Nancy Pelosi | 04/09/2009 8:50 am

Pelosi: GOP Defense Attacks Show 'Bankruptcy of Ideas' (Video)

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

MSNBC

Republicans this week claimed that President Obama’s defense plan, which included a four-percent budget increase, could be called a "cut," and Nancy Pelosi isn’t having it.

The Speaker of the House appeared on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and said that Republicans, particularly Senator James Inhofe, are simply desperate and their argument showed a "bankruptcy of ideas:"

I really do think it’s desperation to a certain extent that a senator would criticize the president while he, the senator, is on foreign soil, [it] appears to be he was at a military base and saying the president is gutting the military budget and that others here were criticizing the president when he was overseas on a foreign policy issue. The budget, that’s fair game, that’s domestic, and we can criticize at home on that. But resorting to levels of desperation that I think show the bankruptcy of their ideas: if these weapons systems are so great, they should be able to defend them on their merit.

Republicans aren’t the only ones claiming the new defense plan reduces spending on national security. MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer made the same mistake with former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Cohen was fast to correct her.

In addition to discussing defense cuts, Pelosi broke with President Obama on the issue of wiretapping. The Obama administration wants officials involved in wiretapping to be immunized from lawsuits, but Pelosi told Olbermann she intends to protect people’s civil liberties.

Watch the video of Pelosi on Countdown:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Watch the video of Cohen and Brewer, via Talking Point Memo:

13 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

And the Repubs recent "budget" proposal? Cut taxes. lololol Bankrupt doesn’t quite get it—brain dead is more like it.

By f p on 04/09/2009 9:04 am

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Pelosi is exactly right. The GOP in Congress is reduced to two tactics: attack, attack, attack and no, no, no.

By Rudi G. on 04/09/2009 9:10 am

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And cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. IN that order lol

By f p on 04/09/2009 9:13 am

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Yeah — and like that works! Look at the hole Bush got us in. That major tax cut on the wealthy during the 2001 Bush recession caused a phenomenon never seen before in our history: When the recovery kicked for the first time ever the middle class suffered a loss in wealth — because it was all sucked up to the Republican upper class, who then stashed it all overseas.

"Trickle down" indeed. Poppy Bush was right: It’s voodoo economics.

By Rudi G. on 04/09/2009 9:27 am

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Voodoo indeed Rudi—insanity was more like it. Shrub should have listened to Poppy. He actually might have learned something.

By f p on 04/09/2009 9:31 am

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Rudi,

Yes, and it’s quite evident on this site alone… not just attack with something viable, but just for contrariness.

By M J on 04/09/2009 9:30 am

Contrariness? I resemble that remark! But I actually prefer “devoid of Statist Group Think.”

By Mary Quite-Contrary on 04/09/2009 9:34 am

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Oh, Mary, so sorry for forgetting part of your name when I said “contrariness”. Didn’t mean to focus in on you, Honey. But hey, if you resemble (got the joke) that remark, so be it! Have a great Thursday and stay away from that group think of your group.

By Murphy Mac on 04/09/2009 9:50 am

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The wonderous part of all of this, is the Nancy Pelosi in the House (and Harry Reid, in the Senate) don’t “need” the Republican votes to do anything, pass any bill. They desparately “need” the Republican votes for poitical cover though…”See it was bi-partisan!” “The Republicans were on board, its not the Democrats fault!”) Everything from the Stimulus on down, has been passed by exclusive Democratic vote (they let a few southern bluedogs off the hook). Speaker Pelosi must be getting a triffle worried about 2012 to be out whining (or singing to the choir…it was Olberman afterall) this early. She doesn’t need one R vote. She has her majority.

By Mary Quite-Contrary on 04/09/2009 9:31 am

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Worried about what or for what in 2012? There’s really nothing the Republican Party has to offer the American people in any year soon—and most of the American people recognize this. The GOP needs to restructure themselves and fast—but they seem to be doing nothing but saying no, creating budgets with tired old ideas that made little or no sense when they were first thought, infighting amonst themselves as to who has the power if any, and becoming more racist entrenched with each passing day. They’re pathetic. Eisenhower and Goldwater if they were still alive would be in high dudgeon over the lunacy of a bankrupt "southern strategy’ the GOP still clings to and Reaganomics that never worked in the first place.

By f p on 04/09/2009 9:42 am