Ricochet and The State of the Union

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo

I knew I’d be doing a Ricochet podcast this (Wednesday) morning on the State of the Union, so I watched the entire speech straight through.  By the end of it, I was offering to betray our military’s field positions, change my religion and sign a statement demanding the U.S. get out of Viet Nam if they would just make it stop. What a cynical and disingenuous blowhard this president is! The speech seemed to me a complete fantasy, existing as it did in a world in which our country was NOT currently borrowing more money than it produces and in which “paying your fair share,” meant having your money taken away from you to fund things you don’t want and the government has no right to buy. GOP Governor Mitch Daniels’ response was like having water splashed in my face, waking me from a dream. Listen, I know he’s short and boring, but Daniels not only would have made a better candidate than Mitt or Newt, he’s a better executive than either Mitt or Barack could ever be. And here’s another thing: the social conservatives who beat up on Daniels because he said we needed to call a truce on their issues in order to bring people together to deal with the debt? They were wrong and he was right. Let me be more exact: they were a hundred per cent wrong and he was a hundred per cent right. They should make a pilgrimage to his state house on their knees, like the old women who climb the Sacred Steps in Rome, in order to apologize and beg him to reconsider getting into the race. You don’t like abortion? Who do you think your best president would be? Obama, Mitt or Daniels? Right, me too. Go stand in the corner.

You can hear me wax incredibly eloquent on these and other topics together with people who actually know what they’re talking about like Peter Robinson, Rob Long, James Lileks and Mike Murphy on the Ricochet podcast for 1/25.