Saturday, October 4, 2008

Stretch of the Week

In her closing statement of this week's vice presidential debate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin delivered the typical right wing scare tactic by saying "We have to fight for our freedoms also, economic and our national security freedoms. It was [President] Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

Stopping just short of uttering the phrase "9/11", Palin (well, let's face it, her speechwriter) certainly attempted to continue aligning herself with the conservative members of the Republican Party. However, for non-lemminglike individuals with the ability to conduct even the smallest amount of research, her paraphrasing of Reagan's words definitely lacks any sort of punch. The reason for that? Reagan uttered his comments on a LP recording in 1961 while he was still performing as an actor. Titled "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine", the future President details the "dangerous threat" supposedly posed by Medicare and similar programs. Yes, you heard me right. The star of "Bedtime for Bonzo" provided his time for a recording which has absolutely nothing to do with what Palin was talking about it. The LP was supported by the American Medical Association so I guess Reagan's association with lobbying started pretty early.

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