Thursday, January 10, 2019

Leslie Marshall Says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Should be Praised, not Criticized





In an Op-ed in Fox News yesterday, nationally syndicated liberal radio show host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall tries to tell us that we should praise, not criticize, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).  Here are her remarks.  The responses in blue italics are mine.  ~CW



Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also now known as “AOC,” is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Normally, a person who is first at something is admired, revered, respected; but in the case of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, it’s been quite the opposite.

By Ms. Marshall’s logic we should admire the youngest serial killer and the youngest known rapist.  They were, after all, “first at something.”  In reality, Ocasio-Cortez did what all socialists do and she bought votes with other people’s money, so I am not impressed, nor do I “admire, revere or respect” her or the tiny fraction of New Yorkers who put her in congress.

She’s been attacked not just from the right and members of the GOP, but even from some in her own party. She’s charismatic (Adolf Hitler was “charismatic.”), favors very progressive policies (i.e. she’s a radical), and refers to herself as a Democratic Socialist (that’s the Left’s non-threatening term for “we’re going to rob you blind”).  Yet despite her accomplishments (Um, what exactly has she accomplished other than getting elected?), here’s what is being said about her. And keep in mind, she’s only been in office one week.

She’s dumb.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said that Ocasio-Cortez is a “29-year-old who doesn’t seem to know much about anything.” And that seems to be the opinion of many.

Maybe you should listen to those “many,” Leslie.  AOC is making radical – oops, I mean progressive – proposals which she purportedly has no idea how to finance.  I say “purportedly” because I think she knows very well how her plan will be funded, at least until the socialists run out of other people’s money.  The money will be stolen, via the government’s power to tax, from wealthy Americans (and the definition of who’s “wealthy” will change as the money gets tight).  It’s not exactly a secret.  We all know that taking away other people’s wealth and property by force is how socialism works.  AOC and other socialists just have to be careful about saying it out loud, lest it finally sink in with people that we’re talking about simple theft, albeit on a massive scale.

Is AOC a political scholar? No. In an interview on PBS’s “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover,” she admitted her own weakness on Middle East politics: “I am not the expert [laughing] at geopolitics on this issue.”

This is like saying, “General Custer wasn’t a perfect leader.  He even admitted to not shining his boots properly!”

Ms. Marshall not only understates the problem, she deliberately misses the bigger point.  AOC was elected, and is idolized by many on the Left, for her promises of socialistic bliss.  Apparently Ms. Marshall, who’s supposed to be politically informed, missed the infamous CNN interview in which AOC couldn’t – or wouldn’t – answer the “$40 trillion question” about how she plans to deliver this socialist utopia.  And of course no one ever asks the “charismatic” AOC the most important question of all:  What gives you the right to redistribute the wealth of the American people? 

I don’t know about the rest of you but I never signed up for this.

In my opinion, AOC is anything but dumb. She attended Boston University – not an easy school to get into. While working as a bartender, she decided to run for Congress and unseated the 10-term Democratic incumbent, Joe Crowley, who was not holding a vulnerable Congressional seat at that time. She won 57 percent of the vote. She saw what her district wanted and was lacking, and offered an alternative. And she won.

From a barmaid to a congresswoman? That’s no dummy.

She didn’t really earn her win, she just got lucky.

Ocasio-Cortez’s victory has been chalked up to a lot of factors, like “gentrification” and “changing demographics” in her district. In fact, she won because she gained the confidence of the majority of the voters with an old-fashioned tactic called hard work. This is a woman who pounded the pavement of New York’s 14th congressional district so much that she had holes in her shoes, literally. She admits that one reason she won was she worked harder than her opponent, and that’s true.

There is an extraordinary difference between book smarts and wisdom.  Just because someone can read and write and please the liberals who run Boston University doesn’t by any means guarantee that they are wise.  More importantly it doesn’t guarantee that they believe in the principles of the Constitution on which this nation is founded, and yet this is the one thing that all of our elected representatives should understand.  There are plenty of leftists who are clever.  There are none who are principled and who respect the individual’s right to what he or she has earned.

One of my favorite songs is by Don Henley, “How bad do you want it?” The refrain says, “How bad do you want it? Not bad enough.” Crowley didn’t want it bad enough, didn’t fight hard enough, didn’t work hard enough. AOC did. And this I know from personal experience. I was the youngest person to be syndicated on national radio back in 1992, and many thought I must have done something less than legitimate to get there. Trust me, I got there on nothing but hard work and merit.

So she worked hard.  Donald Trump works very hard too, by all accounts.  I don’t hear anyone on the Left singing his praises.

She’s an imposter.

AOC likes to call herself “Alex from the Bronx,” but her critics argue she’s an imposter because she grew up in Westchester County. Some say that makes her privileged. The fact is, she grew up in Yorktown, a very middle-class neighborhood, and currently lives in the Bronx.

Jim Hoft, a Gateway pundit, even entitled one of his pieces: “Exclusive: Yorktown Elitist and Bronx Hoaxer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Went by ‘Sandy’ Well into College at Boston U….”

Seriously? She’s not Alex from the Bronx because she was Sandy in college? I wonder if Flounder from “Animal House” used that nickname once he left college? And for the record, I was “Fletch” in college. Am I an imposter too?

The average person doesn’t refer to themselves as, “Mary from the bay area” or “John from the panhandle.”  AOC is making a statement when she calls herself “Alex from the Bronx,” so it’s fair for people to judge the fairness of the image that she’s intending to portray.   That certainly was the attitude adopted by the Left when ‘Joe the Plumber’ confronted Barack Obama.

Her clothes.

Despite the #MeToo movement, women still are constantly judged for our appearance, and AOC is no exception. The Washington Examiner posted to Twitter a photo it snuck of her in the halls of Congress. The caption read, “Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now. I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.”

If it weren’t for the way in which the Left viciously attacks Melania Trump for the way she dresses I’d say Ms. Marshall has a point, but meh, who cares.

Her facts.  (Her “facts?”  Don’t you mean her non-facts, or her absence of facts?)

AOC pointed out in a recent tweet that PolitiFact has fact-checked her the same number of times as White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

Sarah Sanders doesn’t get a vote in the Congress.  Sarah Sanders isn’t the newest star of the Democrat Party.   But not to worry, AOC.  Barack Obama misrepresented the facts all the time, and look how far he got.  

Her vote.

When she rose to vote for Nancy Pelosi for House speaker, some Republican members booed – treatment her Democratic colleagues did not receive. “Over 200 members voted for Nancy Pelosi today, yet the GOP only booed one: me,” Ocasio-Cortez later tweeted.

Oh please.  Being booed by the GOP is probably a badge of honor for a leftist like AOC.  In fact, she should feel honored.  They probably booed because they thought she might be the one Democrat who was sincere in her rejection of Pelosi.  

She danced!

There was almost more fuss, in my opinion, over a video that surfaced of AOC dancing in college than over the treatment of children being separated from their families at the border.

In the first place, Ms. Marshall’s assertion is false.  There was mass hysteria over family separations at the border.  The headlines went on for days.  Democrats and their cohorts in the leftwing media made certain of that.  The dancing fuss was just a blip.  But since she brought it up, let’s talk about those children.  Remind me, please, of how they came to be crossing the U.S. border illegally?  Leftist logic says that if you commit a crime (or your parents drag you along as they commit one), and there are consequences to that, the people who must impose the consequences are the bad guys, not the people who committed the crime.  This kind of childish reasoning is why leftists should never, ever be elected to positions of importance inside our government.

The bottom line is, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is someone who can be a role model for young girls everywhere. She had a goal, worked hard and achieved it. We should be applauding her accomplishments, not tearing her down and constantly criticizing her.

Hitler had a goal.  Hitler had achievements.  I’m not saying AOC is Hitler.  I’m saying that the morality of the goal matters, and there is nothing noble or moral about forced socialism, which is what AOC is promoting.  If I had a daughter the last person I would want her to emulate would be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  She is a fool and a threat to her fellow citizens whose rights she doesn’t respect and whose futures she wantonly jeopardizes.  She has the hubris to believe that she’s smarter and wiser than the Founders of this nation, so much so that she is unmoved by the realities of the man-made disaster playing out right now in Venezuela.  Leslie Marshall, in a fashion so tragically typical of the Left, ignores the substance and celebrates the fluff.  Her op-ed gives us insight into what’s wrong with the liberal mind.

~CW

You can leave a comment on this post at The Pesky Truth, where it is re-posted.  I am unable to respond to comments on Blogger.


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