Stumble it!Slander at Townhall
posted in Politics, Society by themaiden |I’m not a big John Edwards fan. In fact, I don’t much like Edwards at all. He’s flat, uninspiring, and, possibly, even undead (though I might have to write that last one up as a point in his favor). Still, posts like one I found at Townhall annoy me.
The post, to start, amounts to not much more than mudslinging, which is irritating coming from any point on the political landscape. But the really annoying things are 1) the way to author includes utter nonsense as ‘points’ and pretends these actually are points, and 2) the way the whole rant seems to based on the myth that Lib’rals think money is bad and evil and wicked and so rich liberals are hypocrits.
Let’s take a look shall we?
1) At 28,000 square feet and 100 acres, if there are two Americas, I’m sure John can pony up and house at least one of them.
2) If a Wal-Mart had wanted to clear-cut that much land in Chapel Hill, the unwashed, protesting, green masses on Franklin Street would still be screaming about it.
3) L.L. Cool J = Limousine Liberal Cool John
4) “The recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated ‘John’s Lounge.’”
John’s Lounge? Senator, I served with Jay-Z, I knew Jay-Z, Jay-Z was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jay-Z.
5) A recent New Republic article asked how Edwards had become the “poor man’s candidate,” touring the country’s labor unions and strike sites with comfort.
I’d guess he had them all over for squash, at the same time. Union guys love squash.
6) “He estimated that the tax value will exceed $6 million when the facility is completed.”
I wonder how many free health clinics that would have funded.
7) “…we can invest in some of the cleaner alternative sources of energy — wind, solar, biomass. There are a whole series of things that we need to do.” — John Edwards, in his announcement speech in New Orleans.
Point 3) is silly, and juvenile.
Half of point 4)– the Jay-Z half– is asinine. The point is what? That the author knows Jay-Z? Wow!
Points 1), the first half of 4), and points 5), and 6), are all based on the weird idea that Lib’rals hate wealth. We’ll come back to that.
Point 2) is making a lot out of nothing. What Edwards cleared is small relative to the size of his estate, and it is small relative to the forests around the clearing. I’d be thrilled if everyone stuck to those proportions of forest vs. cleared land. We’d have more wood than we’d have things to do with it.
As for point 7), Edwards is right. We need to invest in cleaner power. We need to invest because right now the technology is expensive and inefficient.
And the myth?
Listen, I got no problem with the guy being rich and spending his money how he wishes, but it is supremely obnoxious that just about every liberal politican lives like the top 1 percent they’ve been denigrating for the past six years.
Denigrating the wealthy? Really? I don’t recall hearing anything about that. I’ve heard complaints about corruption. I’ve heard complaints about unfair business practices. But bitching about the wealthy? Hmmm… missed that. I think I missed it because it is more of a smoke screen than a reality. It is a fantasy created to introduce charges of ’socialism’, to launch smears about hypocrisy, and to invoke vague ideas of the american dream in order to suggest that the Lib’rals don’t support it.
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