May 19^th

Mona Charen is very, very annoyed with President Obama today. Indeed she is so beside herself (I never understood that expression but it seems apt here) that she accuses him of everything from disrespecting his colleagues to abusing the poor.

Her tirade begins by citing the President’s tendency to refer to government officials, high and low, by their first names. Then she points out the one exception (she claims) is Iran’s Ali Khomeini who is always referred to as “supreme leader.” Mona claims Khomeini has “never been elected to anything.” Try to get your facts straight Mona; he was elected supreme leader by the “Council of Experts” a theological group and he had once been president of Iran. This man is a cleric and perhaps gets an honorific from the President, as I imagine Pope Francis does too. If you want “an unelected to anything leader” pick the late Shah of Iran whose SAVAK secret police terrorized Iranians for years. But then he was one of our boys and had no need to be elected to anything.

Then Mona criticizes the President for wanting to increase the tax on hedge fund managers. Many of these people have arranged to pay just a capital gains tax on their immense incomes and avoid the income tax rates the rest of us pay. So how much revenue would increasing the tax on these folks raise? Mona cites a CNBC pundit who claims it wouldn’t raise much because these managers would just figure out another way to avoid the tax. Are these folks buying into the American dream or what? They couldn’t do that if we had a flat tax of 50 percent on all income over 1 million dollars a year from whatever source.

Then Mona goes after the President for his remarks about the “…bifurcation of society not realizing how much he embarrasses himself.” This embarrassment is caused by the President attending Punahou School, a private school on a scholarship, starting when he was in the fifth grade. Surely he should have known when he was eleven that he would one day be embarrassing himself by going there while pointing out the bifurcation of society. His daughters now attend private school too; made necessary by easier secret service protection for them caused by threats on their lives. So Mona, anyone threaten the lives of your three children? Who’s embarrassed now?

Then Mona apparently believes the President’s defunding of DC’s Opportunity Scholarship Program disadvantages the poor. The program, which the right was quick to refund, gives government money for scholarships to private charter schools. That’s just fine with the right wing who would convert (monetize?) every public facility, from highways to national parks to the Library of Congress to private control. Many of these so called “not for profit” schools give the administration of the school over to for profit administrative companies and these folks clean up with taxpayer money. Mona might want to look at Options Charter School as an example; three million dollars diverted to private use.

Beyond that, every newly funded private school student is one less public school student and that reduces the money available for public school students. Mona points out that, “…Boehner personally saw to it that the program was revived. So who is judging whom when it comes to the poor?” she says.  And the poor kids left behind in DC’s festering public schools; what about them?  They aren’t even a blip on Mona’s right wing radar.