When I saw the headline on my news feed, I thought, this must be FOX News. But, no, it was the AP.
FACT CHECK: Obama’s job, deficit claims are iffy
Could it be that the ban on reporting anything that might cast the president in a negative light has been lifted and the media is finally going to start doing its job?
One can only hope.
So, Arlen Specter is now officially a Democrat. Big deal. I have been reading the polls for weeks showing that he was losing heartily against his conservative primary challenger. This is not really surprising.
What is surprising, although I guess it shouldn’t be, is that everyone is saying this is bad for the Republican Party because it shows that they are no longer a national party.
This is bunk. The last time the Republican Party was ideologically conservative, they had historic wins. (Yes, I am talking about 1994.) People like Arlen “Spendulus” Specter are obstacles to that end. How is his leaving a problem?
The Democrats are trying to turn this into “the Republicans went too far to the right,” but even they haven’t been able to stop the truth from getting out that this was purely to save Specter’s own butt.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said that in a private meeting with Republicans, Specter “gave a purely political explanation. … He said: ‘I’ve looked at the polls. I can’t win as a Republican, I can’t win as an independent. The only way I have a shot is to be a Democrat.’”
As recently as late winter, Specter was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.
“Because I am a Republican,” he said.
I fail to see how losing an unprincipled opportunist can be anything but good for the party that was brought down by its own political opportunism.
In my view, the Republican Party will never gain credibility with conservatives, or with anyone for that matter, until every last unprincipled opportunist, every member who betrayed ideology for power and political gain, is gone.
It was not conservatism that brought down the Republican Party; the Republican Party has not represented conservatism in years. George W. Bush was not conservative, not in the limited government, fiscal conservative sense. John McCain was not conservative, either. To the extent he pretended to be on the campaign trial, he failed to articulate it well to the American people.
If conservatism is really dead, if it really is a losing political philosophy in 21st century America, then why have the left, the Democratic Party, and the President of the United States tried to marginalize it? Why the feigned concern that Specter’s departure is bad for the Republican Party? Why seek to marginalize Rush Limbaugh and FOX news? Why classify mainstream conservative thinking as right-wing extremism? Why mock the tea parties?
Why not let conservatism go head-to-head with liberalism, progressivism, social democracy, or whatever you want to call it? Why not let America hear the best arguments on both sides and make a choice?
Answer: because conservastism is not dead. Not even close.
This video I found via GeekSugar is so funny, in a cheesy sort of way.
Sunday was “Debt Day,” the day the US government spent all its tax revenues. For the rest of the fiscal year, all money spent by the government is borrowed money.
For perspective, last year, Debt Day fell on August 5. It was September 9 the year before that.
The fiscal year ends September 30.
Imagine if you already spent all of your salary and, for the next five months, you had to put all of your spending – living expenses and everything – on a credit card or take out a loan to pay for it.
Sounds like a bad idea, doesn’t it?
They Hate Him Because He Is “Black,” reads the headline of a post from Daily Kos, reprinted on the blog Green Mountain Daily.
I was about to dismiss it entirely, as I think is the proper response at this point to the accusations of racism that follow every single criticism of President Obama by anyone on the right, and even some that come from the left.
I mean, how seriously can we take the prized argument of such intellectual giants as Janeane Garofalo, especially when there is no attempt at an actual discussion of said criticism?
But then, it occurred to me that there is more to this post than intellectual laziness. The left really does not get what’s gotten everyone on the right so worked up about Barack Obama.
Let’s take the post I mentioned above as an example.
They hate him not because of policy or politics. They hate him because of who he is. Not like them. By the color of his skin. It’s time to stop pretending or excusing or evading the obvious. They hate him because he is black!
I am not even sure where to begin with that. Has there been no criticism on Pres. Obama’s policies or politics? I read thoughtful, reasonable criticisms of his policy every day.
So, how did this insightful blogger arrive at this conclusion, that there can be no other reason, except for race, to explain this outrage?
The right did not respond this way to President Clinton. Yes, really, that’s the entire argument.
First the full quote, then I’ll break it down.
They hated President Clinton, and tried to destroy him. But one of their elected governors didn’t talk secession. They didn’t talk revolution. They didn’t attempt (and miserably fail) to launch nationwide protests against him. Bill Clinton was a lot of things. He was not black.
President Obama is no crazy liberal. He is increasing defense spending. Even Alan Greenspan is suggesting economic solutions more akin to “socialism.” Gun lovers have nothing to fear. On policy grounds, we crazy liberals have been criticizing him from day one. The radical right have been lambasting him. With the nation fighting two wars and an economic meltdown, they openly hope he fails. But they are not about policy. They are about hatred. And they hate Obama as they have never hated any president. It’s not complicated.
Rather than succumb to this poor application of Occam’s Razor, let’s look a little deeper at other possible reasons for why this behavior is happening under President Obama, but did not happen under President Clinton.
They hope he fails. This widely misinterpreted Rush Limbaugh quote actually referred to any socialist policies Obama would enact. A point Rush has clarified repeatedly, explaining the ideology that he believes Obama comes from and the policies emanating therefrom that would be ultimately bad for America. To that end, Rush hopes he fails – fails to destroy America.
But this isn’t about policy is it?
Gun lovers have nothing to fear. That is not a unanimous opinion. Most “gun lovers” do think there is much to fear. Gun sales have skyrocketed since Obama was elected. Most people who follow gun control legislation suspect that Obama will enact gun control measures as soon as it is politically viable, that is, after he deals with energy and health care.
Secession. Revolution. Mass protest.
Why are these things coming up now, but not then?
Then, we did not see an increase of government spending of this magnitude. Then, we did not have a national debt of $11 trillion, and growing. Then, we did not have a pork-laden spendulus stimulus bill, passed before anyone could even read it. Then, we did not see the government fire the CEO of a major corporation.
But most importantly, then we had a Republican Party that was able to organize an opposition, formulate a platform that reflected the conservative ideology, and take control of both chambers Congress a mere two years after Clinton was elected.
Does anyone think the GOP can do that now? Does anyone think the GOP has any credibility whatsoever with conservatives?
This spending orgy started with a Republican president. The last Republican presidential candidate’s big moment in the debate with Obama was that he – the Republican – wanted the government to bail out people who couldn’t afford their mortgages.
Conservatives have nowhere to go. There is no leader of the conservative movement. There is no political party that embodies conservative principles. There is no one who can even articulate – on a national level – what the tea party protests were about to the media, for crying out loud.
What are conservatives supposed to do, if not speak out for themselves, talk about revolution, try to organize some sort of protest to let Washington know their views?
And why wouldn’t we want to leave a country that has abandoned its roots of personal freedom and limited government?
This is about policy. It is all about policy.
But, it is true that it is being expressed in an unproductive way, many times as hatred.
And for that, my dear left-wingers, you have yourselves to blame.
You know hatred, boy, do you ever. You have hated for the past 8 years. Some of you even forgot how not to hate and are still spewing hate on a daily basis toward anyone who dares disagree with you.
After Obama was elected, I read time after time on conservative blogs how we had to resist doing what the left did for the past 8 years. The hate. The screeching. The inability to formulate coherent sentences.
Unfortunately, some of us can’t resist emulating what has become the standard in political thought.
So, if anyone on the left wonders why the level of discourse is so base, so visceral, compared to the past, it’s not because he’s black (with or without scare quotes), it’s because you lowered the bar.
I mean bites of news. Not that Burlington actually bites. I should probably change that title. Done.
On to the news…
First up, SAVE LEDDY PARK! I read in the Front Porch Forum that we need to “Save Leddy Park.” From what, you might ask. A strip mall? A parking lot? An evil oil company?
No, Frisbees. I kid you not. A group of people oppose the creation of a disc golf course at Leddy Park and they are calling their campaign “Save Leddy Park.”
Drama, anyone?
I am not advocating for or against either side – other than to mock the hyperbole – so you can see what both side have to say for themselves. The Save Leddy Park drama queens’ site can be found here; the disc golfers here.
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BurlingtonPol.com blogger Haik Bedrosian has a new show on Channel 17, BurlingtonPol TV. You can watch the premiere episode at that link.
She’s Right started as a show on Channel 17, then became a blog, after discovering BurlingtonPol.com. Now BurlingtonPol, which began as a blog, is a show on Channel 17.
Best of luck, Haik.
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Jury selection began in the case of Dr. Joseph Abate, who is accused of inappropriately touching seven women in their pelvic area, while examining hip or knee injuries.
This only matters to She’s Right for one reason: I was summoned to be in the jury pool for that very case. I was able to get an excuse because I homeschool my three kids and do not have access to alternative arrangements for a case that long. The article I linked to said the case is expected to last a week, but the papers I received said they had set aside a month for the trial.
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UVM students protesting cuts being made by the university were arrested yesterday, for refusing to leave. Another protest is planned for today. The Free Press has an abundance of coverage.
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And in other law-breaking young people news, there will be no charges for the guy who organized a mass pillow fight on Chursh Street.
Darin Cassler, 21, of Burlington was issued a citation for disorderly conduct Friday evening after helping to organize a mass pillow fight on the Marketplace that drew about 40 people.
While the Cassler will not be prosecuted, the statement from Lt. Kathy Stubbing cautioned that “the case could be ‘literally construed as disorderly,’ and encouraged others interested in holding an event in a public space to be sure to obtain required permits.
Remember that, kids.
(I copy/pasted those quotes from the BFP article and they had “literally” spelled wrong. Things must be bad in the newspaper industry; they can’t even afford spellcheck!)
I want to wrap up the Tea Party talk and, hopefully, address all of the issues that I left out of the last post and touch on the ones that were raised in the comments there.
I found out this morning that Bill Simmon and Steve Benen talked about my tea party post on their Poli-Sci-Fi Radio show Sunday, so I will be responding to what they had to say, as well, though I will not get to everything that warrants rebuttal.
You can listen to the episode online, here. Tea Party talk starts about half-way through.
The first thing I want to address is the common Where were these people the last 8 years? response to the Tea Parties, popular among the left.
Answer: Complaining about Bush and the Republicans in Congress spending too much money.
I was, when I covered national politics. So were other conservatives. Here is a post from March 2006 – just one month after I started this blog on Blogspot – in which I reference a Cal Thomas column entitled, “Spending Obsenities.” (Link is to my post.)
Mr. Guy, in the comments of my previous Tea Party post, claimed that Freedom Works, a sponsor of the tea parties, was not active in opposing spending before now. I don’t know how long he has been a Freedom Works member, but a quick search of my e-mail shows a Freedom Works newsletter from January of 2006, opposing government-funded, universal pre-K and supporting consumer-driven health care, as an alternative to government-funded plans.
Libertarian groups, such as CATO, have been criticizing government spending and corporate welfare all along.
What you have to understand is that the people attending these tea parties, by and large, are not Republican Party defenders. They are citizens who support smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, and more freedom – Libertarians (both big and small “L”), Ron Paul and Bob Barr supporters, Constitution Party members, and GOP voters who are disillusioned with the party’s power-drunk spending spree over the past decade.
Another claim is that the tea parties would not have happened if McCain were elected.
Wrong again.
Conservatives did not like McCain’s penchant for spending, either. Conservatives also opposed the bailouts under Pres. Bush last fall. I had a post (actually quite a few) in the fall of 2006 discussing the GOP and its lack of conservatism.
We are sick of the big-government, big-spending, and disregard for the 10th Amendment. There is no longer a place for lovers of small government and people are looking for a way to speak out. This was a long time coming and it would have happened no matter who was elected last November.
On the Poli-Sci-Fi radio episode I linked to, Steve Benen brought up the fact that Bush and Cheney had bad approval ratings – no one was saying, “At least they are not expanding government” – as if some sort of evidence that people do not want smaller government (or less government expansion).
That might have been a good point, if only Bush had not expanded the government’s size and power. In fact, he did. Being a political blogger for 6 years, one would think Steve would have known that.
Benen did raise one good point, though, that the tea partiers did not do a good job articulating their message to the rest of the country. That was unfortunately true. There is a good message to be had in all of this, but without a spokesperson or official group that can put together a platform, people are left to their own interpretation or that of the media, which in the case of the Tax Day Tea Parties, was largely wrong.
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It’s worth noting that there were a couple of things said on that PSFR episode that I still need to address, but they necessitate their own post(s).
I do not have video of the homeschoolers day at the State House. I was not feeling well, so I did not make it down there. I read that there were over 300 homeschooling parents and children in attendence. Go homeschoolers!
I was away for the weekend and decided to stay offline. I appreciate that there were no inappropriate comments while I was gone. You guys are great.
I am still slogging through my e-mail, but I will get back to the discussion in the Tea Party myths post as soon as I get a few minutes. I am also working on a follow up post, which will address a few more points.
Tomorrow, I will be gone for most of the day. Vermont homeschoolers will be gathering tomorrow at the State House as an educational opportunity and demonstration of our presence.
As I posted about last month, the Commissioner of Education wants to eradicate the Home Study Office and place homeschoolers under the jurisdiction of their local public schools. Not only that, but there is also talk of mandatory NECAP testing for all homeschoolers. Both of these proposals are an unacceptable infringement of our homeschooling freedom. Our presence in Montpelier will send a message to the legislators that we will be back, if there is legislation that affects us in the next session. The event tomorrow is not a rally or protest.
I will have footage from the event that I will post tomorrow evening or Wednesday.
Political message aside, it should be a great day to get out with the kids and see the State House without all of those wacky tea partiers there! (Wow, two trips to Montpelier in as many weeks.)
So says Brian Austin Green, on a possible third season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
“There were no intentions of this being a series finale. It was absolutely a season finale. There’s a plan where this can go and it’s so good.”
FOX maintains that no decision has been made on whether or not to renew the show for another season, despite rumors circulating the past couple of days that it was canceled.
The FOX fall schedule will be released May 18.
