Okay, this is just a little one but it strikes a nerve with me. Conservatives not understanding English is a pet peeve of mine. It also shows how AMG and conservatives, day-in and day-out, distort language and facts to build their own fantasy world wherein liberals are a bunch of extreme, mindless child-men.

Here, the Editor posts a thread entitled “Obama: Collecting Food Stamps Is A Job.” Wow, Obama said that getting food stamps is like a job?! That would piss me off! What a moron! Of course, Obama didn’t say that and the linked article doesn’t claim he did.

What the WSJ article says is that Obama’s projections of jobs saved:

“are based on macroeconomic models and try to include the number of jobs that exist indirectly as a result of people being hired to work on stimulus projects, or of people receiving food stamps or other aid funded by the stimulus program.”

Read the sentence again, Editor. See the word “indirectly?”  It means “not direct.” As in, some jobs exist because people get food stamps rather than getting food stamps equals employment. I interpret this to mean that people getting food stamps spend money supporting the jobs of the people who provide, transport, and distribute the food. If 7 million people without jobs spend less on food, that means some people up the food supply chain also lose their jobs. Food stamps soften the blow on the industry. Just like if the government bought everyone a hamster it would save jobs in the hamster procurement industry. Get it? It isn’t like it takes a Ph.D., just some common knowledge about the meaning of words and a brain not warped by intense hatred of all things Obama.

As always, there is something for reasonable people to disagree about here.  I’d acknowledge an argument that food stamps are less efficient than other sorts of aid conservatives might prefer.  I disagree with that particular assertion, but that isn’t nuts. It makes an effort. But the Editor goes straight for the throat of basic seventh-grade reading comprehension and doesn’t try to argue any point. He just wants you to believe that Obama is an idiot.  Let’s face it AMGers: he’s a lot fucking smarter than most of you.