BCT Editorial – 10/31/08

This page was last updated on November 1, 2008.

Brilliant; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 31, 2008.

Since October 2004, at least 13 Times editorials have cited “The Daily Show” and/or “The Colbert Report” as news sources. This is the third citation in just over two weeks. Previous I wrote I didn’t know if this is funny or sad. I concluded it’s sad.

This time, “The Colbert Report” was “brilliant” because it interviewed “a real socialist, Brian Hill,” in an effort to convince us Mr. “Obama was not a socialist, that he was a capitalist, and that Obama’s support of the $750 billion bailout and other measures showed that he was a proponent of capitalism.” Support of the bailout means no such thing. Socialists (though not all) liked the bill because it increased government influence in the financial system be buying into some of the major banks. Non-socialists who voted for the bill felt it was the only way to fix a problem largely caused by the socialist lending practices encouraged by the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I remain unconvinced it was the right approach.

By the way, the SP-USA candidate for President is not Brian Hill as claimed by the editorial. The SP-USA candidate is Brian Moore. It just gets sadder, doesn’t it?

In any case, trotting out “a real socialist,” communist, progressive, et cetera is a well-worn tactic to try and make a leftist candidate appear less leftist. It’s similar to claiming people with 95%+ Liberal Quotients from Americans for Democratic Actions aren’t really “liberals” but instead are “centrists,” “moderates,” et cetera. That Messrs. Obama and Moore do not agree on every issue doesn’t mean Mr. Obama doesn’t take socialist positions. I don’t agree with President Bush and John McCain – and they disagree with each other – on a number of issues. Does that mean we aren’t all Republicans?

Finally, we have what we always get with leftists – denial of who they are. Refer to a leftist as a liberal and they object. Refer to a leftist as a socialist and they object. Now leftists want us to believe a guy who adheres to just about every leftist principle in the book is a “capitalist.” Sure.