So, apparently CNN.com's Ruben Navarrette Jr. is trying out for a job at Town Hall or some similar bastion of right-wing pseudojournalism. It's the only explanation I can come up with to explain his latest column.
It's just poorly written from top to bottom, jumping between subjects and mixing metaphors so that keeping track of his train of thought becomes nearly impossible. But beyond an overall writing style reminiscent of a barely-passing high school sophomore, he also manages to throw out some nuggets of stunning ignorance.
As Palin herself pointed out in a recent CNN interview, imagine if she had been the one to imply that electing Obama would invite calamity. Biden does it, and the media shrug.
Yeah, imagine. Or don't bother, since trying to find video of Palin implying that Obama cavorts with terrorists is about as difficult as finding furniture in an Ikea showroom. And McCain himself, just the other day, said that foreign enemies would "test" Obama, but would not dare to test him. So, yeah, no real reason to stretch your imagination, is there? You can just look at the stories run by the news network you work for.
I also thought the Democratic Party was supposed to go to bat for the little guy, the everyday Joe the Plumber.
Tell that to Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio resident who got his 15 minutes -- and 40 lashes -- because he dared question Obama about his tax plan.
Because a plumber making more than $250,000 a year? Totally normal. Hell, all the other plumbers at the country club probably make fun of him for driving a standard Corvette instead of a custom Porche. It takes about 2 minutes of listening to Joe Wurzelbacher to figure out he's about as genuine as a e-mail penis enlargement offer. This is not a guy who was ever wavering on who to vote for in this election. He's just another selfish douchebag who makes more than I ever will but doesn't want to pay his fair share. Fulfilling the "American Dream"™, in the mind of people like ol' Joe, means one should be exempted from contributing back to the system that allowed them to succeed. Fuck Joe Wurzelbacher and fuck people like him who think that their success should mean everyone else pays to keep them afloat. I should want my tax policy determined by greedy, entitled assholes like Joe Wurzelbacher? Fuck that.
Obama supporters like to talk about how the Democratic presidential nominee has lived the American Dream. So why is it to so hard for them to conceive of a situation where someone dreams of earning more money a few years from now than they earn today. Has Barack Obama consumed all the social mobility this country has to offer, so there isn't any left for the rest of us?
There's nothing wrong with dreaming of earning more money, Ruben, you self-righteous ass. If money motivates you, by all means, set some goals and try to climb that ladder. Where I start having a problem is with the idea that earning more money should lessen a person's monetary obligations to the society that allowed him to succeed. Taxing the rich does not make the rich poor. It makes the rich slightly less rich. That's it. The concept that taxes dissuade financial success is ludicrous. Being wealthy offers privileges and opportunities unavailable to anyone else, whether they pay their share of taxes or not. If those privileges and opportunities are important to an individual, that individual will work toward them, whether they'll gain bonus tax advantages or not.
And, frankly, taxation is a zero-sum game. You can cut spending, but at the end of the day, there's a budget that has to be met. If the rich get tax breaks, one of two things happens. The vast majority of Americans pick up the slack, so that the middle class is paying for the excesses of the wealthy, or we borrow more money, driving up the national debt and letting our children pay for the excesses of the wealthy. I don't like those options. I don't begrudge the wealthy the excesses their success affords them. But I think they can pay for them on their own.
Seventy percent of the wealth in this country is owned by ten percent of the population. Think about that. So if we cut taxes for the top ten percent, as has been done by the current administration, we're losing revenue on seventy percent of the circulating wealth. This is not a system that punishes the rich. We are paying for the rich to become richer, and they're convincing us that they're doing us a favor. Anyone who earns more than $250,000 is in that top 10%. Pretending that they are middle-class is a lie that is meant to evoke sympathy from people who hope desperately that they may one day be part of that elite 10%. 90% of them never will, and their children will pay for their short-sightedness.
Still, we're told, this tempest in a Gucci bag has some Republicans worrying that shopping sprees at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue might undermine Palin's everywoman image. To think, just last month, the criticism was that Sarah the Moose Hunter wasn't sufficiently sophisticated or glamorous. Now her wardrobe signals the hockey mom is high-maintenance.
No, you stupid, stupid fuck. You don't get to misrepresent what happened a month ago to make your idiotic point. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, was concerned that Sarah Palin wasn't "sophisticated or glamorous" enough to be vice-president. You're making that up out of whole cloth because it's the only way to lend any crumb of credibility to your argument. The argument was that she was too UNINTELLIGENT and INEXPERIENCED to be vice-president, and nothing has happened to change that. Now, frankly, if the Republicans want to spend $150,000 for their expensive wind-up talking Barbie doll, that's up to them. But they shouldn't be surprised when people who earn less than that in a year start to question the party's priorities.
I know I haven't been blogging a lot lately, and there are many reasons for that. But mostly, it's that this election has turned into a steaming pile of horseshit, and I can't wait for it to be over. Whiny bullshit like this commentary just mirror the whiny bullshit coming out of the Republican party. The McCain campaign is calling Obama a terrorist, and then crying foul over Liberals pointing out that Joe Wurzelbacher is a lying, rich douchebag. There's no sense of perspective anymore. Barak Obama is a good candidate, John McCain is a crappy candidate who has built a campaign designed solely for the purpose of convincing people not to vote for Barak Obama, and yet conservatives want me to believe that the discrepancy in the message is the fault of the media. The problem with the media is the same problem that allows someone like Sarah Palin to run on a major party presidential ticket: a dangerous percentage of Americans respect ignorance more than intelligence. And it looks like Ruben Navarette Jr. just figured out he can make money by pandering to them.
