Yo, hypocrites:
(That’s you, Bill Hobbs & crew.)
If you think it’s jolly good fun to bash a candidate’s wife -- and judging by your cavalcade of snide press releases on Michelle Obama, you do -- perhaps you should pick an issue a little less likely to bite your own candidate in the political backside.
From the latest TNGOP release:
Now, we don’t begrudge Mrs. Obama - a multimillionaire who lives in a 3-story, 6,400-square-foot $1.95 million mansion in Chicago’s wealthy Hyde Park enclave, complete with 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 4 fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar - $600 earrings if that’s what she wants to spend her money on.
Cute.
Of course, Cindy McCain keeps her husband in no less than eight gigantic houses -- so many that she occasionally forgets to pay taxes on some of them for a few years in a row. So maybe this isn’t the smartest line of attack against her husband’s opponent.
Now, I don’t begrudge the lady eight houses (although I do think she should probably follow the tax laws). Nor do I begrudge her charging “as much as $500,000 in a single month on one American Express card and $250,000 on another” since she was born into the means to do so. I do, however, begrudge her husband’s advocates any political high ground on the issue of personal expenses.
But the stupidest part of the press release is that they actually included the Michelle Obama quote they are ridiculing. Why is that stupid? Because it destroys the entire premise of the press release.
Here it is… the future First Lady, explaining why a one-time $600 stimulus check isn’t a long-term solution to economic hardships…
“The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”
First off, you really have to want to misconstrue the quote to assume she’s talking about spending the entire $600 on earrings. She doesn’t say, “All it buys is a pair of earrings” – which is want the TNGOP wants you to pretend she said. It’s a pretty transparent (and willful) misinterpretation.
Secondly, I didn’t even have to go to the original source to figure out how the TNGOP was taking her out of context; it was very clear right there in their own press release. Come on, guys, if you’re going to try to distort someone’s words and smear their character, you’re going to have to try harder than that. (Of course, if Hobbs were actually good at this sort of thing, he wouldn’t keep getting smacked around by Lamar! Alexander, Bob Corker, and all the national party bigwigs.)
Third, Michelle Obama is making a good point. Even from the GOP press release it’s clear that she is making a good point. It’s that whole give a “give a man a fish” thing. A new pair of earrings (or whatever) might make you feel good for a short time… but it doesn’t change your situation. When that stimulus check runs out, no matter what you spent it on, you’re still in the same crappy economy with run-away healthcare costs and skyrocketing gas prices and crashing house prices and layoffs, layoffs, layoffs.
Anyone else find it hilarious to hear Republicans pretend that the government handing out checks constitutes a solution to a problem? And then they criticize Michelle Obama for calling them on it! Thanks for pointing it out to me, TNGOP! Thanks for giving me a good laugh at your own expense!
So let’s sum up – the TNGOP’s attempted smear of Michelle Obama applies doubly to their own candidate and their press release is so transparent that anyone who reads it will actually come out agreeing with Michelle Obama anyway.
Good job.
- Calvin Rye
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