Saturday, June 19, 2010

Irony is Best Served Fresh

He's done it again, that Mr. Obama. He has cost workers a day's pay so that he could visit a job site to tout the good he's doing for our economy. It matters not that his visit cost the taxpayers nearly a million dollars for a ten minute speech, nor that workers were forced to take an unpaid day off. It mattered even less that his words were untrue, claiming that his massive stimulus package was moving the economy forward. He still did it, and not one "journalist" noticed.

Travelling to Columbus, Ohio on Friday to inaugurate his "Recovery Summer", Obama's Secret Service instructed the road construction company, Turner Construction, to keep its workers home that day for security reasons. Of course, the workers would not be paid for the day, but Obama hailed alleged progress for the working man. Ah, Irony.

It's not the first time this has happened either, and the first reported instance is rife with bonus irony. Last month Obama paid a similar visit to the Solyndra, Inc. solar plant in Fremont, California and cost those workers their wages for the day. Yes, it made news in the "new media", but many major outlets ignored it. But the truly delicious irony comes after the fact on that one since folks have had a chance to examine it.

Carla Marinucci writes a blog for the San Francisco Chronicle in which she attempts to "set the record straight" on those lost wages. She claims that the meek criticism Obama received is unwarranted because the workers in Fremont didn't really lose a day's pay. Admitting that they were kept home for the day with no compensation, Ms. Marinucci reveals the fruits of her intrepid investigative efforts.

Giddily and mistakenly thinking she had proven Drudge wrong, she opens her May 26th piece thusly:

No matter what's being reported on KRON, the Drudge Report -- and now by the Republican Senatorial Campaign Commitee -- President Obama's visit Wednesday to a Fremont solar panel construction plant did not "cost local factory workers their paychecks."
Marinucci boasts that she "got the scoop from Dianna Wright, spokeswoman for Redwood City-based Rudolph & Sletten, the general contractor which is building Solyndra". Wright points out that the companies contract has been extended by one day, "which will be paid".

Take that, you right wingers! Those blue collar workers, many of whom probably live paycheck-to-paycheck in an economy this bad, will get that day's pay...eventually. Great work from Marinucci who, ironically, titles her blog The Spin Cycle.

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