Tuesday, October 21, 2008 

Taxes Do Not Equal Socialism

The last post reminded me of something I saw yesterday on CNN.
Yesterday on Wolfie's show, they ran a report about the recent claims by the McCain crew that Obama is a socialist. Found nowhere in the report? Any mention of what socialism is or if Obama is one. Of course, after the report, which consisted mainly of interviews with people on the street, we were treated to two opposing operatives claiming over and over that Obama is/is not a socialist but no insight into why this factual claim is true or false.
If Donna Brazille cannot cogently and tersely explain, the way Colin Powell (a goddamn Republican, btw) did, that to describe a tax increase as a foray into socialism is to render the word meaningless, she shouldn't have a job and someone at the DNC needs to leave her at the dogtrack and offer up a better Dem talking head for CNN to eventually neuter. And can someone besides the goddamn Republican Colin Powell inform viewers that simply saying a sentence that kind of sounds like "redistribution of wealth" is not to advocate actual Marxian redistribution of wealth? Either all taxation is socialism or there is a difference. There is no in-between and someone needs to articulate that on a mainstream show. Either they assume it's obvious and everyone gets it (very untrue) or they don't understand themselves (entirely plausible).
Here's what Powell said which should be memorized by all liberal talking heads:
"And now I guess the message this week is that ... Mr. Obama is now a socialist because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money.... Taxes are necessary for the common good and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more and who should be paying less and for us to say that that makes you a socialist I think is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate. And I don't want my taxes raised, I don't want anybody else's taxes raised, but I also want to see our infrastructure fixed, I don't want to have a 12 trillion dollar national debt and I don't want to see an annual deficit that's over 500 billion dollars heading toward a trillion, so how do we deal with all of this?"
There's no reason to get more or less complicated than this.

10/21/2008 05:18:00 PM | |

 

"Small but Steady"

CNN chyron this afternoon: "Obama's Small But Steady Lead".
The sub-chyron (I guess you'd call it) read, "CNN Poll of Polls: Up by 9-Points". Seems to me that one or the other can be correct, but no both. Seems to me that 9 points in late October is not only not "small" but almost insurmountable. But, seems to me, of course I could be wrong so I waited to see what Wolf Blitzer had to say. Sure as shit, his intro to the report included this: "Nine points! That's the highest it's been since we've been doing these 'Poll of Polls'."
Obama 51, McCain 42, Unsure 7. The fact that Obama is polling at a majority is even more damning because even if all the undecideds eventually went for McCain he still could not win. Now I know this isn't set in stone, but I'm not making any claims as to the accuracy of the poll itself, only the Chyron.
I guess if I ever date a CNN producer, I should tell her I'm "small but steady".
Vintage CNN. All balance, all the time.

10/21/2008 04:49:00 PM | |