BCT Editorial – 7/17/08

This page was last updated on July 21, 2008.

Identity politics; Editorial; Beaver County Times; July 17, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “Don’t hold candidates responsible for what their surrogates say.”

This editorial falls into the “How stupid do they think we are?” category. Before I get going, let’s look at Mr. Gramm’s entire comment. During an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Gramm said, “‘We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline’ despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said. ‘We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today. We have benefited greatly’ from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.” Now you know why the editorial cherry picked the “nation of whiners” and “mental” portions of the Gramm interview.

Now let’s get to the absurdity of the editorial. Are we really supposed to equate Mr. Gramm’s comments with those of Michelle Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Phleger, Wesley Clark, former Weathermen Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn (Ayers’ wife), et cetera?

This is at least the second time the Times has tried to pull this stunt. Just over a month ago “The right tone” also attempted false comparisons.

Since October 2004, at least nine Times editorials afforded credibility to “The Daily Show” (Jon Stewart), or its spin-off “The Colbert Report” (Stephen Colbert). Just last year “Unreal world” described Mr. Colbert as a “comedian/commentator/seer.” This editorial, however, referred to Mr. Colbert as a “pseudo-commentator/bully.” You have three guesses as to what caused the about face, and the first two don’t count.