Quote of the day

Bob Urie takes a union to task:

Last week SEIU (Service Employees International Union) echoed the language of the Occupy Wall Street movement to give an early endorsement to Barack Obama in his re-election bid for the presidency in 2012. For both tactical and strategic reasons this endorsement works against the interests of organized labor. And using the language of OWS to endorse the singular symbol of American political dysfunction undermines the efforts of the thousands of OWS protesters who have put themselves at significant risk of physical harm to bring about substantive political and social change.

We might have to travel back to the early 1970s to find a labor bureaucrat making a blunder of this magnitude. I’m referring, of course, to decrepit and foolish George Meany‘s dance macabre with Richard Nixon and George McGovern. Meany hated McGovern for, among other things, McGovern’s opposition to the Vietnam War. Yet McGovern was the most pro-labor candidate for President of the two legacy parties in the nation’s history! The upshot: Not only was the 1972 Presidential election “big labor’s” nadir within the Democratic Party, the election also stands alone as the signal event marking the political realignment brought about by the ascendency of the New Right.

Mary Kay Henry — a fool belonging to a tradition made by fools.