‘Linda McMahon, Laughing in the Face of History’
October 1, 2010This post has been removed.
October 1, 2010
I’ve needled a certain former Republican politician and current political columnist by calling him Kevin “Don’t Call Linda McMahon My Mouthpiece” Rennie.
But Rennie has a blog today that I, personally, don’t much disagree with. See “Whoops! Mrs. McMahon Learns Republicans in Connecticut Don’t Talk Minimum Wage,” http://www.dailyructions.com/whoops-mrs-mcmahon-learns-republicans-in-connecticut-dont-talk-minimum-wage/.
I do think there’s an element of Kabuki that prevents open discussion of many topics, with minimum wage being only one of them. Wasn’t it Michael Kinsley who defined a gaffe as “telling the truth by accident”?
However, I also think the McMahon candidacy is based more than most (as in, just about entirely) on theater — which makes her tripping over her lines a kind of just dessert. Rennie’s Hartford Courant colleague, Rick Green, was right in noting that what mattered here more than anything else was the process; the panic and backfilling by her handlers the second Linda went off-script.
If McMahon really wants to slay a sacred cow on behalf of some abstract libertarian principle, well then, go for it, O Small Businesswoman. Then we can have that discussion. I’m of the opinion that there’s no such thing as a neutral libertarian; that person always has an agenda, and McMahon’s own is very easy to isolate.
In sum, I would concede to Rennie that life can be unfair to politicians of all stripes, and that it was just a tiny bit unfair to Linda McMahon in this episode. But, heck, the rickety edifice that is her political career as a whole has been more than fair to her body of zero accomplishment, and she can take full ownership of the minimum wage issue.
After all, McMahon’s small business expertise is her calling card.
Even if she thinks World Wrestling Entertainment is a small business.
Even if she thinks talking about the employee health-care conundrum at McDonald’s is on point.
Irv Muchnick