A Manifest Distortion

Recently, Michelle Malkin - who now apparently carries the label "Whore For The Far Right" - decided that she would weigh-in on Obama's proposed stimulus plan. Not content with approaching this from a perspective that just might be beneficial to the national discussion ( oh, wait, almost forgot who I was talking about ) she goes full tilt and insists that Robert Reich has dealt the dreaded RACE CARD ( OOOoooooh ) by insisting that this plan be beneficial to ALL that need it, not just white people.



Wow.

From the jump, Cavuto is setting this up as "minorities only".

The party of "context" attacks again.

And Malkin wasn't the only one. Hannity and Limbaugh had their own man-on-man-on-racism-disguised-as-socio-political-discourse too.

So, Reich responded to the nonsense:

In a time like this, when tempers are riding high and many Americans are close to panic about their jobs and finances, you have a special responsibility to consider the accuracy of what you say and the consequences of inflammatory and erroneous statements. In the last few days, manifestly distorting my words and pulling them out of context, you have accused me of wanting to exclude white males from jobs generated by the stimulus package. Anyone who takes a moment to examine what I actually said and wrote knows this to be an absurd misrepresentation of my position (see this). My goal is and has always been to create as many opportunities for as wide a group as possible, and not exclude anyone from access. There is and has never been any ambiguity about this. The hate mail I have received since your broadcast suggests that the mischievous consequences of your demagoguery are potentially dangerous, in addition to being destructive of rational and constructive political discourse. I urge you to take responsibility for your words. Words and ideas have real world consequences, and you have demonstrated a cavalier disregard for both.

The "this" in his post was a source that the Right continually froths and salivates over because it, well, exposes nonsense from the Right.

Malki saw this as her chance to pounce, lips fully pursed this time:

Reich’s lone citation to prove his accusation? Media Matters!

Reich refuses to link my post on the subject because I provided full context for his remarks — quoting both his testimony and his blog post advocating for government racial preferences favoring unskilled and non-white workers over skilled and white workers

Well, when checking this context-laden post that Michelle is twitching and crying about, we find that not only isthe video she linked severely cropped, but she seems to have lost the ability to even read words that she has posted from Reich's blog

The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools. And it will kick-start alternative, non-fossil based sources of energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and so on); new health-care information systems; and universal broadband Internet access.

It’s a two-fer: lots of new jobs, and investments in the nation’s future productivity.

But if there aren’t enough skilled professionals to do the jobs involving new technologies, the stimulus will just increase the wages of the professionals who already have the right skills rather than generate many new jobs in these fields. And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most — women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed — will be shut out.

What to do? There’s no easy solution to either dilemma…

People can be trained relatively quickly for these sorts of jobs, as well as many infrastructure j0bs generated by the stimulus — installing new pipes for water and sewage systems, repairing and upgrading equipment, basic construction — but contractors have to be nudged both to provide the training and to do the hiring.

I’d suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed and to people with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And at least 2 percent of project funds should be allocated to such training. In addition, advantage should be taken of buildings trades apprenticeships — wich must be fully available to women and minorities.

So, did you see anywhere in Reich's post that these jobs HAVE to go to "unskilled" or "minorities"? Also, there was an emphasis on training that Malkin and the others completely ignored.

Nope. That's because he didn't say that.

In manual labor fields, people expect you to be "trainable". That's something that any manager or foreman worth their salt looks for.

Perhaps Malkin and company need to check out the definition of "context".

Are people like Malkin liars for things like this?

Of course. You shouldn't even have to ask.