The suburban-based Daily Herald... engaged in its usual task of helping elect Democrats... has just contrived a unique scandal to bar a conservative Republican from going to Congress. He is poor. He is having trouble making ends meet. The bank repossessed his condo.
Russell Lissau’s lede (aka “lead”) or beginning point in the story of March 3, says:
“A suburban congressional candidate who’s stressed the need for fiscal restraint lost a condominium to foreclosure last October, the same month he announced his bid for office, court records show.”
Hinted-at “moral” of the snidely written story by Lissau: By no means should someone who is facing this grueling experience which faces tens of millions in this recession be allowed to go to the U.S. House where matters of taxation and public spending are resolved.
Meaning that...
The House of Representatives... or “the people’s house” as Thomas Jefferson (who died in bankruptcy by the way)... described it and for which he wrote its first parliamentary rules…should not be tainted by anyone who has had trouble in making do in an economic downturn.
The Herald has found…presumably to its and its liberal editors’ presumed horror…that Joe Walsh the 8th district GOP nominee used to own a condo…which went into foreclosure and Walsh and wife and children lost it to the bank: get that!
In responding to the Herald, Walsh said “I am not a wealthy man.” He and his family lived the past few years on salary that averages $40,000 a year. Forty grand? In Washington D. C. 40 grand is what you pay a kid to do spare office work part-time on a computer (of course it’s paid by the taxpayers).
Who is this rascal wastrel Walsh, this-this shirker of fiscal restraint?
After graduating with a masters in public policy from the University of Chicago, Walsh did social work in the Chicago inner city, taught U.S. history in community colleges and ran a non-profit that rewarded the disadvantaged with private vouchers for education. After his marriage ended in divorce, Walsh got the condo. Four years later he remarried, needed a bigger place. With their family now of 5 kids, he got one and put the condo up for sale but that was 2008 at the beginning of the big downturn and no takers. So the bank has it. Big deal. And greatly different from the trials besetting the average family.
I know that when you read this you will agree with me that...
IN NO WAY SHOULD SOMEONE WHO HAS FACED THESE TROUBLES GO TO THE U.S. CONGRESS WHICH FAR EXCEEDS THE USUAL QUOTA OF MULTI-MILLIONAIRES EVEN TO BE FOUND IN THE LOCAL COUNTRY CLUBS!
Consider Lissau’s Daily Herald lede again:
“A suburban congressional candidate who’s stressed the need for fiscal restraint lost a condominium to foreclosure...”
That lede is so ridiculous I vouch it would be blue-penciled in any responsible city room... including that of The Chicago Reader where a copy editor as good as say Mike Miner (my favorite media columnist) would, I believe, shove it back to Lissau and say “please…try again. Remember our readers deserve better.” It implies Walsh lost his condo through lack of personal fiscal restraint.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Lissau doesn’t know—nor does he claim to…so why the dirty innuendo except for politics?.
And since he know, it’s an implied insult to readers who have shared Walsh’s problem to suggest lack of personal fiscal restraint caused the foreclosure when any objective study of the mortgage meltdown shows government’s responsibility in abandoning traditional lending standards and substitution of 100% loans as the Fed made banks flush with reserves to lend.
As a matter of fact, it can be argued that Walsh’s bitter personal experience with his condo makes him more highly qualified than most to Congress basis his own case history. Lincoln’s failure at storekeeping and Truman’s bankruptcy in a clothing store were not impediments—in fact they may have been advantageous since they learned from hard knocks what average folk must. [Emphasis in original.]
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Help Wanted, 435 Openings, Rich Applicants Only
Tom Roeser on the Daily Herald's hit piece on Joe Walsh:
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11 comments:
on a similar note you may be interested in the following article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/us-surge-rightwing-extremist-groups
Amusing. Three things jumped out at me:
The Tea Parties and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups...
A true statement which is wholly ignored in the rest of the article.
The Conservative Political Action Conference held this February was co-sponsored by groups like the John Birch Society, which believes President Eisenhower was a communist agent, and Oath Keepers, a patriot outfit formed last year that suggests, in thinly veiled language, that the government has secret plans to declare martial law and intern patriotic Americans in concentration camps," the SPLC said.
CPAC was also co-sponsored by the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual group.
In the presentation, the administration is portrayed as "the Evil Empire", and Obama as the Joker in Batman.
In sharp contrast to the frequent depictions of George W. Bush as Hitler, and the routine references to Dick Cheney as "Darth Vader."
For the last 50 years,with rare exception, at least half of America vocally hates the president. Or so it sometimes seems.
Re Walsh: The whole "fiscal irresponsibility" attack seems far fetched (as the author pointed out). I don't think it will resonate with voters. Or if it does at all it will mostly backfire for Walsh's benefit.
For the last 50 years,with rare exception, at least half of America vocally hates the president. Or so it sometimes seems.
Agreed, though I think George H.W. Bush stirred more of a lack of enthusiasm than vitriol.
However, one difference between then and now is the mass media coverage. I see far more right-wing conspiracy fodder on the news. During the GW Bush presidency the left-wing conspiracies were marginalized in the mass media. Maybe there is more right-wing conspiracy fodder now because Fox leans right and most of their prime programming is opinion-based. Or perhaps there was less left-wing conspiracy fodder during GW Bush tenure because that White House was much more adept at dealing with the media.
With some of the fear-mongering I've heard, I'm surprised there aren't more domestic terrorism episodes from far-far-right nut jobs.
I guess I'm a bit behind. I just read the article on the national Republican donation drive slide show.
http://images.politico.com/global/slideshow/100303_slide5.jpg
"Fear" and "Extreme negative feelings" is their strategy to drive donations. Though the vast majority of their audience is sane, I just think all of this negativity and fear-mongering as a media strategy is fodder for the right-right-wing nut jobs.
Here is the full story: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html
I agree, Paul, the contrast does seem quite sharp. Republican/right-wing propaganda of this sort seems that much more pernicious and in the mainstream.
Don't pretend Democrats don't do it too. When Alec Baldwin, in 1998, went on a national late night talk show and said that Henry Hyde and his family should be lynched over Hyde's part in the Clinton impeachment, that's just one of many, many examples of left-wing hate speech in the mainstream.
For more, see Michelle Malkin's book, Unhinged, or any of many other sources.
Paul,
First, if both parties point to the other party as the bar for conduct, we're in trouble.
Second, I agreed with you that vitriol comes on both sides. I don't see how that is pretending "Democrats don't do it too."
I said that it was my particular impression that the mass media is giving right-wing conspiracies more air time over the past year than they ever gave the left-wing conspiracies during the previous 8 years.
That is very different than claiming left-wing conspiracies don't exist. Far from the truth. I live in California. I pass by a fair share of far left-left wing nut jobs everyday.
By the way, I think Alec Baldwin's political opinions spouted on a late night talk show have as much media influence as Rosie O'donnel's poetry on her blog. In other words, next to none. Their political voices are marginalized in the media for good reason.
I said that it was my particular impression that the mass media is giving right-wing conspiracies more air time over the past year than they ever gave the left-wing conspiracies during the previous 8 years.
My apologies, I misunderstood. I certainly do believe that this is the case, despite the fact that the last three violent attacks, all in the last month, were carried out by lefties.
Yeah, the Pentagon guy was a total California grown far left-wing nut job. The IRS plane guy is harder to place. Distrust and contempt of the IRS can span the entire spectrum.
Although, I have a feeling the secret service has been quietly taking care of Obama death threats/plots from the far far-right-wing nut jobs. I keep reading this president has had a significant amount of death threats/plots against him compared to other presidents.
I think nut-jobness is an equal opportunity employer.
I think Obama is endangered more from the far-left-wing nut jobs who are dissatisfied with his on-the-job performance. The right merely wants him to stop and read the Constitution, then follow it.
Which clause of the constitution do you think he needs to reread?
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