Chutzpah or Mad Genius?

This courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

As the economy slowly improves, the GOP’s effort to recalibrate its message for the 2012 elections continued Sunday as rising star and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels took to arguing that the recovery is too slow and the economy remains “pathetically weak.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves: this is the worst recovery ever from a serious recession, and history says the deeper the down, the sharper the up,” Daniels said on CNN’s State of the Union. “It should have been a very vigorous one. Hasn’t been.”

This is coming from the man who was President George W. Bush's Budget Director from 2001 to 2003. His presided over turning a $236 billion surplus to a $400 billion deficit. He predicted the Iraq War would cost $50 to $60 billion (It is approaching $1 trillion).

But this shouldn't be a surprise since Governor Mitch Daniels is the former CEO of Eli Lilly and a self-described propagandist.

“It is another sign of the importance P.R. tactics play in American politics,” Nyhan wrote. “The OMB director — once a budget expert — is now an operative chosen for his political skills, particularly his ability to sell the administration’s economic proposals in the media.

“In August [2001], Daniels admitted as much, telling the Wall Street Journal that ‘[t]o the extent I bring anything … to this job, maybe it’s an ability to think about how a product, whether it’s Prozac or a president’s proposal, is marketed.’ Predictably, he has displayed a disturbing tendency to make dishonest claims for political advantage on federal budget issues.”

But maybe Mitch Daniels is really a genius because if I hear much more of his asinine critiques of the President I think I, along with any sane thinking American, will probably need to obtain a prescription for Prozac. His party is looking like it is going to go down in November 2012, at least in the interim his Eli Lilly stock may go up.