When Bruce Springsteen recently traded his lyricist pen for an op-ed pen, which he used to criticize New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, a collective yawn arose throughout the land. After all, it’s long been evident that Springsteen writes and sings about the struggles of the common man, but in real life, and in politics, he’s completely out of touch.
It seems Springsteen is upset with Christie’s ongoing battle against government expenditures, particularly public entitlements. And as liberals and hard left ideologues like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon have done against Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, so Springsteen is now doing against Christie in New Jersey.
Wrote Springsteen: “[Christie’s] cuts are eating away at the lower edges of the middle class, not just those already classified as in poverty, and are likely to continue to get worse over the next few years.” (If you’re like me, when you read Springsteen’s words all you see is “blah, blah, blah, and blah.”)
Honestly folks, I’m beginning to get embarrassed for him in the way I’ve come to be embarrassed for Larry Hagman’s family and Al Gore apologists.
Springsteen demonstrates no grasp of American political history–particularly the history that proves shrinking the size of government, like Christie is doing, results in greater wealth for all.
And while I’m embarrassed for Springsteen, I’m also appalled by his hypocrisy. I mean, here is a man who takes advantage of the system in order to keep from paying all the taxes he’s supposed to pay in his home state of New Jersey: which means he’s making sure his money isn’t in the system to be distributed to those less fortunate ones whom he’s accusing Christie of overlooking.
When I was an impressionable youth with no direction in life, I went to a couple of Springsteen concerts during the mid-1980s. Like many at that time, I hadn’t grasped the fact that Springsteen’s thematic “Born in the U.S.A.” wasn’t praising this great country but condemning it. Yet I’ve long since figured it out, and wouldn’t now walk across the street to see Springsteen perform if he was doing a free show in a mall parking lot.
Chris Christie is trying to save New Jersey from the financial implosion politicians before him set in motion. If Springsteen wants more money to go to the impoverished in his state, maybe he’ll put his money where his mouth is and start paying all the taxes he could be paying on his little farm there.
Until then, his rudimentary op-eds will continue to provide Larry Hagman with some degree of cover, as laughter shifts from the loon who thinks solar power will cure the world’s ills to disgust toward the hypocrite who’s calling the rest of us to a standard he’s not prepared to meet.
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