Annoying read of the day.

There are so many annoying aspects of this New Republic editorial, it's hard to know where to begin.

I guess the title is a logical place to start: "The Weird Persistence of John McCain." Because the piece has nothing to do with John McCain's tenacity, it should really be called "The Weird Persistence of the American People." What the editors actually seem to find "weird" is the fact that the American people haven't already unanimously elected Barack Obama to two terms as president -- and it's August already! Evidently, America is weird for relentlessly going through the motions of evaluating the respective merits of two candidates when it's already obvious Obama is the superior choice.

In declaring Obama the obvious choice, the New Republic relies entirely on economic issues. In other words, they ignore national security, future Supreme Court appointments, and the candidates' personal experience and qualifications as factors that may determine how Americans vote come November.

Obama should vanquish McCain on the economy, the editors opine, because "These are the type of painful times when voters invariably turn to Democrats." Oh, really? Tell that to Al Gore, who lost in 2000 as the nation went into a recession. Tell that to Jimmy Carter, who presided over some of the toughest and most uncertain economic times in recent U.S. history, and was promptly whipped by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.

The editors of The New Republic apparently believe Americans are automatons who are pre-programmed vote Democrat whenever economic hard times arise, regardless of the causes of the economic troubles or the proposed solutions thereto.

I made the mistake of following The New Republic's advice and visiting Obama's website to review his economic platform. Rather than finding "a slew of terrific policy proposals," I found a grab bag of intellectually bankrupt schemes all seemingly conceived around the idea of taking tax dollars from one group of people to confer benefits on another. That, and increasing the size of government at all levels.

Here's one such gem:
Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave: As president, Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.

In other words, Obama wants to appropriate tax revenues to create a federal bureaucracy to assist states in setting up state bureaucracies to force employers to give certain workers paid leaves of absences. Who benefits? Government, for one. The employees who get to draw a paycheck without actually working, for another. How does the economy benefit? Not in the least.
Like I said, annoying.