Monday, January 3, 2011

Tears Of A Clown


Welcome to 2011, America!

Oh, hell no...

Here's an excerpt from Tom Lutz's December 15, 2010 Los Angeles Times piece on Bronzer's crocodile tears:

He does, I believe, worry about the children, and yet his entire political philosophy is devoted to limiting the federal government's ability to help them. He has voted against providing health insurance for children (many times), against student aid, against unemployment benefits, against equal pay, against food safety, against money for teachers, against raising the minimum wage, against tobacco education, mine safety, alternative energy, pollution control, whistle-blower protection, science and technology research. If he were making his decisions based on what government programs might help today's schoolchildren reach their dreams, like the Kennedy- and Johnson-era programs that helped him, his voting record would be very different. It is a deep enough contradiction to make him weep for the future.

"Making sure that these kids have a shot at the American dream, like I did, is important," he told Stahl through his tears. Yet he and his Republican colleagues are working hard to make sure that they can't; that the middle class he once aspired to becomes smaller rather than bigger. His college received federal grants and federal student aid while he was there, and it continues to do so, including from the stimulus bill he voted against.

The America that gave Boehner a shot at his dream had a minimum wage that, adjusted for inflation, topped $10 an hour. In 2006, he voted against letting the minimum rise from $5.15 to its current $7.25. It took Boehner seven years to finish college while working minimum-wage jobs; how long would it have taken if the minimum wage had purchased as little as it does today?

Boehner put himself through school, he said on election night, unsuccessfully trying to stem the flow of tears, "working every rotten job there was." He mopped floors, waited tables and tended bar. One could feel both his horror at once having done that sort of work and his exuberance at having left it behind to become the golfing, jet-setting, deeply tanned man weeping before the cameras.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Whoa partner!!! Now hold up just a minute. Boner's tears are the real deal my friend. He only sheds tears when discussing his OWN trials and tribulations. You won't see him squirting a few for anybody buddy else. No siree. Those would be suspect indeed but he's too much self pity to give a crap about anyone else.

TBLMISBT