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Tammy Alonso's Blog

Tammy Alonso's Blog

Left of Centre

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Corbett confusion

This photo and accompanying news report, showing Tom Corbett—or at least someone working for him—engaging in the exact same behavior the Attorney General himself has investigated and prosecuted other elected officials for, pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

This, of course, follows on the heels of repeated revelations that Corbett himself—in addition to those working for him—has used a state-provided and taxpayer-funded phone to conduct campaign business.

Or maybe he hasn’t. It’s difficult to keep up with Corbett’s constantly changing stories on this issue. He has two Blackberries, one for official work, one for campaign work. He has one Blackberry, because it’s easier to keep everything on one. He doesn’t even know the number for his state-issued phone. No, he’s got two. No, one. No, two.

This mirrors Corbett’s seemingly ever-changing thoughts about the unemployment rate in the state. Unemployed Pennsylvanians are completely comfortable sitting around collecting government checks. The jobs are out there. Well, we do need to improve our jobs climate. Maybe he just wasn’t “clear and complete” enough. He didn’t mean to be “insensitive.” But jeez, look at all those help-wanted ads.

And now, even though Corbett has suggested on several occasions that there are plenty of jobs out there for Pennsylvanians who want to take them, he is now trying to insist that Ed Rendell’s Democratic tax-and-spend policies have cost Pennsylvanians more than half a million jobs (but I guess those are jobs we could afford to lose since there are still so many out there anyway, so maybe Rendell hasn’t done so badly after all).

Even I can’t keep up with this. And anyone who says they can must either be not entirely truthful or heavily medicated.

I honestly have no idea whether Tom Corbett is the inept bumbler he appears to be, if he is simply insincerely self-serving and saying and doing at any given moment whatever he thinks is going to win him political points with the constituencies he’s courting (although it’s anybody’s guess exactly who those constituencies are at this point), or if underneath it all, he really is a normal guy who is being steered badly by his political advisers.

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August 2, 2010 at 8:41 am

--Tammy Alonso

comments

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  1. john

    Aug 2nd, 2010

    Ya the same political advisors that helped him win the attorney general election twice, even though both times the state was carried by the democratic presidential nominee, especially in 2008 being the only republican to win statewide office, are now trying to screw him over. Ignorance.

  2. Marcus

    Aug 2nd, 2010

    Yes the same political advisors who get paid with our tax dollars when they are on his tax payer funded staff when they are not working on his campaigns. Interesting how its ok for Corbett, but not for those he is going after….

  3. lee levan

    Aug 2nd, 2010

    While it may be difficult to determine whether Corbett has no regard for the truth or simply is an unwitting dupe, one thing is for sure. His is the behavior of a hypocrite, condemning, even criminally presecuting, others for the same behavior in which he himself engages.

    Then there’s the fact that he declined to prosecute the Republican Orie gals for doing precisely what he’s prosecuting Democrats for doing — even though a county DA then charged them and the district court determined that there’s sufficient evidence to require then to stand trial.

  4. Jeff

    Aug 3rd, 2010

    “This photo and accompanying news report, showing Tom Corbett—or at least someone working for him—engaging in the exact same behavior the Attorney General himself has investigated and prosecuted other elected officials for, pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”

    No it does not. It says there was literature on the table, it does not say who put it there.

    It is framed carefully enough to have the literature and the banner be identifiable, but declines to show us who if anyone is at the booth. The picture was taking by a “Democratic operative” – PA2010′s own words – and a photo of Corbett’s agents with campaign literature would be far more damaging.

    On the other hand, an empty booth would make the photo more suspect because it raises the likelihood that the operative staged the shot. So instead we get a shot that omits any information about the booth’s occupants or lack thereof.

    So yes Tammy, it speaks for itself, but not in the way that you say it does.

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