LIBERAL TRANSIT Those Democrats and Their Private Jets

NY Times Week in Review ^ | 8-104 | DAMIEN CAVE

[Pharmboy]

Interesting comment; I had always thought it was about guilt, but you may very well be more correct.

[AnAmericanMother]

Andrew Jackson an aristocrat? That's nutty. He was born in a tumbledown backwoods cabin, and raised himself by his legal talents and his military adventures.

William Henry Harrison, I'll grant you. He was a Virginia patrician.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think it was actually Rousseau who said it first (at least the first documented).

[pageonetoo]

Our old pal Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope explains the quotation was first written by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Confessions. Actually, Rousseau wrote "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," which essentially means "let them eat a type of egg-based bread" (not quite cake, but still a bit extravagant). Rousseau claimed that "a great princess" told the peasants to eat cake/brioche when she heard they had no bread.

But Rousseau wrote this in early 1766, when Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old, still living in her native Austria and not yet married to King Louis XVI. So it's highly unlikely that Marie uttered the pompous phrase. Perhaps Rousseau invented them to illustrate the divide between royalty and the poor -- which is certainly how the phrase has been used ever since. -http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20021122.html

[AnAmericanMother]

Good ol' Cecil Adams (or Ed Zotti, if you prefer).

He always gets his word in. BTW, he's surprisingly accurate. I have only caught him in one error in my own field of expertise . . . and he manfully acknowledged the error in a later column.

[Jerry W. Howard]

The hypocracy of the liberals is a legitimate target, but this article reeks of the notion that "property is a crime" -- also a major (hypocratic) liberal target.

Lets not forget that the original meaning of the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" was "the pursuit of wealth" or more closely, "the pursuit of property."

While it is valid to condemn Kerry for being two-faced, I think it wrong to fault him for spending his considerable wealth as he sees fit. If Tah-Ree-Sah is dumb enough to squander her pickle profits on a twit like Kerry, she has the right to do so.

The problem with liberals is not that some of them have money, but that all of them want to spend other peoples money rather than their own to advance their silly causes.

[M-cubed]

"The schools thing is a good example of that," Mr. Horowitz says. "They send their kids to private schools, but they oppose vouchers." <<<<...2. They feel they have a right to have a gun for personnel protection....but push gun control on everyone else!.....ect....(this list could be endless!!!)

[M-cubed]

The problem with liberals is not that some of them have money, but that all of them want to spend other peoples money rather than their own to advance their silly causes.<<<<<...BINGO!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!...(When a liberal is confronted with this, their eyes glaze over and they have a total disconnect!!!...Try it sometime...the response will amaze ya!)

[OldPossum]

Note the Natural Resources Defense Council was mentioned.

Folks, these are the fine people who persuaded Congress to reduce the water capacity of your toilet down to 1.6 gallons. Be forever in their debt.

[Reeses]

I think it wrong to fault Kerry for spending his considerable wealth as he sees fit.

Conservatives tolerate wealthy neighbors, we don't dwell on envy, however this presses all the emotional buttons of leftists, drives them into a state of anger. By putting Kerry's wealth and spending front and center we can induce many Democrat voters to not only dislike Kerry, but outright despise him. Democrats can't stand it whenever you remind them they are not the center of the universe and can never be.