- The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A couple of noted liberal political activists, first Howard Dean and now Noam Chomsky, have found common ground with the most unlikeliest of individuals — former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and admit she’s right on at least one key view: President Obama doesn’t have a whole lot of substance.

At least he didn’t during his presidential campaign, Mr. Chomsky said in a recent interview with the left-wing outlet Democracy Now.

“I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ’hopey, changey stuff,’ she was right. There was nothing there,” he said, the Inquisitr blog reported. “And it was understood by the people who run the political system, and so it’s no great secret that the U.S. electoral system is mainly a public relations extravaganza … it’s sort of a marketing affair.”

Mr. Chomsky is a well-known professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an internationally recognized author and political activist for liberal causes. And his support of the Mrs. Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, comes on the heels of more of the same from another noted liberal, Mr. Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman.

Last month, the Inquisitr reported that Mr. Dean wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “One major problem [with Obamacare] is the so-called independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body. By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.”

He didn’t mention Mrs. Palin, but she was speaking of the same problem during the same time frame — and taking big media hits from a mocking press for her view.


SEE ALSO: Howard Dean offers clues of a 2016 White House run


Mr. Dean finished in his WSJ article: “Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.”

 

 

• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.

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