Michael Smerconish Really Needs to Buy a Brain
I honestly don’t understand how Michael Smerconish got through law school, because his thinking is so muddled and backwards, you get the idea he’d get confused reading “Tootle the Train Who Went Off the Tracks”.
In today’s column in the Daily News, Michael wonders why the Democratic candidates don’t visit Hazleton PA or Geno’s Steaks, both known for their hostility to immigrants (I’d say “illegal immigrants” but that’s true only for Hazleton: Joey doesn’t care for anyone who doesn’t speak English, whether they’re living in the US legally or not).
Smerconish thinks they’re scared to deal with the issue:
Securing the border and dealing rationally with the illegals already here would seem like a logical place to start heading off an eventual breakdown of America’s infrastructure - and budget. It’s wrong - and counterproductive - to immediately slap the xenophobe label on anybody acting out of concern for the country’s infrastructure and pocketbook.
Yet the individuals who want to assume a leadership role in solving this problem refuse to visit two places that have come to symbolize the debate.
That’s not the kind of leadership Americans - especially those among us who came here legally - want or deserve
What Michael doesn’t get is that these “two places that have come to symbolize the debate” actually symbolize what happens when the debate winds up in the gutter. Joey Vento is known as a lightning rod for controversy, and he is not well-liked at all in South Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Hazleton literally drove out an entire segment of its population and got smacked down by the courts. It was an ugly scene.
Considering that Latinos are the most rapidly growing segment of the US population, and considering how poorly anti-immigrant rhetoric served the Republican Party (to which Smerconish belongs, IIRC), why would ANY politician visit Joey Vento or Hazleton? It was Pete Wilson’s immigrant-bashing that lost him California, and it’s the reason so many Latinos are flocking to the Democratic Party.
I don’t think either Obama or Clinton are scared to address the issue: after all, Obama’s campaign slogan is just as popular in Spanish as it is in English. Si, Se Puede! I think they don’t want to appear to endorse a person or municipality that is widely perceived to be racist by an immense segment of the Democratic Party.
If Smerconish doesn’t realize this (and I am certain he does), his head must be filled with the same cheap chopped beef that Joey uses to make his naaaasty as steaks (Pat’s is so much better, and Steve’s Prince of Steaks beats ‘em both).
3 Responses to “Michael Smerconish Really Needs to Buy a Brain”
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April 11th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
If I had half a brain, I could have been a rich media person like Waste of Newsprint, with columns and radio shows and famous guests.
Sadly, I have at least three-quarters of brain (allowing for some self-induced deterioration during the sixties and seventies), so I’m not qualified to be a right-winger.
At least, as a subscriber to the Inky, I only have to ignore his fulminations once a week on Sundays.
Personally, I prefer the steaks at the Greeks.
All joking aside, don’t these people have any knowledge of history–oh, never mind.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:41 am
It was actually term limits that lost Pete Wilson California, unless you’re talking about something else than his being Governor.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I should have phrased that better: I meant more along the lines of the immigrant bashing lost California for the republicans. And yes, I know that Ah-nuld is the governor, but he’s not your typical GOP gov. he’s had to make a lot of deals with the democrats to get anything accomplished (especially after that special initiative or whatever failed so miserably).