Hart: “He wants to give to certain of his lazier constituents the fruits of the labor of the more industrious. Controlling the 51 percent he gives to by taking from the other 49 percent is the tightrope he and David Axelrod are walking in hopes of winning again in 2012.”

This is Hart’s favorite line: Everyone on the receiving end of a government benefit is a lazy shiftless bum (and a Democrat) whereas everyone who works hard like he does is a Republican.

Speaking as a reporter/columnist/writer, there are plenty of poor people who work a lot harder than either me or Hart do.

I’ve worked retail and it’s way more exhausting than writing (back and legs mostly). I’ve known people who worked a lot harder: Jobs that kept them on their feet longer, involved lifting heavy work, put in hours and hours because their pay was so low they didn’t have a choice … The fact that some of them don’t make enough to afford health insurance hardly makes them “lazy.”

And for that matter, wouldn’t all Hart’s cronies in Goldman/Sachs be just as hooked up–if not more–to the government teat? Hart’s always condemned the government for the big bailout but he’s surprisingly careful not to point out that a large chunk of the financial industry is now in the 51 percent that leaches off the productive workers. In fairness, it would take a whole lot of courage to bite the hand that feeds him, so perhaps I shouldn’t blame him.

I get the impression from some of Hart’s Ayn Rand columns that he sees himself as one of those John Galts who could stop the world if they withdrew their amazing talents and creative energy. The fact is, we could do without Hart a lot easier than we could do without, say, garbagemen (note: I’m also more dispensible than garbagemen).

Next: “This president is on a torrid pace to make us forget how often Bush was misguided and how bad Carter could have been, had Reagan not beaten him in 1980. Someone needs to identify the next Reagan by 2011 — preferably a candidate who does not wander off down the Appalachian Trail or who can “see Russia from her house.””

Wow, funny how Hart thought she was so wonderful during the campaign, and gushed about how sad it was she wouldn’t be in the White House. Of course, it won’t hurt the Republicans to criticize her now, so why not (if she does run again, I’ll be curious to see if Hart’s tone changes back).

And why in the name of sanity would we need another Reagan? The president who:
•Left us with a record budget deficit.
•Gave us a runaway military budget including the Star Wars military defense boondoggle and a multimillion dollar military fraud case (orchestrated by one of his cabinet members).
•Who had more of his administration indicted than any president before or after?
•Who appointed an attorney general who claimed the Bill of Rights wasn’t important because innocent people are never suspected, arrested or charged.
•Who supported and armed Saddam Hussein, pushed to keep Ferdinand Marcos in office when his own country wanted him out (and voted him out) and backed South Africa’s apartheid government?
•Who hiked taxes on the poor and cut them on the rich?
Reagan did have a couple of stunning successes–his tax reforms simplified the tax code greatly (even if it promptly got recomplicated again) and he negotiated with Russia at a time many right-wingers were screaming about “appeasement” (the more things change …). Even so, the difference between Bush and Reagan (budget deficits, runaway military spending, support for authoritarian government, etc.) was a matter of degree.
So in that sense, we already found another Reagan–and look how that turned out.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.