To set the scene: below is an annotated excerpt from the ‘independent’ video that is currently causing shortness of breath (and soon probably lightness of wallet) among the contingent of the Online Left who really and truly believe that their professional politician class is avoiding full-throated, Huey Long-style, Left-populist rants for no good reason.  Well, Elizabeth Warren, new-minted sacrificial lamb Democratic candidate for MA-SEN, is there to give ’em what they want!

What do they want?  To tax the poor!
When do they want it?  Right now… wait, what?

Yeah, there’s the problem there.  This interpretation (which I first saw from Lee Stranahan) of what Warren was trying to say takes into account rhe minor detail that making our current tax system more ‘fair’ will first require us to go out and tell the 45% of American households not paying income tax that they need to start paying income tax.  Elizabeth Warren’s too afraid to do that, of course – heck, she wouldn’t even show the elementary courage needed to support Obama’s dead-on-arrival jobs bill – so I did her a favor by putting up the video.  Because, really, it’s very responsible of her to take the position that taxes need to be raised – gathered – on people making less than fifty grand a year.  Pure political suicide, but responsible.

Of course, there are also alternative opinions about Warren’s meaning.  For example, Mark Hemingway thinks that this is a straw man argument, and that Warren is busily trying to class warfare her way out of the rhetorical trap that the Left has busily created for itself over the need for government.  Ramesh Ponnuru takes the argument to its ultimate extreme, and finds a mandate for permanent agricultural subsidies (the Monsanto megacorp is going to love that one).  Me?  …Well, I did do the (above) video, so I’m kind of with Stranahan; but I have to admit that the default option of Elizabeth Warren is dumber than a sackful of hammers has a certain ring to it.  If only because it’d mean that she has that special stupidity that’s only available to technically bright people who bubble themselves away from the real world because it’s just too damn scary for words.  I enjoy seeing that kind of stupidity in the opposition party: it tends to eventually self-destruct in an entertaining fashion.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Last two links were via somebody or other; had a browser crash, lost them.  Sorry.