"Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad." Henry Kissinger
August 10, 2016
By: Linda Case Gibbons
If you're a politician, with a closet full of skeletons, and no accomplishments to speak of, say "Infrastructure." It always works.
You don't have to mean you're going to do anything about infrastructure, which involves fixing roads and bridges and filling in potholes. You just have to say it.
Spinning is in. Doing is out.
You can say, "Let's build bridges, not walls," but you don't have to mean it. Then when you build a big wall around your own house, or convention center, or your Vatican, you don't have to feel bad about it.
Who wouldn't understand you don't want the wrong sort of people to get near you, that you don't want to be murdered by an illegal immigrant the way Kate Steinle was.
And if guns get your dander up, if the Second Amendment seems old hat, just say, "We must abolish the Second Amendment!" No beating around the bush! Say, "I'm taking away your guns!"
So what if your own bodyguards are all "packing?" That's not the point! Anyone can see that! You're special! You're entitled to be safe!
Who wouldn't understand that you don't want to get killed, like Border Agent Brian Terry, murdered while defending the U.S. border, or be gunned down like NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, while eating their lunch, off duty, in their patrol car.
Anyone can see people like you shouldn't be put in danger like that. You're the ones who know that guns are bad, cops are bad and our borders should be compassionately open.
See, it all comes down to "Perception." Hitler got away with convincing "Aryan Germans" that blonde, blue-eyed was best. In fact, he was so good at it, no one ever noticed he was a dark-haired dude with brown eyes!
Now that's salesmanship! And it can work today. In fact, it does.
As a politician, you can tell everyone to hate One Percenters, even if you happen to be one of them! But if you don't bring it up, no one will notice you're filthy rich, too. And you can count on the press. They'll never tell.
And you know the politicians I mean.
There is the issue of the houses in Chappaqua and Washington, D.C., and Bernie's new $600,000 lakefront pad, purchased, curiously, right after he caved and endorsed Hillary Clinton.
And there is the issue of where all this money came from. But, heck, it was probably just one of those wise investments in cattle futures, the kind Hillary is good at.
No, it's best to keep saying, "Those Wall Streeters are greedy!" "Those billionaires won't pay their fair share of their ill-gotten gains!" That's the best path to political victory.
Of course, some candidates aren't a hundred percent sure the gains of the rich were ill-gotten, or even that they are not paying their fair share.
CNBC says they pay fifty percent.
But details, details! What's really important is these candidates are just like you and me. They know what the middle class and black Americans are going through.
Bernie only owns one suit, and Hillary said she was dead broke when she and Bill left the White House. If that doesn't show a kinship with us, the down-trodden, what would?
So go on. Say the words, "I feel your pain," like you are one of the poor middle class saps you are so much smarter than. You don't have to mean it, especially if you've been pain-free for decades!
You know what I mean.
The politician who hasn't driven herself anywhere for a couple of decades.
The politician who doesn't ever fly commercial. The taxpayers or her foundation slush fund pay the freight for that.
And you are the Wall Street/Big Bank Hater who delivers well-paid for speeches to the "Enemy," corporations and Wall Street, foreign entities, who then donate to your foundation or campaign.
So what if some people say that's wrong?
Look at Baltimore Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby. She 0 for 6 in prosecuting six cops in the Freddie Gray case. She announced she had a vendetta to get justice for Freddie, a "No No" for a prosecutor. But did she lose her job?
And now, since Mosby couldn't deliver, the Department of Justice is taking over, stepping in to retrain Baltimore cops, to teach them how not to do what they didn't do.
Some people would say that's wrong. But the Department of Justice always knows when a wrong has to be righted. Isn't that what they're there for?
They are specialists in what they do. And so is Bill Clinton.
When Bill waxed poetic during the DNC Convention, about "the girl he met in 1971," and then married, he was a specialist, on innocent, married love.
This week he's a specialist in protecting his woman, ripping into FBI Director James Comey, accusing him of "serving up the biggest load of bull I've ever heard." And he's heard a lot, mostly from himself and Hillary. So he knows of which he speaks.
Bill is hopping mad about Hillary's e-mail scandal. He thought he'd straightened that out with Loretta Lynch, on that plane, in Arizona.
Regardless of the details, who can really disagree with Bill? Over the years he has made himself a specialist in "Bull," and so far, he's done a good job.
But I still think that, if in a pinch, say "Infrastructure."
Hold the line, America.