In a surprise
move, Christian Schneider, the republican lapdog columnist for the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel has come out to declare that Paul Ryan, of the ‘inner city
culture’ fiasco, is the real victim of his latest verbal blunder.
In his Sunday, March 23 column, Schneider
sets about trying to dislodge Rep. Paul Ryan’s foot from his mouth, as Ryan has
demonstrated his inability to accomplish this feat on his own. Makes one
wonder: How is it that this Captain of Individualism can’t even talk his way out of a mess he made on his own? Apparently, this spokesman for
bootstrapism needs a helping hand.
Enter Christian Schneider, Conservative
fixer.
If you haven’t already heard about it,
here’s the statement that caused Ryan’s foot to become lodged in his mouth this time:
“We have got this tailspin of
culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just
generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the
culture of work.”
In his column, Schneider compares
that quote from Ryan to this quote from President Obama. See if you can pick
out the big difference.
“in troubled neighborhoods all
across this country – many of them heavily African-American – too few of our
citizens have role models to guide them, “ and that “we know young black men
are twice as likely as young white men to be ‘disconnected’ – not in school,
not working.”
Schneider, who earlier in the column
suggested that statements such as the one Ryan’s made are ‘dog whistles’ once only heard by a persons’ supporters,
but now are something your opponents
hear. Having said that, he then bemoans the notion that none of Obama’s
supporters heard his statement as dog whistle. (For Pete's sake, Christian, can you
at least try to follow your own
logic?)
Did anyone see the big difference
between the two statements?
In Obama’s, he didn’t try to
masquerade who he was talking about, which is what happens when someone’s being
forthright and is trying to be helpful. Ryan, on the other hand, for whatever
reason, felt he had to cloak his real meaning in code, which is what happens when someone’s attempting stealth.
The fact that yet another right-wing
Tea-Partying nut-job spouted off about other people not pulling their weight
(Ryan, you plan on giving back that Social Security money that put you through
school anytime soon?) isn’t what got people’s dander in an uproar.
No, it was his uber-lame attempt at
backpedaling that did that.
Ryan channels Nathan Thurm
in this pathetic effort turn the heat down:
"This isn’t a race based comment it’s a breakdown of families, it’s rural poverty in rural areas, and talking about where poverty exists—there are no jobs and we have a breakdown of the family. This has nothing to do with race."See? I meant rural! Only the most rabid bleeding heart liberal could contort and construe what Ryan actually said about rural communities into a sick, disgusting statement about inner city black folks. Geez, agenda much, Lefty?
He also talks about the various government programs designed to lift people out of poverty over the last 50 years, forgetting that during the last 30 or so years, the right has managed to shackle many of those programs.
He also thinks that there is one ultimate solution – because a real solution would have done the trick – there should be no more poverty. He’s obviously never heard of a guy named Markov.
Schneider closes his column with an admonishment that
if we keep pursuing the same policies, we’ll end up with the same results.
He may as well have been talking about the Trickle-Down
policies of the last 30 years.
