| Obama's tax plans and spending programs have emerged as the key point of difference between the campaigns. And the Democrat's comment to Joe that he saw his tax policy as a "way to spread the wealth around" underscores the motive behind his program: to redistribute income. Obama might as well have told Joe, "I want to take the hard earned money you make fixing pipes and give it to other people." If the Republican Party concentrates its fire on the tax issue and the redistributionist impulse behind Obama's plans, it can close the Democratic lead point by point, day by day, until the election. |
That is an amazingly unambiguous performance for a charlatan in Dr. Triangle's line, though thee will notice, Mr. Bones, that he does not actually promise victory to the militant extremist GOP:
Q. Will Wurzelbacherismus close the gap enough?
A. Who knows?
At any rate, tricky Dicky obliquely nails one weakness in the present M.O. of his Flyboy and his Party and his Ideology with "might as well have told." Wurzelbacherismus does indeed require to be verbally reformulated so as to ensure a wider sale.
Myself, I'd leap straight to "¡TAXATION IS THEFT!" But thee will understand why the Party of Grant and Hoover and Goldwater and Atwater will probably never care for that approach. If internal revenue were abolished altogether, how could the neocomrades afford to send money to really deservin’ citizens like Goldman and Sachs? Passin’ the hat at their Fœtus Cult rallies is not likely to be adequate. Not even half adequate.
Dr. Triangle manages to be a bit scatter-brained even as he deplores the scatter-brainèdness of J. Sidney and the hired handlers. For instance, can thee tell me, O Bones, what his openin’ sentence was supposed to mean?
| Ronald Reagan's most important contribution to the American political dialogue was his ability to move the tax issue from an economic-populist issue into a populist, blue-collar one. |
I had always thought "blue collar" was basically shorthand about economics, especially the Gospel According To Fred , but on that hypothesis St. Ronald’s alleged crownin’ glory would be tautology. If Dr. Triangle has concocted some elaborate malarkey about the non-economic aspects of "the tax issue," we might have a good laugh at it if he put it on public display. But if he churlishly keeps it in his pocket and won't pass it around for everybody to look at, who can stay interested for long? It is not as if one expects anything much from the direction of Outer Morristán, after all.
Now considering that we ourselves are quite as good Reagan Democrats as even Miss Piggy Noonan herself, sir, cast your mind back to 1980 and try to recall "the tax issue" as it then was. Or rather, try to remember what Governor Reagan’s issues were that caused him to defeat Jimmy Crater. I recall that the day after the election, the loser attributed his misfortune to "inflation and the hostages," wherein, as I recall, our common friend Miss Sappy [1] entirely concurred. "The tax issue" cannot have come in higher than third. Dr. Triangle is old enough to remember, so probably he is just twistifyin’ a little. As usual. The neo-crew that he has apostasized to want a Reagan imprimatur on whatever they do, evidently, and it is a bit pedantic to demand any accuracy from them in this regard. ("History is bunk!" "That was then, this is now!!" "Drill, baby, dril!!!")
On the whole, Samuel Josef, Freiherr von Wurzelbacher, is more interesting than Neocomrade Dr. Triangle, or at least far less stale. So let's talk about him instead. Him and the Fabulous Flyboy.
Would thee say, Mr. Bones, that M. le Baron is a profound student of the Tax Issue? Is he not more like an undergraduate MIT Dilbertarian, your typical burner of incense to Miss Rand of Petrograd and Mr. Nozick of Harvard? Somebody who read Atlas Shrugged before attaining the age of reason and swallowed the damn thing whole?
In brief, does not citizen Von Wurzelbacher take the view that taxation really IS theft? That fantasy is congenial to ideological adolescents in every age group, but not one Ronald Wilson Reagan need be saddled with. J. Sidney McCain can have it if he wants it, though pretty obviously he does not really want it, not himself personally. Bein’ surrounded by Big Management Party clowns and bozos of Dr. Triangle's general ilk, though, poor JSM is likely enough to want to touch Von Wurtzelbacher and Rand and Nozick with an eleven-foot pole, if he can find one. As with pretty well all the rest of J. Sidney's marks and dupes, Planet Dilbert would (will?) quickly be very, very sorry it ever had anythin’ to do with the Straight Arrow Express. Shafted will they be!
Thee and I are very fortunate, Mr. Bones, that we happen to find dumb mugwumpism intrinsically repugnant and may thus be entirely sure that, come what may, the new Commanderissimo of AEI and GOP and EiB (&c. &c.) is never goin’ta stab us in the back. It will be rather a pity if J. Sidney loses, after all: to watch all those Wingnut City shaftees grow aghast at what they have called down upon themselves! Dr. Triangle presumably would/will not be among the aghast, however, for he has surely never assumed that whatever snake oil and Peruna he may prescribe for his patients has any connection whatsoever with how they behave in office. "Use ‘Joe the Plumber’ and then ditch him" must be almost as self-evident to tricky Dicky as "2 + 2 = 4" itself. [2]
So, then, how shall J. Sidney McCain best deploy Baron von Wurzelbacher? One Big Party señorito analyzes (in part) on reasonably strict Tax Issue lines, as follows :
| First, [Von Wurzelbacher] is a symbol of their belief that Barack Obama is going to raise their taxes, regardless of what Obama says about hitting up only those taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year. They know Wurzelbacher doesn’t make that much, and they know they don’t make that much. And they’re not suspicious because they believe that someday they will make $250,000, and thus face higher taxes. No, they just don’t believe Obama right now. If he’s elected, they say, he’ll eventually come looking for taxpayers who make well below a quarter-million dollars, and that will include them. |
(Master York's ‘they’ is the GOP base and vile as assembled at a Virginia rally for JSM, Saturday 18 October 2008.)
This does not seem to be quite what Dr. Triangle prescribes. By the NRO neocomrade's account, wealth-spreading and psocialism as such scarcely come in, the marks and dupes are merely defendin’ their own wallets against all comers. We may have a bit of weasel-wordin’ here, though, since "No, they just don’t believe Obama right now" might really be more about ACORN and Dr. Ayers and the Rev. Mr. Wright than about the Tax Issue.
Be that as it may, the señorito's second point is ganz anders altogether, nothin’ at all like the wisdom of Dr. Triangle:
| The second reason Joe the Plumber resonates with the crowds is what his experience says about the media. Everybody here seems acutely aware of the once-over Wurzelbacher received from the press after his chance encounter with Obama was reported, first on Fox News, and then mentioned by McCain at last week’s presidential debate. Wurzelbacher found himself splashed across newspapers and cable shows, many of which reported that he didn’t have a plumber’s license, that he wasn’t a member of the plumbers’ union, that he had a lien against him for $1,182 in state taxes, and that he failed to comprehend what many commentators apparently felt was the indisputable fact that Barack Obama would lower his taxes, not raise them. As the people here in Woodbridge saw it, Joe was a guy who asked Barack Obama an inconvenient question — and for his troubles suddenly found himself under investigation by the media. |
Do the base and vile of the militant extremist Republican Party actually so resonate? I dunno, Mr. Bones, I really dunno. It is awfully easy to guess that Neocomrade B. York is mostly airin’ his own gripes against intellectually respectable journalism when he scribbles like that. At the same time, the resonation is so absurd that GOP marks and dupes could really be guilty of it. In the real world, of course, Von Wurzelbacher is goin’ta dine out on the day he met B. Husáyn Obáma for the rest of his life. To pretend to be sorry for him, or indignant on his behalf, is past my skill to make proper fun of.
The Fabulous Flyboy himself cannot possibly believe in or encourage that particular brain disease, though no doubt he considers that the attitude of the MSM has suddenly become fort mauvais of late. Any mugwump less dumb than J. Sidney is would have seen this alteration comin’, and, for that matter, non-mugwump neocomrades like R. Limbaugh actually did see it comin’. Still, the Witch Doctor of Democracy is in somewhat the same case as Señorito York: he may be worryin’ about a possible revival of the abominable Unfairness Doctrine in a fashion with which those who are not actual perpetrators of Wingnut City talk radio can never fully sympathize.
___
[1] Sapientia conventionalis, "She who must be obeyed"
[2] Lady Rodham-Clinton managed to swindle Dr. Triangle personally somehow, but I have never even begun to understand exactly what happened between them.
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