In her most recent column, which ran in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Parker addressed the recent back-and-forth between Harry Reid ("The Kochs are unamerican") and the Koch brothers ("collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents"). That in itself isn't the problem; this is:
Reid suffers no remorse and fired back that he was delighted if people now knew who those un-Americans are. The more who despise the Kochs, the better. The Kochs aren’t just leaders of the Republican Party, as Democrats are proposing; they are the face of the Haves. To dislike the Kochs is to dislike the wealthy in general.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-democrats-try-to-make-the-koch-brothers-the-new-face-of-the-gop/2014/04/04/3aab84da-bc28-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
Now, to be fair, I like Kathleen Parker. I don't always agree with her viewpoints, but she's usually more reasonable and fair than many of the right-wing columnists that my paper runs (*cough* Krauthammer *cough*). In this case, however, I have to seriously take issue with the contention that Democrats "dislike the wealthy" because of Reid's spat with Charles Koch.
I understand what Parker is trying to say: that the Koch brothers have become the face of the wealthy. To a certain degree, she may have a point: to Democrats already upset with Supreme Court rulings that have allowed unlimited, unregulated money to flow freely into our political system, the Kochs have become a demonstration of everything that's wrong with politics in the year of our Lord 2014.
To say, however, that it's an indication that Democrats "dislike the wealthy" is absolute bullshit that should not go unchallenged!
After all, it's not like the Kochs are innocent lambs who are suddenly facing unfair criticisms from the Democratic establishment. For decades, these men have spent millions of dollars to discredit, malign and misrepresent politicians who don't toe the line and run on a platform that benefits billionaires like them. Through Koch-funded groups like "Americans For Prosperity" and others, we've seen numerous commercials attacking "Obamacare" with misleading ads purporting to tell the stories of "victims" whose health coverage has suffered since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
So when Charles Koch whines about opponents that engage in "character assassination", it's like the pot calling the skillet black. Apparently, the Kochs can dish it out, but they can't take it when their political opponents grow a spine and begin to fight back.
Is this an indication of Democrats like Harry Reid "disliking the wealthy", or simply having an issue with the wealthy having a disproportionate ability to influence the political system? Why is it that whenever issues concerning the wealthy come up, there is a tendency of some to immediately jump to accusations that disapproval of the existence of an uneven playing field (tilted towards the rich) is the same as "disliking" or "hating" or "being jealous of" the rich?
I don't necessarily agree with Reid's decision to label the Koch brothers as "unamerican". That's a strong accusation to level against anyone, and it brings to mind the paranoia-fueled McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. The Kochs are clearly not unamerican.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, however, they do have too much control over the political process as they pour billions of dollars of "speech" into the system, drowning out the "speech" of average Americans like me who don't have the means to buy a Congress that's favorable to their agenda. If the Kochs don't want politicians to say "mean" things about them publicly, perhaps they should not thrust themselves into the limelight.
No, Parker - Harry Reid does not "owe the Kochs an apology".
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