Where’s the Beef?

By William L. Garvin

One of the iconic commercial characters in the mid-eighties was octogenarian Clara Peller.  In a parody of her competitor’s hamburgers, she searched through an oversized bun and issued the pugnacious challenge:  “Where’s the beef?”  Walter Mondale appropriated the popular catchphrase in his 1984 presidential campaign against Democrat challenger Gary Hart.  While Mondale won the Democrat nomination, he lost the presidential election (in a landslide!) to Ronald Reagan.  Clara’s tagline is equally applicable to today’s political world.

In May of this year, Stephanie Cutter was on a conference call with a man named Joe Soptic, a steelworker.  She is clearly heard thanking him for his tale of woe.  Later that month, Obama for America released a false narrative featuring Joe Soptic blaming Mitt Romney and Bain Capital for the closing of his steel plant. Romney was already running the Salt Lake Winter Olympics at the time but truth is irrelevant in politics.  Now Priorities USA, a Democrat Super-Pac, has released a new commercial featuring the same Joe Soptic (wearing the same sweater no less!) who accuses Romney of causing the death of his wife.  By innuendo, he accuses Romney of murder.

The truth comes out!  Soptic finally admitted that Bain Capital offered him a buyout when he lost his job and his wife actually died in 2006, five years AFTER the plant closed and seven years AFTER Romney left Bain Capital.  Furthermore, Business Insider reports that Mrs. Soptic had health insurance from her own employer.  When she was laid off from her company, then she lost her health insurance.  The entire ad was another lie.  Predictably, the president’s campaign blamed the Super-Pac and said they had no control or knowledge.  Plausible deniability is stretched beyond breaking when you know that the aforementioned Stephanie Cutter is the President’s Deputy Campaign Manager! 


In full fledged damage control, the President sent out Joe Biden to say that Romney and his newly named running mate, Paul Ryan, are “really decent guys.”  Of course, he did not condemn the lies in the ad.  But then, they kept Bill Maher’s money in spite of his misogynistic rants.  Biden then repeated the typical democrat talking points:  Republicans will destroy Social Security, Medicare, throw granny off the cliff, want dirty air and dirty water, and of course hate women.  History shows that none of those things have ever happened under a Republican administration but to presidential surrogates, both the truth and the Constitution are irrelevant.  It‘s a fact that $700 billion is being taken out of Medicare to fund Obamacare.  It is a fact that the “doctor fix” is not included in the costs of Obamacare.  It is a fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates the new taxes created by Obamacare will be $672 billion for the period 2013-2019 with the ten-year total upped to $1.221 trillion!  It is also a fact that the proposed taxes on “the rich” will run this bloated government for little more than a week!


Then there’s the myth that the “Ryan budget” destroys Social Security and Medicare, being perpetuated by Democrats and their media puppets.  This week, “60 Minutes” conveniently edited out Ryan’s comment pointing out that his mother is on Medicare in Florida.  Of course this and the fact that they are both married to women they love doesn’t mesh with the imaginary “war on women” that this administration has concocted.  Judging by the employment losses by women in this last two years, it’s this administration’s economic policies that are destroying women and their independence, not Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.  As previously noted but seldom discussed in the media, Obamacare takes $700 billion from Medicare.  Also getting scant play is that in the Ryan budget, no one currently on Medicare will be affected.  In fact, no one 55 or over will be affected.  Those younger will have a choice but once again, the pro-choice movement is anti-choice.


What’s more important is the bipartisan recognition that both Medicare and Social Security are going broke.  So where’s the Democrat plan to save Medicare?  Where’s the Democrat plan to save Social Security?  Where’s the Democrat plan to overhaul the tax code?  Which loopholes and exemptions will the Democrats close?  Where are the jobs?  You have four straight years of trillion dollar deficits.  Harry Reid’s Democrat Senate has defied the law and not even produced a budget for over 1200 days.  You’ve been in congressional power since 2007 and held the presidency since 2008.  Clara Peller was right:  “Where’s the beef?!”