They’re they go again.
This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the latest liberal attack on the anti-tax pledge Grover Norquist, president for Americans for Tax Reform, seeks and usually wins from candidates.
This time the hit came from pundit Jonathan Alter of the Daily Beast while appearing last week on MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. It came in reaction to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie taking the ATR pledge while Jeb Bush earlier declined to do so:
Alter: “The pledge has helped to wreck the United States. It is about the worst kind of public policy that you can imagine for the reasons we have just heard. So I actually respect Jeb Bush for taking a position against it, especially since Bob Dole’s refusal to sign the pledge in New Hampshire in 1988 is how Jeb’s father was elected president of the United States. He won that primary after having lost in Iowa and went on to be the next president
“So this is in the core of the Republican Party. It’s terribly destructive. And I pray that Donald Trump is not such a wimp that he changes his mind and signs the pledge. And if he holds out against it and does fine anyway, and Chris Christie goes by the wayside, which he will, then maybe the Republican Party can start to move into a post-pledge environment.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Same old song from Alter who, for years when he wrote Newsweek’s ‘Conventional Wisdom Watch,’ regularly gave down arrows to anyone opposed to tax hikes. As government grows every year, he disparages anyone trying to hold the line on taxes, like Norquist, who is a hero to conservatives but a devil to media liberals.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
