Idiots here, there and everywhere.
From the “Idiots here” category we venture east across 124th street into deepest Milwaukee to observe some idiots in their natural habitat. The state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, Hobbes famously observed. In Milwaukee, stupid also applies, as politicians gathered to take advantage of the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy to promote their anti-gun agenda. Unless the ribbons handed out were made of Kevlar, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, State Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) and State Rep. Leon Young (D-Milwaukee) should find something a little more productive to do. But I bet they felt great after their little rally, like they really accomplished something.
Further east to the tragically hip and trendy Milwaukee East Side where organic produce is not only eaten but often smoked, some students of UW-Milwaukee are squabbling over perks and pay and how they’ll be divvied up next year at their fellow students’ expense. Rather than just tell them to go play nicely in the sandbox, newly-elected Milwaukee Alderman Nik Kovac is wading into the fray. We suggest they settle the whole dispute over a kegger at Nic’s house since he apparently has plenty of time to plan a party. While the rest of the city debates what to do about more bullets flying than in a John Woo movie, he’s worrying about which college kid gets to play "grown-up."
From here to there to Washington, where Congressman John Murtha demonstrates that when it comes to idiocy, he’s “special.” Murtha accused Senator John McCain of being too old to be president. McCain is 71. Murtha is 75.
But the clear winner of the Idiot Politician of the Week award goes to Senator Barack Obama, who in the space of one week made himself the Republican choice for the Democratic presidential nominee. It was a cumulative idiocy that made him number one on the Idiot pop charts this week.
There was the flag pin controversy where he completely denied ever saying he wouldn’t wear a flag pin, even though he made a point of saying so publicly. Even Michael Dukakis wore a flag pin and had the good sense not to lie about the whole “Pledge of Allegiance” controversy.
Then Obama compared former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers to US Senator Tom Coburn. When that wasn’t good enough, Obama’s campaign later complained that the unrepentant Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were really mainstream Chicagoans. You know, your typical Chicago Bears fans that wanted to “off the pigs,” praise Ho Chi Minh, cause riots and blow up some buildings. Really, they’re very typical Midwestern stock, just like the kind that are so bitter and resentful that they cling to their guns and their religion rather than look for help from Washington DC. Typical white people that we should all like and respect.
Then they complained, can we please move onto some “real issues” now? These questions are hard. We don’t want to play this game, and we don’t like ABC anymore. As Jim Geraghty at National Review Online put it so well,
I thought about the contrast with McCain. The guy does town hall meetings everywhere he goes. He has reporters on the bus with him all the time. He does conference calls with bloggers.
Does he ever grumble about some questions? Oh, once in a while we'll see McCain get a bit curt with a New York Times reporter on his plane. I remember him getting surprisingly defensive in response to a question about Israel on one of those blogger calls, and I'm sure we all remember the "thanks for the question, you little jerk. You're drafted!" (which everyone at the event understood as a joke, but was easy to take out of context). But all in all, McCain's off-key answers have been pretty small potatoes. When the New York Times did that inane front-page story insinuating, but never quite coming out and accusing him of having an affair with a lobbyist, he took every question until no one had any left.
Meanwhile, Obama gets a couple questions on unpleasant topics — do you understand why your San Francisco comment bothered some Pennsylvanians? Why did you ask Jeremiah Wright to not play a role in your campaign kickoff? Why don't you wear a flag pin? Can you explain your relationship with William Ayers? — and his supporters go apoplectic, some even screaming Obama should retaliate against ABC as President. And his campaign whines that it's "gotcha politics and distractions."
Hey, welcome to the big leagues, rookie. You're gonna get some questions you're not going to like. Not everybody gets to have their main opponent's bid implode when their divorce records are unsealed and compete against Alan Keyes in a general election.
Seriously, if Barack Obama can't handle questions like this from Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous, maybe the portrait of the cracking-under-pressure whiner depicted in the Saturday Night Live sketch isn't as wild an exaggeration as we thought.
Senator Barack Obama, that wasn’t an earthquake in Illinois this morning; that was your reputation imploding. But that’s what happens when you’re the Idiot Politician of the Week.
