The Bloom is Off the Rose – Finally!

By: Annoyed With Things

I consider myself a reasonably well informed citizen, you know, the kind of citizen our founding fathers expected people to be – literate, basically educated (I can read a newspaper and make change for a dollar without too much trouble), aware of some political things but not everything – mostly those things that affect me or the big things that affect the country.  In today’s age being an informed citizen almost invariably means that you have to use “the media” to get your news, and like most people, I skim a web site here and there, watch the local news as I grab my coffee and head out the door in the morning, maybe I listen to a news talk show in my car as I commute way too many hours a day. 

As a skimmer and bold headline guy, you can imagine my surprise when I finally started to see negative commentary in major media markets (Here and Here) directed at the President’s campaign message that private equity, a major mover in our economy, is bad; or at the President directly for being consistently condescending to women.  People are finally seeing him for the condescending socialist leaning empty suit that I think he was all along.  So how could I possibly be annoyed with this turn of events?  Well, let me tell you.

The Mayor of Newark, NJ is Cory Booker (D), in a truly open and honest moment spoke up in defense of private equity and nauseating attack ads that re-use well-trodden ground (Bain Capital, Jeremiah Wright) on both sides of the aisle.  And thus went off message from the big media Obama supporting game plan.  How do I know this?  Because he made the remarks on Meet the Press this past Sunday morning (here) and by late Sunday evening was backpedaling on You Tube (here).

Just for a moment, I thought we had a common sense politician in Mayor Booker, who by all accounts has been doing some good things in Newark.  If he only had the courage to stick to his guns and reaffirm what almost everyone in this country believes, attack ads serve no purpose but to harden the edges of what divides us.  I want someone to honestly tell me what they are going to do; what they are about…and then actually do those things and be about what they said they were about after the election.  I don’t care what the other guy did years ago; we have the fair and balanced media (wink, wink) to dig into all of that to ensure I can make an informed decision.  So Mayor Booker, you had me right up until you lost me.