Max Boot has a warning for the newly elected, sassy Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is approaching household name status: Study. Don’t be so dumb. Don’t be Sarah Palin.
The conservative #NeverTrumper, who was spotted out and about Tuesday afternoon in his Fedora, lunching at The Dubliner, wrote a column for The Washington Post ripping the New York congresswoman to shreds.
At least by Washington standards, his piece really kicked her in the shins by questioning her intelligence, facts and comparing her to failed veep hopeful Sarah Palin. In New York, this might be considered a puff piece. In Washington? Pretty mean.
“Ocasio-Cortez rips Washington Post columnist who compared her to Sarah Palin,” screamed a headline in The Hill.
Hot Air followed suit with “Max Boot Compares AOC to Sarah Palin, Faces Backlash.”
Boot’s hit piece ran under the label “Global Opinions,” which seems a little much.
Right out of the gate, the Trump hater acknowledges AOC’s star status and “black belt” social media skills. In a dizzying spray of backhanded praise, he compliments her in the same breath that he bashes her.
“I feel a little guilty writing this column because ‘AOC’ has already gotten more publicity than she deserves,” he wrote. “The very fact that you are likely to know that I am referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — as though she were FDR, JFK, LBJ — is a sign of her success in penetrating the national consciousness in an astonishingly short period.”
He calls her a “former bartender” — like it’s a bad thing — and “a person of little significance.”
Boot complimented her looks but pooh-poohs her progressive politics and inability to use facts.
“The Post’s Fact Checker has documented her reign of error,” he wrote. “She claimed that ‘unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs’ (only 5 percent of people actually have two jobs); that ‘ICE is required to fill 34,000 beds with detainees every single night’ (an urban myth); and that the ‘upper-middle class does not exist anymore in America’ (not only does it exist, it’s growing).”
In conclusion, he called her a “fatal attraction to political celebrity and vacuous soundbites.”
Ocasio-Cortez obviously swung back at Boot.
Naturally, the same week we kick-start a nat’l convo on marginal tax rates endorsed by Nobel-Prize winning economists, I’m being described as “vacuous.”
If you’re allowed to characterize female politicians as “unlikeable,” are we allowed to describe takes like these “resentful?” https://t.co/cMikVKcJ5U
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 8, 2019
Sophia Nelson, a conservative lawyer, author and MSNBC contributor, wasn’t pleased with Boot’s column.
“Congresswoman Ocasio-@AOC is just 29 years old,” Nelson tweeted. “Palin was a grown woman, an ex-governor, married with a family. In her late 40s or 50[s] when she was nominated for [vice president]. I think this article is sexist and ridiculous. Disappointed.”
Melissa Dunphy, a Rutgers prof, also scolded Boot for being sexist.
“I CAN’T TELL WOMEN APART,” she wrote. “THEY BOTH HAVE DARK HAIR. HELP.”