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
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