Why are our political debates so asinine?

I keep noticing that it is not just that our election discourse is infantile, it is really that our political discourse is infantile, but much of our business discourse as well. But the real question is why McConnell's strategy has the potential to be successful. How many people, when they first heard about spending $1M since Jesus was in diapers bothered to think about it more than nod their head and say "that's sounds like a lot to me"? Framed another way, why don't people think?


Latest from "Reader BW" via David Kurtz at TPM

TPM Reader BW has had it with Mitch McConnell's new gag line that if you spent $1 million every day since the day Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spent $1 trillion:

This may be maddening and juvenile but Democratic lawmakers have to knock these sound bytes down with their own.

Please, anyone:

"Senator McConnell is flaunting his economic ignorance because if you started the day Jesus was born and created TWENTY million dollars in wealth every day you would have the wealth created in the US economy each year. AND if you flushed TWO million dollars down the toilet every day since Jesus was born you would have the credit losses in the US economy just last year. AND if you flushed THREE million a day, you would have lost less than the money that this recession is projected to cost by the end of next year. We no longer measure boats by cubits and we should not design economic stimulus based on a Jesus' birthday, so will the Minority Leader please either engage in a serious talk about economic policy or step aside and let the adults handle it?"

I haven't checked BW's math, but I think we can safely assume that the numbers are out there to support a riff along these lines, if not this precise one.