Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Friday amazingly asked, "Since when does Scott Walker represent 'the people'?"
Such happened during a heated discussion on PBS's "The McLaughlin Group" about the goings-on in Wisconsin (video follows with transcript and commentary):
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC: You've got to stop the, they call it collective bargaining. It is collusive bargaining. What you've got is a union puts enormous amounts of money in, they get their buddy in the governor’s chair, then they get together, they cut a deal, give them a sweetheart contract and give it to the taxpayers. What this Governor Walker is saying, “Those days are over. We've got somebody representing the people now, and this is going to be an adversary proceeding between you folks and us.”
JONATHAN CAPEHART, WASHINGTON POST: None of these deals are over unless you’re police or firefighters.
BUCHANAN AND MONICA CROWLEY TOGETHER: He got elected!
CLIFT: …the money interests that helped him get elected including…
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, HOST: Let her finish.
CLIFT: …including lots of money from the Koch brothers.
Yes, that whopping $43,000 that Walker got from the Kochs, which Clift and her ilk conveniently ignore represented a small fraction of the millions he raised last year.
Maybe someone should have told Eleanor that Walker won in 2010 by roughly the same margin Barack Obama did in 2008, as she certainly thinks the current White House resident represents "the people".
More importantly, as is clearly evident in Clift’s protestations, Democrats elected with union money represent the people. Republicans supported by individuals don’t.
As I’ve said for years, it takes a lot of rationalizations to be a liberal these days.
