Although the list is long and undistinguished, PBS's Tavis Smiley said possibly one of the dumbest things he's ever said on television Wednesday.
In a discussion about class warfare and the politics of envy on Fox News's Hannity show, Smiley actually said with a straight face, "No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Look, you know, it was Barack Obama who said, “It's not red America, blue America, it's the United States of America.” I don't like this division this, this wedge, Tavis, that the president's using, and the 99 versus the 1 percent, the rich and the rest of us. Somehow it indicates that that's a bad thing that people are successful.
TAVIS SMILEY: Not at all. Mitt Romney’s wrong when he thinks that we are engaging in what he calls the politics of envy. No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has. They just want to move beyond a poverty of opportunity in this country to an opportunity to play on a level playing field.
Yeah. Sure. Nobody that's poor today would change places with Romney, his wife, or any of his kids.
Rrrriiiiight.
As for "a level playing field," that's code for taking from those that have and giving to those that don't. Anyone that subscribes to this indeed wants what Romney has.
Like so many of his ilk, Smiley can't make this simple, logical leap. But he wasn't finished:
Dangerously close to cementing a permanent American catastrophe? Hasn't it already happened?
Haven't eight decades of New Deal and Great Society policies created a permanent underclass living off the taxpayer that are likely to always be in that condition unless said policies are radically reformed?
Hasn't the failure of the so-called war on poverty proved you can't solve this problem by just giving people money and benefits they haven't earned?
The Left and their media minions such as Smiley love to point out the money that was supposedly wasted by former President Bush due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This pales in comparison to the money that was been spent on the so-called war on poverty over the decades.
Yet the liberal solution is always to throw more money at the problem regardless of the almost 80 years that has failed.
And the media continue to go along with it while calling those advocating reform heartless and cruel.
In reality, the cruelty is continuing with policies that have cemented this American catastrophe.
But the Left will never admit it.
