Promoted by Jeff
You knew someone was going to find it. The folks over at Mere Rhetoric have:
Now, I was no fan of President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security (mostly because there was no “opt-out entirely” provision). However, while liberals claim that Joe Wilson’s shout during Tuesday’s speech was “unprecedented” and “racist,” we can see the Democrats were just as capable of such behavior.
And they didn’t apologize for their outbursts afterward.
Marty Peretz of the New Republic is usually a thoughtful liberal. I enjoy the New Republic. That’s why I was rather stunned by this article.
Some parents don’t like the idea of the President beeming his image into every school in the country on Tuesday. I think a lot of people have gotten carried away with criticizing the president on this, but I’ll admit that I dislike it, too. I dislike it not because the President’s speech is too political, but because it is not political. As I note here, the President really has nothing to say about government policy. Here’s the speech in a nutshell: “Welcome back to school. Stay in school, work hard.”
My kids don’t need to hear that from the President. This is a President who once again shows that he has no idea of the proper role of government. If the President wants to talk about governmental affairs, great. I’d love for him to stop by our school to do so. That would be a great experience for the kids. But I do not want the President trying to raise my children. When people ask, “how can you object to the President urging kids to stay in school,” I ask them what they’d think if I stopped by their house one night, uninvited, to tell their kids how to behave.
But Marty Peretz takes the cake. You know what Peretz thinks? He writes, ”it is almost disloyal to refuse any children the right to hear him. Disloyal and nutty.” Well gee, Martin, thanks for the “almost,” at least on the first try.
Where’s Hillary when you need her?
It’s been tough in Alaska for Gov. Sarah Palin the past few days. She’s been embroiled in a tug of war with the legislature over a replacement to fill the unexpired term of a state Senator who resigned to go to work for the Obama administration. The lawmakers appear certain to restore millions of dollars of the federal porkulus funds she had turned down, and they rejected her nominee for Alaska attorney general just yesterday. The legislature even voted down her selection for a seat on the state’s Board of Fisheries by a vote of 42 to 16.
That’s just some of the fallout the governor has had to deal with from her unforgivable sin of accepting her party’s nomination for the vice presidency and campaigning on behalf of Obama’s Republican opponent in the presidential race. Old bipartisan alliances between Sarah Palin and the Democrats in her legislature have been dissolved. Longstanding tensions between her and some elements in her own party in Alaska remain.
Meanwhile, the media and her other political opponents have tried to make much hay over her family and would-be family matters, playing up the recent television appearances by her daughter’s former fiance, his mother’s arrest on drug charges and her sister-in-law’s arrest for breaking into a house that wasn’t hers. The rats have been quiet as a mouse, however, about the president’s brother-in-law and his troubles with British authorities stemming from his arrest for sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl there. Some crimes are more heinous than others. Better for your media image to be a sexual predator named Obama than a cat burglar named Palin.
