the right pharmaceutical by friending cardiac patients on facebook, create a fake gmail account to buy black market Plavix from Canada.”

Now THAT’s how to get the truth out. Fact- checking a stupid idea is boring. But embracing the stupidity… that’s genius.

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