Hannity's Soldiers Go to War Against Biden's Working Families Task Force

AN ONGOING BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES
by Meg White

On Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama announced the formation of a new task force to help determine how to better serve the needs of working class families. Vice President-elect Joe Biden will head up the task force, the first example of a concrete role for him beyond advisor in the incoming Obama Administration. Of course, this announcement gave the right wing reason to lash out at working class people under the guise of politics.

It started with Sean Hannity's blog. Apparently, Hannity's soldiers don't think this is at all necessary.  One writes, "Talk about providing a solution in search of a problem."  Right.  There's no problem because there are no working class people left; we've spent the last eight years whittling away their jobs and homes! Another refers to it as comic relief, a joke that is lost on me.

But it's not just Hannity and friends.

RedState starts out talking about the working class task force, but having trouble finding anything to criticize there, goes on to making fun of Biden's grammar. Because perfect language will save our economy..?

Along the same lines, this blogger has to resort to low blows about Biden's appearance, because they can't criticize the task force itself without sounding like a partisan hack.

This blogger also mocks Biden personally, pretending that the vice president-elect called himself a "Working Families Czar," when it was actually a writer at CNN who used that descriptive.

Newsbusters went a different direction, going after the media for being pro-working class, which somehow makes them pro-Biden. But take a minute to read the supposedly biased quotes they pick out, and it's clear who's really biased.

Tellingly, WorldNetDaily has an article up about Labor Secretary to-be Hilda Solis having communist ties because people with socialist backgrounds are talking and writing about her nomination. It‘s only a matter of time before these same "Red scare" tactics are applied to Biden's task force.

But this guy just comes out and says it.  He wants to be (stay?) rich, and he can't do that without the existence of poor people.

"I want the opportunity to succeed as well.  You are not going to do that by taking more from us or from successful people and give it to those on the lower level," he writes. "I don't want an expanded middle class.  I want an expanded wealthy class because the more successful people become, the more people behind them become successful."

What Hannity's soldiers and others attempt to dress up as a political argument with their collective eye roll is truly an economic war that they're not ready to give up. You need look no further than the bank bailout to see that Henry Paulson has done everything he can for the richest one percent, while working class families really need a little advocacy in the executive branch.

Granted, progressives and liberals are also wary of the task force, but they're afraid that it won't do enough. In this long news cycle of an election year, it's important to remember that Obama won't be in office until January 20.

Furthermore, this task force has only just been announced. Just wait until Biden actually tries to do something. Those in the upper echelons of wealth and power in this country will do anything to stay on top, and sharing is not part of their game plan.

Progressives have to stay on their toes and call this kind of poorly veiled greed when they see it, not tear down ideas that might actually make a difference out of a misplaced cynicism built up after years of GOP rule. I'm not saying this one task force will fix the problems of the working class, but it sure beats showboating with Joe the Plumber.

AN ONGOING BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES