Peggy Noonan Joins Obamacare Distraction Chorus, Attacks Democrats For Discussing Income Inequality

[ashling]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/05/peggy-noonan-joins-obamacare-distraction-chorus/197430

Noonan responded to host Bob Schieffer's question about why Democrats were focusing on income inequality and increasing the minimum wage by claiming that they "need to change the subject" away from Obamacare:

NOONAN: [Obama] does not want to talk about Obamacare. It is widely assumed that in 2014 the bad news of Obamacare, the dislocations, the lost coverage, the price hikes, the premium hikes, et cetera, et cetera, that all of this will continue. It's not the website. The website is the old story. It is the program. It will unveil over the next two years and it's going to be problematic. The president does not want to talk about it. The Democrats do not want to talk about it. Therefore, income equality, minimum wage, et cetera, et cetera. They need to change the subject.

Noonan's claim echoes those of Fox News personalities, who have repeatedly characterized a wide swath of issues -- including immigration reform, international diplomacy, and judicial nominations -- tackled by the administration as attempts to change the subject from the health care law.

Contrary to Noonan's dismissal of the importance of it, economists have cited income inequality as a top issue facing the United States and have said that it has hindered a more robust economic recovery from the recession.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, an advocate for reducing income inequality, has proposed numerous possible solutions such as increased wages, bigger tax credits for low-income workers, and increased unionization rates. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote nearly a year ago that the lack of wealth in the middle class has hurt the consumer spending that drives economic growth, hindered individuals' investments in their future, contributed to a decline in tax receipts, and increased the frequency and severity of boom and bust cycles. He further explained why inequality is an urgent problem that requires a solution:

Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues -- as it did in a special feature in October -- that the magnitude and nature of the country's inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. And yet, after four decades of widening inequality and the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, we haven't done anything about it.

-----

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter and aide to President Ronald Reagan, was forced to backtrack and admit that she was wrong on Sunday after she called New York City Mayor a “former Sandinista.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/05/cbs-host-calls-out-peggy-noonan-for-labeling-de-blasio-a-former-sandinista/

Noonan said that the “funny thing” about income inequality was that everyone seemed to have just discovered that rich people were wealthy and poor people were impoverished.

“The argument is that they are getting more so,” Schieffer pointed out.

“Yes, and this administration used to brag about how well the stock market was going,” Noonan quipped. “But the answer so for to inequality is being presented so far — even in New York — brand new mayor, progressive, lefty, former Sandinista.”

“Former Sandinista!” the CBS host exclaimed. “Now, I didn’t know that part.”

“I beg your pardon,” Noonan replied. “That is not true. Former enthusiast for Sandinista-like political movement in Nicaragua.”

==================

She said that not expecting to get called out, but dollars to donuts she knew exactly what she was insinuating and would have loved to let that statement stand.

Someone should have shot back that she was an enthusiast for Fox-like political movement in the United States

. . . or should I say, bowel movement ??

[get the red out]

1. She's so self-important

Every word out of her mouth always sounds like she expects to be taken as a sage for the ages. She is too imperious to even read; I always hear her sanctimonious drone in my head.

[yellowcanine]

2. "It is widely assumed that ..... (Insert Republican Talking Point Here)"

Republicans have turned wishful thinking into an art form.

[Gothmog]

3. Why does anyone listen to this idiot

Noonan is really a dumb person and I find her to be annoying.