Everyone knows that winning the assignment of officially responding to a State of the Union speech can be a curse, not a blessing. But it depends on which party is responding.
Last year, the media ripped apart freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) as a ditz. PBS analyst Jonathan Capehart made a "Legally Blonde" joke: "After watching Sen. Britt, I am just sitting here thinking what in the Elle Woods was that?" Actress Scarlett Johansson mocked her on "Saturday Night Live" as "auditioning for the part of Scary Mom."
This year, the Democrats picked freshman Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). NPR political analyst Domenico Montanaro gushed it was the best official rebuttal since Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) in 2007. She's "so natural" and hits "common-sense notes"! "It can resonate"!
No one in the media will take Slotkin literally when she claims, "Michigan literally invented the Middle Class." It's music, not lyrics! And the Democrat journalists and "fact-checkers" are humming along.
Slotkin offered the typically overwrought class-war notes, but those are considered factual by liberals: "President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. He's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America. And to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life."
The usual socialist conspiracy theory.
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The primary GOP goal is to retain the Trump tax cuts -- which were a tax cut for all classes, even where they "invented" the middle class in Michigan. But Slotkin didn't stop there: "And one more thing: In order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement -- the Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits you worked your whole life to earn."
Did Donald Trump slash Social Security and Medicare in his first term? No, but that never stops the Democrats from throwing that old card, just like they can't stop throwing the race card.
Eliding Elissa spoke as if President Joe Biden never existed. Democracy's at risk, she claimed: "It's at risk when a president decides he can pick and choose what rules he wants to follow, when he ignores court orders or the Constitution itself, or when elected leaders stand idly by and just let it happen."
As if Biden never disregarded Congress and the courts, starting with "forgiving" federal student loans by the billions?
The senator continued: "But it's also at risk when the President pits Americans against each other, when he demonizes those who are different, and tells certain people they shouldn't be included."
Biden demonized the Republicans as "Jim Crow 2.0," that they "make Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle." Never mind the segregationist Democrats (like Biden's old Senate pals) who were Jim Crow 1.0.
Shameless Slotkin posed as a supporter of border control, like Biden's horrible record didn't exist: "As someone who spent my whole career protecting our homeland, every country deserves to know who and what is coming across its border. Period. Democrats and Republicans should all be for that."
Certain Democrats think the Slotkin Model could work: Pose her as some kind of bipartisan moderate, and who cares about how she votes? Her lifetime American Conservative Union score is 6% out of 100. That kind of low score is quite common among Democrats, but you can't call it "centrist."
The media elites make it easy when they celebrate Democrats, like the old joke they were "born on third base and thought they hit a triple." The umpires who call our political game know how to rig it.
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