Democrats: Learn to Read

Democrats: Learn to Read
Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The literacy rate in the United States is 99 percent. That means that only 1 percent of people in the United States above the age of 15 are incapable of reading and writing. Apparently, all of them are members of the Obama administration.

Attorney General Eric Holder admits that he has not read the Arizona immigration law, which requires law enforcement officers to check immigration status upon stopping people based on reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says she hasn't read the law, either. You can also lump State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley into that group.

That did not stop any of them from opining at length on the Arizona law; Holder called the law "a slippery slope" leading to racial profiling, saying he based that opinion on "television, talking to people who are on the review panel." Napolitano called the law "bad law enforcement law." Crowley defended a U.S. diplomat who actually apologized to China for the immigration law -- as though American states should apologize for enforcing their borders to a country that routinely excises and sells the internal organs of its political prisoners.

Democrats didn't bother reading the massive Obamacare law, either, before passing it. The official actuary of the Obama administration didn't even have time to do a cost analysis of the health care bill before the vote. In fact, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told Americans "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

To be fair, the health care bill was almost 2,500 pages long and clocked in at almost 400,000 words. (By contrast, the Old Testament contains about 80,000 Hebrew words, which means the Democrats' attempts to play God fail on both a practical and rhetorical level.) The Arizona law is 15 pages long and runs about 8,000 words. An ADHD-addled teenager could peruse it in an hour. It's been approximately one month since Arizona passed the law, and the Democrats still haven't read it.

Which means one of two things: either they prefer to remain ignorant so they don't have to honestly appraise the merits of the bill or they can't read. If it's the former, they're disingenuous liars. If it's the latter, they're ignorant boobs.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it's the latter.

With that in mind, I now offer these boobs a linguistic Wonderbra. Because they obviously can't read, I suggest that someone who can read -- Sasha and Malia? -- sit these Democrats down and read this to them out loud. Slowly.

Dear Democrats: Think of reading as a text-based thong-clad intern. Reading, like that thong-clad intern, can be fun, so long as you ensure that you stay on the page. Here are a few basic rules to help you achieve that purpose.

First, you must learn what words mean. The word "literally" means the plain, unvarnished truth. Yet you guys somehow use that word as though it means its precise opposite, "figuratively." During the 2008 election campaign, Joe Biden said that Obama would be able to "literally, literally ... change the direction of the world." This is untrue. The only Democrat with the ability to literally change the direction of the world is Michael Moore, who can do so using his gravitational pull. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one of Obama's former best buddies, misused the word in classic fashion this week, claiming that "When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" If only.

Second, once you know what words mean, take them literally when it comes to the law. This means that you should read laws as doing what they say they do, not what you wish they did. The Constitution does not say anything about a right to abortion because there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. The Arizona law explicitly bars racial profiling, which means that it does not allow racial profiling. Law is not poetry. It is law.

Third, read the laws before you pass them. This one isn't tough once you realize that it's important. All it takes is a quick call to Hooked on Phonics. Their number is 1-800-ABCDEFG. Sasha and Malia can dial it for you -- judging by your spending habits, you have as much trouble with numbers as with letters.

We elected you to do your job. That job entails thinking about policy prescriptions, then codifying those policy prescriptions in law. So far, it seems you are skipping both of these elements, and focusing instead on the perks of your office. If you refuse to read, we'll send you a piece of paper you can understand: a pink slip.
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Eric Holder Can't Read?
Brent Bozell
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Liberal reporters always think that the liberal politicians they're covering are the smartest people in the room. In fact, when they're opposing something, they're so smart that they don't have to read the policy they're discussing. They have a clairvoyant sense of how wrong it is.

Congressman Ted Poe of Texas exposed this liberal arrogance May 13 at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. He was questioning Attorney General Eric Holder on the "controversial" (to the media, that is) Arizona immigration law. He asked an elementary question, although to liberals, it was shocking in its insolence: "Have you read the Arizona law?"

Holder's response: "I have not had a chance. I grant that I have not read it."

An incredulous Poe shot back that it wasn't exactly a night's worth of reading: "It's 10 pages. It's a lot shorter than the health care bill, which was 2,000 pages long. I'll give you my copy of it, if you would like to have a copy."

How many times have we watched liberals ridicule those dim-witted conservatives who object to the latest "artistry" of Hollywood leftists or books churned out by Ivy League academic cranks without having watched or read the allegedly offensive product? But now that Holder is caught in the very same predicament, the lefties are church-silent. How can you make arrogant cracks about Dubya and Palin barely being able to read, but skip over this gaffe?

Holder's admission came almost three weeks after the legislation passed and after all the media's impending-fascism panic, replete with Katie Couric warning about how protesters were smearing refried-bean swastikas in Phoenix. Yet throughout this entire period, the attorney general of the United States could not be bothered to read what amounts to a long memo.

In fact, four days before this embarrassing episode, Holder sat for two network Sunday shows, with ABC's Jake Tapper and NBC's David Gregory, and neither asked if he'd printed out and read the Arizona law. But can you blame them? Do reporters ask Jeff Gordon before Daytona if he put gas in the tank?

Tapper did throw a fast pitch: "You've said we're a nation of cowards because we don't talk freely and openly about race. So in that spirit, let me give it a shot. Do you think the Arizona immigration law is racist?" Holder answered that he didn't believe Arizona was "racist in its motivation" -- but perhaps in the "slippery slope" of its enforcement. This is an easy conclusion to reach when you don't bother to study the issue or read the bill.

And the liberal media who are vehemently supportive of Holder's ideological persuasion are equally uninterested in Holder's laziness.

ABC, CBS and NBC all skipped Holder's admission, just like NPR and the "NewsHour" on PBS. The newspapers "of record" were AWOL -- The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times all passed, and so did the Associated Press. Time and Newsweek didn't find space -- even on their snarky "quotes of the week" pages.

It was hardly shocking that MSNBC offered no sign of coverage in the transcripts they throw into the Nexis database -- from Schultz to Matthews to Maddow to Olbermann. CNN almost completely ignored it as they repeatedly quoted Holder talking about his Times Square bomber investigation. There was one exception: John King checked the box by running the video clip on his show May 14.

If it weren't for Fox News, The Washington Times, talk radio and blogs, this embarrassing episode might have vanished into thin air. Once again, the so-called "prestige" media simply blacked out the news that they would dismiss as tiresome Republican talking points.

Wouldn't the Bush White House have loved "news" outlets that dismissed the partisan talking points of their opponents! It's so very easy to play the what-if-Team-Bush-did-it game. The liberal media would have found it much more plausible if this had happened in the last administration, and Rep. Poe had asked Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales if he had read the Arizona law.

If Gonzales had admitted he hadn't read it, the media would have made it page-one, top-of-newscast news, and don't dare tell me I'm wrong. You know Jon Stewart and "Saturday Night Live" would have mocked it repeatedly. Why? Because it fit their narrative of Gonzales as a less-than-talented Bush crony with no political skills.

Holder has clearly demonstrated an across-the-board lack of political skills, from this ham-handed Arizona talk to his fiasco of an attempt at a trial for 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Muhammad blocks from Ground Zero. But the liberal media simply walk away from these facts, just as they've walked away from anything that might be politically harmful to the man they elected president.
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Another article by Ben Shapiro can be found here...
Or the swedish grandmother article is here.