Quote of the Day: FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR...

Sarah Palin has become the poster child for hypocrisy. Her repeated branding of Obama as a socialist, a taxer, a big spender, a radical and so on were intended to do exactly what? Would that be to make people fearful of the charismatic mixed-race Obama do you suppose?

With that in mind, here is a Palin quote from a campaign stop in Florida:

“We’ll also keep our defining commitments to our senior citizens. Barack Obama goes around promising a new kind of politics, but then he comes here to Florida and he tries to exploit the fears and the worries about Social Security and Medicare to our retirees and that is the oldest and cheapest kind of politics there is.” Palin said.
--Fox News 'Embed', November 1, 2008

*****

The most characteristic oddity of this is that Palin, once again (or should I say 'as usual'?), has tipped truth on it's head. Indeed, it is actually John McCain who has several times said he wants to privatize social security in fact attacking the very basis of the system which is that younger people pay for the older retirees--just as it always has been, and as the system was designed.

Here is what McCain has said:

On the privatization of accounts, which you just mentioned, I would like to respond to that. I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. Now, that's a voluntary thing, it's for younger people, it would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary. So let's describe it for what it is. They pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken, that's why we can fix it. [Emphasis added.] --MotherJones.com, July 9, 2008

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed. --MotherJones.com, July 8, 2008

Asked about the apparent change in position in the interview, Sen. McCain said he hadn't made one. "I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts," he says. When reminded that his Web site says something different, he says he will change the Web site. (As of Sunday night, he hadn't.) "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it -- along the lines that President Bush proposed." --Wall Street Journal Online, March 3 2008

So is John, um, just confused again, or is he flipping like a pancake once more? You be the judge: