A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Newsweek Slams Conservatives:
'Why
I'm late getting this post out and will review this Andrew Sullivan piece in more detail in a future post. So far the reaction has more to do with Sullivan's provocative article title than the content. Newser had a better collection of conservative comments on the content. But let me point on all the so-called "successes" of the 111th Congress, Obama was more Cheerleader-in-Chief than Leader/Coach-in-Chief. Deciding to add thousands of pages of new business regulations (after all, over two centuries of regulations on banks have worked so well, Mr. Sullivan, you just KNOW they got them right this time around, right?) And Barack Obama as senator or President hasn't said a word about artificially low interest rates/monetary policy which encouraged rampant malinvestment by, among other things, enabling/artificially putting high-risk homeowners into houses under unrealistic expectations of future income.
Andrew Sullivan could at least write something more interesting than soundbites of preposterous talking points that Obama "saved" a $15T economy by delayed disbursements of $862M (most after the time economists decided the recession was over) investing in Keynesian policy broken windows, state or local bailouts, government boondoggles, and temporary pizza-buying tax cuts or disingenuously claims the EXPEDITED LAYOFFS AFTER AN ANTI-BUSINESS PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS WERE ELECTED: GO FIGURE! somehow belong on the ledger of a lame-duck President Bush. (Apparently Mr. Sullivan believes that businesses invest and make job-creating decisions based on irrelevant past economic policy, instead of the future... He probably talked to a White House economist attending that Alice in Wonderland party!) And EVERYONE knows that crony union-based auto bankruptcies are MORE EQUAL than those which respect traditional higher-standing bond holders. What investor WOULDN'T want to invest in businesses and jobs in an Obamanomic future?
No, Mr. Sullivan has fallen in love with the profoundly intelligent idea of smothering a fragile economic recovery by ineffectual, feckless, spendthrift "broken-window" spending, dumping thousands of pages of new regulations put together in corrupt sausage making by frenzied lawyers over a few days in a manifest contradiction of "transparency", creating dozens more of various unaccountable boards spewing out unpredictable rules and regulations on business?
All while increasing the national debt by almost 50% in just 3 years, with projected trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see--each trillion dollars is roughly HALF of federal revenues in ONE YEAR--all while an empty suit who never even had prior responsibility for running a lemonade stand, never mind a payroll, doesn't do a single thing to save money as we've reached our natural debt limit and uses "smoke and mirrors" kaleidoscope accounting even the chief government actuaries won't stand by, to justify EXPANDING the government's intervention into health care (no doubt as competently as they've managed banks and the GSE's!) EVEN AS THE CREDIT BUREAUS ARE LOWERING THE US GOVERNMENT'S CREDIT RATINGS!
Andrew Sullivan says, just be patient; have faith in the all-powerful Wizard of DC, the Pied Piper of Failed Liberalism: Obama is plenty smart. We just need to have some patience and to trust in His judgment. After all, Obama knows how to set priorities: what's important in national defense is not so much new threats in cyber warfare, unfriendly nations or unconventional enemies, inadequate resources for research and development and supplies: it's recruitment. The real reason why the military apparently mustn't be able to make their recruitment targets with an official 8.5% unemployment rate must be because gays refuse to serve unless they can talk publicly about their sexual identity! (Of course, straight guy better not leave in view a sexy picture of their wife or girlfriend at their cubicle... It's not like they'll be backed up by those feminist-supporting Senate Democrats quashing those silly impeachment counts against President Clinton,whom upheld the US Constitution by not testifying truthfully about his inappropriate sexual harassment policy violations with government subordinates in front of an Arkansas judge. I bet those CEO's at Bendix, Boeing and HP wish they had had Senate Democrats on their boards!)
Like I said, I'll comment more in a future post, but just in case you're wondering: I think I'll probably be giving Andrew Sullivan's op-ed a THUMBS DOWN!
Meet the Press GOP Debate - Jan 8: Thumbs UP!
I've only recently reviewed the debate and haven't parsed it yet for the blog, but I was surprisingly entertained. I don't like listening to rehearsed soundbites, so I generally haven't followed the debates unless I see some controversy coming out of one. I'll write more about some of my favorite quotes in a future post.
You Also Heard It Here:
Gingrich Slams Santorum
I was already writing my Political Potpourri commentary yesterday and was not aware of the independently published The Hill item published yesterday afternoon:
I think Gingrich has to go after Santorum, or he's done. This is like a pro wrestling match where two heels (bad guys) take on the babyface. You know the heels have to turn on each other at some point, and the primary weapon you have available is the element of surprise. I don't know yet when or how it'll happen, but he can't afford to let Santorum knock him out of an expected second place.
The Hill piece notes "It's a marked contrast to his earlier suggestion of a loose alliance between the two and might indicate an attack line [for the upcoming FNC debate]."
Consider the following Gingrich excerpt (my edits):
If you vote for Sen. Santorum, somebody who set the all-time Pennsylvania record for the size of their defeat, in effect, you’re functionally voting for Gov. Romney to be the nominee.It’s a mathematical fact Any conservative who votes for anyone but Newt helps elect a moderate as the nominee.What I failed to anticipate was the nature of the attack, electability. That shouldn't have been surprising given the fact that Gingrich brought up the point first-time candidate businessman Mitt Romney failed to beat Ted Kennedy, whom never lost a Massachusetts election from 1962 to his relatively recent death. I think it's very logical that Gingrich raised that issue because the issue has been raised to him. I think Gingrich has a fatal personality flaw in that, in my view, he seems to want to get even with the critic and/expose the critic's hypocrisy. There are a couple of things wrong with that: (1) you shouldn't let your opponent define you and/or jerk your chain; (2) you shouldn't choose an attack that is double-edged sword (and probably be used more effectively against you). Right now we have two candidates (Mitt Romney and Ron Paul) whom, in the latest polls (both Fox News and CNN) are the only ones within a statistical tie with Barack Obama, even though the President has a net negative approval rating.
The next broad point I would repeat against Gingrich on using the electability argument against Santorum is that if you look at the Gallup daily tracking poll of the GOP candidates and the Fox News beauty contest, Romney leads by more that the combined support for both Gingrich and Santorum.
Finally, in this commentary, I want to point out a couple of reasons why Gingrich's muddled, inconsistent arguments against Romney just make my eyes roll. First, Gingrich argues that Romney is a "Massachusetts moderate" while he is the consistent conservative. But Gingrich is or has been to the left of Romney on immigration, capitalism (e.g., his favorable commentary on a close relationship between business and government and the populist attack on business turnarounds at Bain Capital), and climate change. He then tried to argue that Romney is just another in a series of Massachusetts statewide officeholders like Dukakis and Kerry. But at the same time he argued that Romney had a low approval rating as governor and may have not won reelection and he failed to acknowledge that Dems overrode hundreds of Romney vetoes on spending (and certain RomneyCare policies).
And then Gingrich attacks Romney's losing to John McCain as a measure questioning his electability. But by any measure, through Florida, UNLIKE GINGRICH, Romney finished in the money in all the races, the overall runner-up in vote percentage (despite dropping out early in the race), and the runner up in states carried (11 states in west/central and northeast) while it was McCain whom carried the lion's share of moderate/independent voters, and self-classified conservatives supported Romney after Huckabee starting in Iowa.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Doors, "Touch Me". Hands down, my favorite Doors songs and one of all-time favorites.
