Stephen L. Goldstein

August 12, 2011
Stephen Goldstein
The Sun Snetinel

RE: Shades of Janet Cook! – Some comments on your prototypical “balloon juice” column in today’s Sun-Sentinel
My dear Professor,
Your nomination of Emmett, the Boston cab driver, as Everyman bespeaks another ailment common to practicing modern American Liberals.
Apparently fewer and fewer of us still remember the lessons of formal Logic.
It trained you, not what to think, but how to think.
One of the ways it did that was by pointing out how not to think.
I shant burden you with tales of the Trivium lest I overload your already overtaxed synapses.
I am loath to put too much on your plate so I will stick to one.
Particulars do not make universals.
You say that Barney Frank’s loud televised public eructations notwithstanding, he will be re-elected because Everyman Emmett “prizes free public education”. [An unasked and therefore unanswered question is why doesn’t the President share his feelings. No “free” public school system spends more per pupil than Washington, D.C. Could there be a more dramatic affirmation of “free” public education than to have a D.C. yellow school bus pull up in front of the White House and pick up the Obama children? I don’t think so either.]
Further, you quote Everyman Emmett thus: “We need jobs.”
Does he mean “shovel ready” jobs like those promised in February, 2009?
Does he mean jobs like those “created” in the legendary 2010 Summer of Recovery?
You say that Everyman Emmett wants Congress to “pass the Federal budget”.
Did you tell him that when Democrat was in the White House and had overwhelming majorities in both Houses no budget was ever introduced?
Silly me!