Sharron Angle: Unemployment "doesn't benefit anyone."

Wow. Maybe more of what she said will put that into some context for us:

"The problem here, the problem here is what always happens with progressives. They want to put band-aids on problems rather than put real solutions to problems," said Angle. "People don't want to be unemployed. They want to have real, full-time and permanent jobs with a future. That's what they want.

"And we need to create that climate in Washington, D.C., that encourages businesses to create those full-time, permanent jobs with a future, and all [Rep.] Shelley Berkeley and Harry Reid want to do is put a band-aid on this by extending unemployment, which really doesn't benefit anyone. What happens is, of course, that your skills stagnate. You become demoralized yourself, you know, feeling that I can't ever get a job. And these are not the solutions to the problem. We have real solutions, but they won't look at the real solutions."

Okay. Now we can see where she's coming from: she's mean and wrong.

Being unemployed is demoralizing. Not finding a job sucks. Being turned down for jobs because of your age or your current skill-level suck very, very much. Yes, it would be ever so much better for people to get jobs--

Where are they coming from? The unemployed have no paycheck, and the clock is ticking.

You know what else is demoralizing? After you've cancelled the cable, pulled money out of your savings for some bills, started missing payments on others which you never wanted to do--getting that first thing switched off. The phone. The electric.

Getting a vehicle repo'd.

Not making rent and having that conversation with a landlord who doesn't want to hear it.

Swallowing your pride and hitting up a relative for a little loan.

Moving in with the folks. Or moving in with the kids. Moving into with the folks, with your kids in tow.

Explaining to your kid why they aren't really getting anything for their birthday this time around.

The look in someone's eyes when they aren't hiring you.

The look in your spouse's eyes when they are going over the checkbook again.

The look in your kids' eyes. All. the. time.

Maybe Sharron Angle can't comprehend that extending benefits to keep people from going over a cliff or walking off a ledge, and finding long-term solutions to the jobless problemm aren't mutually exclusive. Doing one isn't preventing the other from taking place. Even so, she has to understand that letting these people down fails the system, does more harm than good, hurts families, and is just plain rotten, right?

Or, you know, she could be a psychopath.