Obama’s Centrism Could Drive the GOP Out of Business
And James Pethokoukis provides an even more comprehensive list of the very non-liberal plans for the candidate who was billed (by friends and foes alike) as the most liberal man to run for the presidency since George McGovern:
Even worse for the Left, Obama advisers are now signaling, says the New York Times, “that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy, and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.” You know, like, pretty much the very heart and soul of the liberal policy agenda. Even healthcare reform might only be getting what aides call a “down payment” as a “sign of dedication to the broader goals.” Let the wretching begin, Daily Kossacks. (Fun Fact: Obama gave his big economic speech at George Mason University, a bastion of free-market scholarship.)
But it’s Obama’s $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will be ground zero in this coming liberal internecine battle. “Way too much Reagan, not nearly enough FDR,” griped some key liberals about a plan that would, in addition to the tax cuts, still provide a whopping half-trillion dollars over two years in government spending for infrastructure, healthcare, education, clean energy, grants to states, and aid to lower-income and unemployed folks.
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All of this has many Republicans shrugging their shoulders and wondering if this isn’t better than what they might have expected from a McCain presidency.
Now before both sides get too excited, we can be sure that there will eventually be plenty for conservatives to hate and liberals to love — on judges, health care, and environmental policy, to name a few. But it is worth asking, were we all conned? And moreover, what are Republicans to do about all this?
As to the first, the short answer is “yes.” During the primary then-candidate Barack Obama ran hard to the Left on the Iraq war, FISA reauthorization, tax hikes on the rich, and a long list of other issues. With the nomination under his belt he ran to the center by either repudiating past views (e.g., flip-flopping on FISA) or by couching his campaign rhetoric is a haze of verbal vagueness. The Left and Right remained convinced he was at the very least an advocate of domestic liberalism and a more dovish foreign policy.
But now, as the realities of governance set in (on everything from the challenges of a world still fraught with Islamic terrorism to a recession that simply can’t be cured by shovel-ready projects alone), President-elect Obama is dumping the Left — and with it, its agenda. He’s hired center-right advisers, thrown out tax hikes, and is talking down expectations for his own campaign agenda. He not only wants to succeed, but he wants to be re-elected and utterly defang the Republicans. If he keeps this up, he will do all three.
That brings us to the dilemma for Republicans. They are left picking fights over nothing. (Oh he’s calling for “shared sacrifice!”) Or, trying to trim around the edges of an enormous spending plan (“Not a dime more than $750B!”). And of course, there is the old standby of moaning about President Bush’s advice not to exclude minorities. (“No, we like our diminishing electorate just fine!”)
To say that the Republicans lack both a message and leaders is to understate the depth of the problem: if Obama has his way they will lack a reason for existence.
There is a glaring irony here. The greatest champion of liberals (they thought) is on the verge of repudiating their agenda. But he is also undermining the opposition. The result may be that centrist nirvana which many have pined for these many years. Or the whole enterprise may falter as Obama is beset by both sides, corruption besmirches the entire Demcoratic Party, and the economic recession engulfs all incumbents. But there is reason, dare I say hope, that the Obama administration will deliver far less than the Left anticipated and the Right feared. That’s probably good for the country, and just awful for the angry Left and the future prospects of the GOP.
This been known since Obama threw his hat in the ring. He has been center from the start. But the world is full of “Joe the plumbers”.
“Or the whole enterprise may falter as Obama is beset by both sides, corruption besmirches the entire Demcoratic Party, and the economic recession engulfs all incumbents.”
..would it not be ironic indeed if the far left replaced their antipathy of Bush with hatred of their once-beloved Messiah. One hears it more frequently — the deepening disappointment turning to shrill remarks — on the Pacifica radio outlet in Southern California as they begin to realize that HopenChange was just a slogan to get yet another politician elected.
“..meet the new boss, same as the old boss..”
Jennifer, wait until you see his contribution to the judiciary which will end any discussion of centrism on our parts. Fine work though.
I think Obama is going to be Centrist on many matters. He may go hard Left on some matters, but as long as it isn’t Diane Feinstein II Time for taking away gun rights, or shoving the black grievance or gay agenda down other peoples throats – the only folks that will be spectacularly upset will be those on the Wall Street CEO – loving, backwoods Bible clan, hard Right.
It’s the economy, the economy, the economy. Jobs and finances. Energy prices..And affordable health care.
The risk of a few Americans killed by Terrahist Evildoers is well down on most American’s lists of priorities and concerns.
People don’t want new wars of Neocon adventure, they don’t care about chickenshit new scandals or 8-year old ones about somebody implimenting Bubba’s pardon policy. They don’t trust Wall Street, the globalists, and free traders anymore and don’t see 8 more years of tax cuts for the well-off as a solution to anything. They want a President who will deal with the world rather than treat it as the enemy, with the exception of the Israeli Right and a handful of corrupt Muslims they put in power. The red meat issues parrotted by their new “ordinary people” prizes like the ill-educated Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber only resonated with 25-30% of voters.
Banning all abortion? Remember Terri Schiavo! Saint John McCain’s suffering? A flag burning Amendment? Refusing to alter Cuba relations? More capital punishment for more offenses? Calling Nixon’s, now Obama’s plan to find a way to give the 1/6th of Americans without health insurance, hope – “A Communist Plot”???? Big yawns…Republicans did little or nothing to change those problems giving rise to those issues for the better, in the years they had most of the political power..
Republicans will have to watch out for appearing to dwell only on the trivial side stuff, being constantly intransigent and angry. Figure out if they will be trying to return to being a national Party with good prospects in 50 States – or become a regional Party destined to be out of power or dwindle even further to dissolution into 2 or more new parties centered around religious fundamentalism and libertarianism. To be “pure” tool of the Religious Right with chances in only 7-8 Southern States and small Rocky Mountain ones, plus Alaska..
Save their ammo for the truly important stuff where they can honestly stand on core principles again…Once, after Hastert, DeLay, Newt, Stevens, and Bush II screwing the old principles up…they figure what those core principles are…
The president-elect may end up pleasing conservatives more than McCain would have
Which isn’t saying much. There is no love between conservatives and McCain.
Conservative means a bit more than ‘not a Democrat’. The descriptor you are looking for is ‘Republican’, not ‘conservative’.
But he [BHO] also reminded Stephanopoulos that the Iranian regime is exporting terrorism through Hamas and Hezbollah and is “pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”
Interesting. The most important feature of Iran pursuing nukes is that it “could potentially trigger an arms race”? Really … Not very middle of the road from where I stand, since this says that, so long as no arms race is triggered, Iran’s nukes are A-OK.
And, as to stopping arms races in the Middle East, the invasion of Iraq led to Libya coughing up its nuke program. What do you think BHO would say about that clear example of quelling any Middle Eastern arms race? Would he have to go back on his idea that the Iraq War was such a mistake, since stopping arms races is now the key to policy?
BHO isn’t going to be anywhere in the middle. Don’t kid yourself. And don’t let Bush’s unbelievable turn left in his second term throw your judgement of right and left off, either.
Now that they’ve sat him down and mugged him with reality he can’t “code pink” his way around issues anymore to placate the Cedarfords of the world. He can no longer muckrake from afar as he was so proudly doing in Illinois. He is finding out that the task of protecting the country against sworn enemies of the west will be alot different than protecting the country against born alive infants.
In reading The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, there is an interesting similarity in the construct of FDR’s administration and that of The One. One difference is where we find ourselves: freedom of information outside the MSM and Government. I do not believe we will have the fireside chats so valuable for FDR.
Pardon me? I’m supposed to get all tingly over a Chicago machine politician? If I want something like that I’ll look more locally to Tammany Hall. Looking at BO’s past political activity, his VP pick, and all the cronies he’s appointing I expect at best Clinton Take 2. At worst I expect someone who’s going to cripple the economy.
BO isn’t going to please Republicans or Conservatives, and you thinking that he will shows how out of touch with actual voters you are. John McCain, who threatened to switch parties more than once, was neither a Conservative nor a Republican and the voter turnout proved that. Too bad you’re too blind to see that.
He has been center from the start.
Really, “Another View?” How is someone with an extremely liberal voting record “center?”
I don’t think Obama is going to be just a centrist. He will be leftist and rightist at times. He knows what the Country needs. All he needs is understanding and support. Fair and balanced.
quasar is absolutely right. The reality that the jet that crashed in PA was headed for the White House has been brought home to him.
That being said, I also think Dick Morris is absolutely right when he says Bambi is letting caretakers run foreign policy, defense, and the economy – administrative and executive matters about which he knows next to nothing except for leftist dogma – while he appoints left-wing activists to the social welfare posts (Carol Browner, anyone?) to spearhead the issues that really interest him. Bernard Chapin also is right in this, Bambi is about as centrist as Slick Willie; just watch his judicial appointments.
Interesting premise, and I guess we’ll see. My guess is there’s not much likelihood of scrapping the income tax, going with an across the board flat tax, privatizing social security, and gutting most of the social spending at the federal level no matter who’s in the White House, so it’s pretty unlikely either major party candidate would have wound up pleasing me as President. Perhaps I’m not a representative voter….
“Centrism”? How silly a word. Yet it allows essays to be written about it. Obama’s choices are socialists or go-alongers. There’s no centrism on fundamentals of government or social issues. On government it’s biggism, Big Daddy, Nanny State — whatever the label, the basis is that the government knows better and solves all waht can be solved. On social issues it’s all deconstruction, Marxist social deconstruction.
It is empty of the Founding concepts of a limited government and of individual liberty. It is empty of the Founding moral guidance. You didn’t ask, but you will be told.
Centrism? No way.
Please, I can’t think of a single conservative who approved of McCain as the party’s choice – and we were right, he was not electable. For those who are for open borders, abortion on demand, the fairness doctrine, gun control, talking and submitting to enemies rather than killing them, higher taxes, more federal regulations, spending that defies all description, placing ourselves under U.N. rule – well you are all about to get your wish.
Jenny, dear, I’m afraid you have swallowed something. Hook, line and season ticket. And please tell Kristol to stay away from the water fountains at The Times.
“This been known since Obama threw his hat in the ring. He has been center from the start. But the world is full of “Joe the plumbers”.”
Center from the start? Known by whom? A couple of crazed moonbats from Hollywood?
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/voteratings/
It’s always interesting seeing so many conservatives hopping down the Hope Trail. Obama is no centrists. he will not veto what Congress will pass. Take the Senate bill this week that places most of America in the no-drill-nowhere ANWR category. That sure does sound centrist to me. Better to spend your time figuring out how to keep some of your money than admiring how well liars lie.
Few critical issues have a center. When you vote present or choose not to express your view on a issue you are essentially copping out. Folks often choose not to make or communicate a decision due to ignorance and or fear.
One should not be thinking in terms of Left, Right, or Center. We should be concentrating on quality of leadership.
More than ever we need a “take no prisoners” kind of President. The Middle East is boiling over and about to blow up and go nuclear in our faces, trade issues are as imbalanced as ever, the economy is in the tank, the dollar is up and down like a yo-yo, corruption in high places is a national embarrassment, energy questions still have no real answers, and a whole host of other troublesome problems face “The One”.
We should be asking if we have the right guy headed into office.
Where the hell is Harry (the buck stops here) Truman when we need him?
vivo:
He knows what the Country needs. All he needs is understanding and support.
LOL. A needy President. Great …
I am now glad that John McCain lost. He is too eager to prove that he is a “maverick” and a “profile in courage.” I would rather place my bets on Barack Obama. At the end of the day, I would also rather get knifed in the front—and not in the back. McCain is not to be trusted. It’s as simple as that.
Too early to tell. All of this is projection. The campaign is over for now. Let’s revisit in 100 days and by then we will know.
Listen to his words… and watch his low level sections…His high level selections are just whitewash.
“It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.” – Ayn Rand
Hah! Centrism my ass.
Fact is the Dems are out to destroy the Republican party at the national level just the way they destroyed it in California. And the Repibs didn’t help their cause with their behavior when they had majorities. And, yes I know Arnies’ a Republican but that’s an electoral convienience.
He’ll be “centrist” the same way Clinton was – using the media to take credit for ostensibly centrist policy, while appointing loony-toons Trotskyites (does Hazel O’Leary ring any bells?) to not-very-visible but extremely critical positions, who will in turn enable very bad people to have their way.
Clinton was successful in hiding the radicalism of his administration (why isn’t Jamie Gorelick in prison?), because the media completely refused to report on anything negative. You can take to the bank that they’ll do the same for 0bama.
I believe Obama is a very cautious person and politician who wants to be popular and liked. He also seems to want to avoid conflict. He will try to be just conservative enough to be wildly popular while slipping in as much liberalism as he can on the sly or otherwise. Mr. Obama has said some extreme left wing things off the cuff, it is his default mode. He wants to be one the great presidents, especially as the first black one, so I think (hope & pray) he might move to the right to placate the huge block of voters conservatives make up.
Mr. Obama will pursue policies that will get him re-elected four years from now. No more and no less. If he is pragmatic, he won’t be burning any political capital to please the left. He will throw them sops high on rhetoric but low in risk. The left will love his judicial nominations even as the rest of America stands oblivious to the long-term implications. It’s the one area where a low risk strategy will yield hefty returns.
Lord knows what the Republicans think or plan these days. As a Conservative I desire small government, individual freedom and responsibility, fiscal responsibility and a strong foreign policy. I don’t see this in the future.
The Left long ago gave up trying to push their agenda through the voters, they began the “long march” by corrupting the mechanisms of government. Watch the judicial appointments carefully; this is where the lasting impact will take place. A bevy of older judges will retire to be replaced with ever more radical activist ones. These Prelates will hand down looney leftist decisions for the next two or three decades. Creating Law from the bench is one of the Left’s favorite activities. this will be the real legacy of Obama.
Sure he is a centrist and always has been. That is a centrist from the viewpoint of the MSM. In that viewpoint there are two types of people; right-wingers (read evil white men) and centrists. So by definition every liberal Democrat is a centrist.
TLC – Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.” – Ayn Rand
Fortunately, we listen more to people like George Washington, asking officers and troops to endure terrible sacrifice at Valley Forge. Not some self-centered and intensely ambitious Soviet Jew like Alice Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand’s real name) who was educated at Russia’s most elite university, but who was very down on Communism because it hit her family’s wealth.
Or Churchills blood, tears, toil, sweat speech. Who knew it was a call to slavery.
Or Herbert Hoover and the Quakers, who asked Americans to sacrifice and go meatless half the week and donate money for food so Belgians, Germans, and Alice Rosenbaum’s ass back in St Petersburg after WWI could be fed by “stupid altruists on the road to slavery”.
JFK? Ask not who you wish to be slaves to?
Reagan? Did Reagan really say that we all need to serve a cause greater than ourselves? Was that his way of enslaving the West?
For numerous reasons, Ayn Rand is a sort of campy joke to anyone over the age of 30 looking for a coherent philosophy…her “niche” is self-centered young libertarians that put up posters of their favorite CEO or get-rich-quick entrepreneur in their college dorms.
As was joked about her kinsperson Leon Trotsky (real name Lev Bronstein) – the quality of Ayn Rand’s thought might have improved via an ice axe..
Let me get this straight – a guy who is proposing a near $1 trillion spending bill to pass through some of his largest pet projects is somehow a centrist?
They want a President who will deal with the world rather than treat it as the enemy, with the exception of the Israeli Right and a handful of corrupt Muslims they put in power.
When the jihadis are running thru your backyard, we’ll see if your fickle American public wants to “deal” with world.
One big boom on domestic soil, one good snort of some chemical weapons by the fence straddling crowd, and your feckless ilk will be scurrying to get off the mat just as you did on 9/11, calling on the barbarian neocons to save you.
And you’ll be the first to hop on the Israeli bandwagon, cheering them on as you hide underneath the sheets.
Maybe he will position himself in the middle of the big circle on individual issues leaving the small circles to his opponents.
This is how Toyota places a model in a sector.
We will see.
Seriously Jen, that was a ridiculous effort, probably up with Bridget Johnson’s end of the year effort. He will impose tax cuts that don’t cut taxes, stimulus plans that won’t stimulate, but will make it impossible to ever really cut taxes again, slash the military effectively, probably find a way for Israel to be reannexed between Egypt and Jordan, with Samantha Powers providing the guidance. You can also say good by
to any non ‘government approved’ media like Pajamas. One has to be willfully ignorant of his last twenty years, to consider otherwise.
Where do these authors come from when they say that Obama may be more conservative then McCain would have been? Do they seriously think that any conservative is going to look at Obama and think about switching to the Democrat party? And please stop talking about McCain as being the standard bearer for the Republican party. The reason he lost was because of his standing in the party. He is not liked at all by most in the party. Most of us had to hold our nose to vote for him this year and the only reason we’re disappointed about his loss was that Obama won. It’s hard to vote against something rather then for something, and that’s what Republican’s had this year.
Obama is going to be Jimmy Carter II. As soon as we are hit by the first terrorist attack on our soil after his coming to power, his ratings will be lower then Congress’s (if that’s possible). He’s a one-termer at best, assuming that he’s not impeached for being grossly incompetent before the end of his term.
Don’t worry too much. He is a hard left committed liberal and will only be able to contain himself for a short period. He just thinks he is smarter that we all are. Just look at the HHS secretary, labor secretary and environment folks around him. Is he going to make them all centrist…I doubt it.
How about his pick for the next FCC chairman. He is committed to open borders,socialized medicine, unfettered abortion,cap and trade and higher taxes. I don’t think he is going to abandon all of these goals. He will make a mess of it….guaranteed. He is a smarter, slicker version of Jimmy Carter. Don’t be fooled for a moment.
Obama is a hard leftist. Period. He will work hard to look reasonable and centrist all throughout his presidency, but he will be working equally hard to enact his radical liberal agenda.
Obama is gonna snake your brand, dummies.
That is what we do at my work….if we see a better paradigm, we don’t try to discredit it, we steal it.
However, we are uninterested in Failed Paradigms.
The conservative moment is Epic Toast.
Wisdom of teh Sages– epic fail– cite McCain’s age is a liability in teh Age of Information– anyone can be a Sage, if they can read.
Jacksonian populism– epic fail– cite Palin’s fail, JTP’s fail. The Noble Yeoman Farmer is neither bright enough nor capable enough to lead.
Free market– epic fail– cite the Tyranny of Greed and the Econopalypse.
The Spread of Freedom– epic fail– cite the Grand Misadventure of teh Manifest Destiny of Judeoxian Democracy in Iraq where we spent 700 billion and 400 lives to make another Islamic State.
If I were the conservative movement, i’d retire to lick my wounds and reinvent myself.
/ghetto snap@Rubin
pardon, 4000 lives from the finest military force on the planet.
i frickin hate you guys at this point.
“All of this has many Republicans shrugging their shoulders and wondering if this isn’t better than what they might have expected from a McCain presidency.”
As a lifelong Republican and staunch conservative, I agree completely with this statement. McCain was a disaster of a nominee on every level. He brought nothing to the table. Nothing. Romney would have been the best candidate to address the economic crisis, but Mike Huckleberry and the Mormon-hating religious fringe took him out at the kneecaps. Our loss.
Obama continues to impress me, and if he manages to govern from the center, I think he’ll make a great President indeed.
Steven Chu is going before Congress today for his confirmation hearings and will probably be overshadowed by Hillary’s hearings.
Chu wants to raise gasoline prices to the $8.00 figure to get Americans off gas. This is such an excellent move, since other large energy dependent, producing nations are tapping into their energy sources for MORE energy. They’re even increasing their use of coal.
If I went to Washington today, I’d probably see Congress out on the veranda engaged in a spitting contest, all facing up wind.
Well, I’m betting it’ll be a headfake, but I imagine we’ll know for certain in the next couple of months.
15.William Keller. Yes….what you said.
Bambi is playing a role. He has never done anything but play a role. Now he’s playing the role of “centrist president who wants everybody to like him and wants to look really presidential and grownup”.
It’s possible that if he plays the role well (and if he believes there are still enough people who care enough about the future of the United States that he cares whether or not they like him), the destruction may be less than we feared.
Does that translate in to credibility? No.
Does that make him a “safe” and “wise” leader? No.
Does that make him “pleasing to conservatives”?
NO.
Barack Obama is about as centrist as Karl Marx was.
no, it’s a combination of him veering to the right and republicans in house and senate willing to go along with anything that the polls tell them will fly. You know, like a trillion dollar debt to save the economy plan, stuff like that.
Carol M Browner will be Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change — She is a Socialist and a commissioner on ‘Commission for a Sustainable World Society’ of Socialist International
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1947&&ModuleID=34#cb
Obama is NOT a centrist in any way. He is a shyster, like most community organizers.
Maybe Obama is reading Atlas Shrugged. Capitalism has its warts but it is always preferred over the enslaving monster of socialism. If you believe your are entitled to the fruits of your neighbors’ labor, you are no better than a thief. To demand your neighbor sacrifice his earnings and life to satisfy your demands for compassion is to reduce them to slavery. (How ironic guilt-ridden liberal white folk want a person of color to drag us to that socialist plantation!)
Obama, to his credit, is listening to Dick Chaney, a man of immense international business experience. There is hope. Here’s what else Obama’s coming to terms with – REALITY!
While Western European countries lower real tax rates and have grown weary of socialism’s stagnant plantation economy, Obama recognizes we cannot tax the most productive of our society any more. The Laffer Curve is correct.
We face a $53 Trillion debt load. The stalled credit swap market (short term cash pool, frozen over by deceptive valuations) is $63 Trillion. Tossing a mere $1.3 trillion bail-out at them is to piss in the wind.
Warren Buffet’s right; our foreign debtors are buying our domestic assets up at a malignant rate. We will be owned by China and others in a generation if we don’t reverse the trade deficit.
We must segregate social entitlement programs out the general fund and move Medicare, Medicade, and Social Security to a pay-as-you-go reality and slash their unfunded mandates. Cut benefits. Stop raising the debt service on our grandchildren.
End the projection of American military force, the PAX Americana. We cannot afford it. Redirect these forces to our southern boarder and stop illegal immigration from Mexico. We must restore English as the only language for commerce and education lest we become Balcanized.
We must return to manufacturing and making things that constitute real jobs.
Nothing in the liberal Democratic platform will address these problems, so no wonder he’s shedding them.
I could be wrong, but I think the many right side pundits who are proclaiming Sheik Barack “one of us” are going to look like idiots in the not too distant future.
We need some new pundits.
I would add, the Whigs I mean GOP need to be driven out of business, not for their centrism, but for their ‘me too socialism’.
ob is not cautious, he is clueless – with just enough smarts to act cautious. the IDF will launch a major strike within 48 hours of 1/20/09. what a wake up call and look who will answer that 3am call – a doofus with glistening pecs.
23. SAF
This is the only response worth reading; for all of you soothsaying as to Obama’s “head-fakes” or centrism, you’ll just have to wait to get proven wrong. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know what the hell is going to happen next. TARP will probably get passed, but will it work? That will be the biggest, immediate question of all in the short term.
The problem with Hamas is not that they don’t recognize Israel, it’s that they don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Next: The faith that Hamas follows allows them to practice lying in order to advance their cause which is to destroy Israel.
Sometimes I think that the Obama soon to be administration practices what the Middle East has perfected, the art of talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Someone said that Obama is going to make the U. S. look like the USSR:
Not hardly. The USSR may have been model socialists, but they didn’t dismantle their homeland security, undermine their military, and treat all their enemies as good neighbors, like Obama and Congress intend to do.
I can see the New History of the United States now; “Once great nation divests itself of it’s reigning status in two years.”
What do these idiots have against COMPETENCE, ACCOMPLISHMENT, and SELF PRESERVATION?
How in the HELL can anyone consider obamasama a centrist? Only an idiot or someone so far to the left that they can’t even see the middle. But I repeat myself…
Obama didn’t come from nowhere to defeat the Clintons and the Republicans by being a fool. He’s obviously a smart guy who knows how to put together a good team. We’re in times of complex crises and we need smart people at the top. Obama has the huge perk of being able to attract again very high caliber people to government, the real life Will Hunting’s of the world who were/are utterly contemptuous of Bush and his people, and who would never have worked for another Republican administration.
Hmmmmm, sounds like 1998 to 2000 in the UK with Blair and Brown and look what they did with the UK, the only difference is that Obama is walking into an economy in trouble while those two destroyers walked into a situation where government debt was the lowest for 100 years and the economy was doing very well. They did a lot of sneaky stuff ready for their next term, don’t be fooled, if he gets in for a second term then you will be in trouble, in the UK the biggest amount of damage was in the second term.
I’m wondering how long it will be before Arabs start lobbing rockets and mortars into the U.S. on a daily basis?
Anyone who thinks Obama will govern from the center has not done the homework on this guy’s background. Look at his voting record in the Illinois Senate. Look at his voting record in the U.S. Senate. Look at the ideological composition of his family: he’s a Red Diaper Baby. Look at who mentored him during his teenage years in Honolulu. His friends and associates. His statements to large and to small, private groups during the primary campaign.
His movement towards the center occurred during the general campaign, for the purpose of enhancing his electability.
Also, his selection of Socialist Carol M. Browner as his energy adviser is right to form.
Ms. Rubin is no different from much of the mainstream journalist community. They are constantly suckered about things important, from Iraqi “stringers” on down to the charms and deceptions of U.S. politicians.
You keep using that word – centrism. I think it does not mean what you think it means.
Inigo
(Moderation? Which word offends – “word” or “think”?)
BC I just don’t see that in his appointments. And remember it was JFKs and LOBJs Whiz Kids that got us into a mess back in the 60s. I don’t think we need geniuses, just level-headed, honest people without a hidden agenda.
Obama shall be known as “The Delegator in Chief”. He’s already cutting back on Presidential responsibility. And it looks like he’ll have an advisor for every conceivable situation within arms length.
“I’m wondering how long it will be before Arabs start lobbing rockets and mortars into the U.S. on a daily basis?”
More likely Mexican drug cartels.
Short version:
Screw the GOP,they’ll get what they deserve.
Long version:
“That’s probably good for the country, and just awful for the angry Left and the future prospects of the GOP.”
Here is your fundamental mistake,the party is a mere vehicle,like my car.
I like my car,it takes me from point A to point B reliably and in reasonable comfort.The day my car starts trying to take me to destinations I don’t want to go,by routes I did not choose and calls me names with that irritating “you door is ajar” computer voice,that’s the very day I get a new car.
“Republican” is not part of my identity,I am a conservative.
When the party espouses,promotes and protects my views and values,I support it with my donations and my vote and when it doesn’t,I don’t.
This what happened to the GOP in 1996,when a series of unpopular policies,including amnesty,finally hit the voter’s collective gag reflex.
My emotional attachment to the GOP has declined steadily over the years,as it became a party of professional politicians interested only in getting reelected and pandering to big business.
If the GOP were to go *POOF* today, a new party would form to fill the vacuum.
“And of course, there is the old standby of moaning about President Bush’s advice not to exclude minorities. (”No, we like our diminishing electorate just fine!”)”
And I have zero sympathy for the party’s demographic problem,since it is,largely,a problem of the party’s own creation.Had they
honored the ’86 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) a.k.a. the Simpson-Mazzoli Act,rather than getting cute/clever and opposing and/or undermining and sabotaging every effort at enforcement,they would undoubtedly be in far better shape today.If 6 amnesties haven’t solved the problem,I think we can take it that 10 or 12 more won’t solve the problem,either.
BTW,libertarians can take the same lessons from this.
Nope,all that matters is that there be a conservative party,something the GOP clearly no longer wants to be.
Now will that party be mainstream center/right in the American tradition?
Maybe……but maybe not.In the UK,the convergence of Torie/New Labor policies and doctrine has led to the white working class migrating to the British Nationalist Party as the only alternative.
Bad news,as the BNP really is a working class fascist party and while they don’t like immigrants,they regard the true enemy as being the “ruling class”,the upscale,NuLab,Blairite,marxist-capitalist yuppies of the last 15 yrs(hint hint).
President elect Obama wants and thinks that he can please everyone. All of his past associations are hard left. At the end of the day, these are the people he will want to please. If he does not thrown the rest under the bus, the hard-left people who worked so hard to elect him will turn on him; the NYT has already suggested that he will be a one term president.
At the end of the day, I think that he will please no one and anger almost everyone. If you think President Bush had a difficult time, you have not seem anything yet.
Centrist? Not in my opinion.
It’s still too early to tell if Obama is a real centrist–after all, he hasn’t taken office yet!
Obama managed to get elected by portraying himself as an abstract “change” from Bush, and when the banking crisis hit, McCain didn’t adequately point out the Democrats’ role in provoking it (forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make bad loans to people who couldn’t pay them back).
Since winning the election, he has probably gotten an earful from the Bush Administration about the real foreign threats he must face as President, and no wishful thinking about Iran as a “tiny” country will take its weapons away. If he doesn’t want to be blamed for a terrorist attack on America later, he will have to toughen up now.
During the campaign, Obama got away with telling everyone what they wanted to hear, despite dozens of self contradictions that neither the media nor the McCain campaign ever pointed out.
Obama has never really run anything except the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a huge failure ($160 million spent, no improvement in test scores). He is likely to govern as he has campaigned, vacillating all over the map trying to please everyone, with Democrat majorities in Congress pushing him hard left, with no real convictions of his own.
Is Obama a centrist or a socialist, a hawk or an appeaser? I certainly don’t know, and neither does Obama, yet.
I tend to doubt Obama’s positions on just about any issue will drive the GOP out of business any time soon. Claiming President-elect Obama is a centrist before he’s even taken the oath is premature, especially given his Chicago Machine background, associations with Weather Underground terrorists and ACORN leftists, former New Party affiliation, recorded public statements, most of his appointments (including a Socialist), state and federal public office voting record–when he wasn’t voting ‘Present’–and so on. President-elect Obama will go hard Left soon enough, once he’s calmed the (very legitimate) fears of slightly less than half of the electorate and consolidated the transition. The other, liberal half will soon have all of their hopes realized: a largely nationalized economy, idiotic adherence to Green-inspired energy regulations motivated by a pseudo-religious faith in global warming dogma, abortion on demand at government expense, and de facto repeal of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, when an adoring mainstream media becomes a Pravda-like organ of the Obama Administration and ‘hate speech’ legislation encompasses criticism of policy, when increasingly stringent Brady Bill qualifications for buying a firearm exclude all but a tiny percentage of the population.
Hard times coming, I think, but I’m a hopeful sort. We’ve had bad Presidents, before. He couldn’t be worse than a Carter, say, or a Harding or a Buchanan. Or maybe he could, but we’ll muddle through somehow.
Obama is a hard leftist but he is clever. He’ll play around at moderation but his heart won’t be in it. The Republicans, if they can find some leaders, will have plenty of issues very shortly.
A centrist? What is centrist about supporting the radical green agenda? Opposing using domestic oil, gas, and cola reserves? Closing Gitmo? Supporting global warming? Supporting unionism? Supporting bigger and bugger government at the cost of our liberties? No, Obama is not a centrist nor are the majority of Democrats. They are socialists pure and simple and this must be repeated time and time again.
Cedarford, just what exactly is “hard right”? I can identify a loony leftist, they’re all around us but I have trouble finding people on the “far right”.
Conservatives and Republicans in general should be able to support Obama’s foreign policy if it is executed as currently presented. This would have the double benifit of validating the Bush ‘neocon’ perspective and showing that Republicans (unlike Democrates) are actually willing to give bipartisan support to foreign policy. There will still be much to oppose on the domestic front, from ‘infrastructure’ that won’t stimulate anything but more pork-barrel spending, to ‘shared’sacrifice’ that always seems to mean I get to pay more in taxes.
REF #48 — Wow Carol M Brown (Socialist) has been scrubbed from the Socialist International web site. Of course that is what they do.
Soon after his inauguration we will get to see how Obama responds to the next terrorist attack on US soil. That will be more interesting than this thread.
Why are bible and backwoods always put in the same phrase? Believing in God, and believing that killing a child is wrong, and that 2 men or 2 women marrying is wrong, does not make one backwoods. If gays were meant to be together, they’d be able to reproduce and benefit the species. And I’d love to know exactly why it is that all these well educated elite liberals can’t seem to avoid an unwanted pregnancy, and have instead to kill the baby. Birth control isn’t hard to use. Of course, what they really don’t want to tell you is that abortion seekers are overwhelmingly black and overwhelmingly repeat customers, and libs like it just fine that way.
Quite frankly, health insurance is a commodity, not a right. Drs have to make money, the people insuring you have to make money. Unless, of course, it’s the government insuring you. Then they can just take money from the rest of us to pay for your healthcare. If you live in a house and drive a car and have a cell phone and more than i pair of shoes, and walk around whining about not being able to afford health insurance, I am much more likely to spit on your stupidity than feel sorry for you. And that is exactly who most of these “uninsureds” are: people who just would rather spend their money on other things. You make that choice, you live (or die) by it.
I don’t think there’s a centrist left in DC, and there’s certainly not a conservative. No conservative would throw billions of taxpayer dollars at companies who are too incompetent to survive. Hell, Linens n Things had ad much bigger market share than GM, but we let them fail. Why? Guess they don’t contribute to enough campaigns, or golf with the right people.
I can’t decide if Obama is just dumb and naive or if he’s a genius who knows exactly what he’s doing. This really does put Republicans in a pickle. Many on the far left are unhappy with Obama, but where else will they go? There is no way they’ll NOT vote for Obama in 2012. After all, he’s black and that alone is enough of a liberal credential as far as they’re concerned. They’ll vote for him and complain all along the way.
As for the right, Obama is so far moving to the center – there is no question. Is it because he is really a centrist or because he cares more about re-election than his own values? I suspect it’s the latter, but other than socially conservative issues, Repubs may not have much to complain about by then.
If Obama is aware of all this and is moving in this direction deliberately in order to ensure a re-election in 2012, he’s not as dumb as I thought he was.
Frankly, I believe that Obama is a serial liar. Let’s wait until his actions prove the matters described in your hopeful article. Then we can cheer.
You mean the guy who said that we need to all sacrifice for the greater good? That guy? Yea, that’ll win conservatives.
For gods sake … the man hasn’t even made ONE SINGLE DECISION as President yet … not one … he has walked and talked like a radical liberal his entire life … every single decision or vote of consequence he has cast has been from the far left …
Suddenly you think this con man in a suit is a centrist ? Because he hasn’t said he’ll void the Second Amendment or raise taxes 100% ?
Give him a chance to, you know, actually do something, then judge his actions … not his words because as we have all seen his words aren’t worth the paper they are printed on … the man has lied at every step of this process … Now you think he’s telling the truth ? Please …
Obama had to run to the left of Clinton to get the nomination. He never has to win a democrat primary again. He does not need the crazies on the fringe of the party anymore. Now he is fishing for votes of independents for the next general election and the way to do that is to be a third way centrist.
Does Jennifer Rubin really believe that an Alinskyite like Obama is going to play his Leftism right out in the open? The truly pernicious stuff is going to go on under the radar, inside the bureaucracy.
Will this prove difficult for the Republican Party to combat? Sure, but that doesn’t make Obama a centrist.
Please Jennifer. Obama is not a centrist. There is nothing centrist in his past as a person, community organizer, lawyer, state senator or US senator. Nothing. He is hard left and always has been.
Don’t be fooled. His tax cuts are not tax cuts. With one or two exceptions his “centrist” picks aren’t centrist, they just aren’t as far left as we thought they would be. Not to mention, his proclamations are almost never specific. He talks in generalities that can be interpreted in various ways…not to mention he said most of what he said to get elected.
There is no reason, outside of blind hope to believe that he will be anything other than as hard-left as he can. He’s not totally stupid. He’ll back away from some of the promises that he made to the loony-left just because he wants to be re-elected,
Everyone, let’s not forget his best friends, his voting record and his own words in an effort not to seem pre-judgemental. If we do, he and the Democrats will screw us while we aren’t paying attention.
Anyone can go into business selling soft goods and housewares. The technology base needed to build engines, transmissions, and suspensions takes years to develop. (When a truly new engine design goes into service, it gets headlines in the trade press; transmission designs get refined over years or even decades.) We are already depending on foreign shipyards for our Navy, and we will soon be using foreign-made aircraft for critical military roles. We already buy munitions from countries around the world, although we could probably reverse-engineer them in a year or so. Building factories to make them would take longer.
Is that a good enough reason?
Frankly, I believe that Obama is a serial liar.
Bookend to the serial Dimocratic rapist that proceeded him.
Obama is already campaigning for 2012. Viewed through that prism, everything he’s doing/saying makes perfect sense. Remember the Clinton years?
I wouldn’t worry too much about conservative issues. Something tells me conservatives will have issues galore in about a year and a half. The trick will be picking our battles. See P. J. O’Rourke’s recent piece on “We Blew It” for some guidance here.
Of course, then, assuming the Republicans can capitalize on this, the $64,000 question will be: can we trust them to follow-through? Well… I voted for a balanced budget amendment and term limits, and (eventually) got the “marriage amendment” and Terri Schiavo… so I’m not exactly optimistic.
The Republican Party 2010: This Time We Mean It… Really.
JENNIFER-I hate to inform you, but if you think OBAMASKANK will be conservative in any way youve been hanging out with BARBARA WAWA and JOY BEHAR too long. OBAMASKANK wont do the dirty work himself. That is what hes got the likes of COMMUNIST Carol Browner for. Most of his “changes” wont be by legislation. Like most COMMUNIST countries, the devil is in the BUREAUCRACY. The BEAUCRACIES of the EPA, OSHA, THE EOC, ETC will be given virtually unblimited POWER to implement the EXTREMIST agenda the OBAMASKANK wants to impose. For example CAP AND TRADE. Even most DEMONCRAPS wont want to be on record as supporting CAP AND TRADE. So they will implement it by BUREAUCRATIC FIAT and then claim that they couldnt stop it. They will do the same with CARD CHECK. Just look yesterday. The Sec/labor designate WOULD NOT ANSWER A QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER SHE WOULD SUPPORT CARD CHECK. She actually said “Ill answer that question in private”. THE COMMIE SLEAZEBAG DID NOT WANT IT TO BE IN THE OPEN ABOUT HER SUPPORT OF UNION THUGGERY. THAT is an example of what the OBAMASKANK is Jennifer. Ive noticed from some of your writings you seem to be soft on OBAMSKANK. Jennifer, please do not present yourself as a conservative if you support an ANTI-AMERICAN MARXIST.
by the way JENNIFER-SOMETHING MCSHAME HAS NEVER LEARNED. The old saw about what happens when you try to be in the “middle”. You end up getting run over by both sides. Just admit the truth dear. ANY middleman makes ANYTHING more EXPENSIVE and INEFFICIENT. Most obvious example-HOW DOES A 2 BILLION DOLLAR GOVT BUREAUCRACY IMPROVE ANYONES HEALTH CARE? A BUREAUCRAT KNOWS MEDICINE BETTER THAN A DOCTOR?????
This is why Republicans lose elections. Did Democrats talk about how wonderful Bush’s leftward moves on education and healtcare were? No, they attacked him and pushed further to the left. If Republicans sit around dreamy eyed about Obama they will be punched in the gut just like the suckers before them. And if Obama really turns right, then push even harder to the right and force him to enact the Republican agenda.
Anyway, I really doubt the mental stablility of the right. Were Democrats writing dreamy articles about Bush in January 2000? Stop the nonsense and let’s see how the man governs. He is the President and deserves respect, but politically speaking, whatever he proposes should be met with a counter proposal that is further to the right.
Where is it written whoever is the President has to have nothing but party affiliation in their administration and nothing to do with the other party. This is the thinking of the far left who wants Obama’s administration a pure Democrat one. Who cares if Obama turns out to be a centrist. It’s no sweat off the nose of the Republicans. No Republican will get a pink slip. Everyone says Obama has to deal with reality now, being President is totally different then campaigning. Well, it seems Obama is dealing with the reality of being the President, it’s those with their crystal balls whose having a tougher time, seeing how they predicted so much. Many have said that Obama is turning his back on those who got him in office. That he’s making so many mistakes and he isn’t even President yet. We just had an election. What does that mean. Obama is not a Senator anyone. He’s not morally obligated to vote as a liberal Democrat anymore. He’s going to do whats best for the country. It’s called being President. If either the Democrats, Republicans, and especially the Conservatives can’t live with that, tough.
To Anton: While some of Obama’s appointments may have some West Wing-type intellectual snappiness, the people I was referring to are generally not in the public eye….
21. progressoverpeace:
“He knows what the Country needs. All he needs is understanding and support.
LOL. A needy President. Great …”
I meant people like you need to understand the problems and the solutions so the Country can get ahead.
Anyone who believes Barack Obama and his proposals are anything close to centrist has a defective understanding of history, political philosophy, and most especially economics.
Just because only a few lone mainstream voices are objecting to, just to choose one big example, the ‘stimulus’ does not make this idea ‘centrist’. It is straight out of the playbook of the Left, and just as socialistic coming from Larry Summers or Ben Bernanke as it would be from Chavez.
Every important program that Obama is pushing is progressive, i.e. a form of socialism. Green jobs, public works programs, deficit spending and printing money to pay for them, ‘soft’ power, etc, etc. All left wing notions and nothing Obama has said has given any indication that he will do anything ‘centrist’ or even close to ‘right wing’.
Conservatives, if there are any, who think this way need to try to see a little deeper and study more. Popular commentators on the ‘right’ really need to get educated and pay better attention to fundamental ideas, which determine the long-term direction of society.
Those optimistic that Obama will suddenly have morphed into a “centrist” must simply have not looked at the man, and what little of his adult life he’s shown to the world.
Twenty years of insisting upon government control of almost everything, not the least of which is health care, isn’t really just a mistaken impression we all got.
He got elected to the Illinois legislature on little more than a gun-ban platform with a some pork added on the side.
He’s never said anything but that a benevolent state will do the right thing since no other entity can.
But never mind that, just keep in mind his take on the Constitution: a flawed document, and one judges should just ignore when their feelings tell them to.
Come on Jennifer. There is nothing centrist about Obama’s “stimulus” proposals. I think you are projecting your hopes that he isn’t going to be Awful with a capital A. Nothing good will come of this.
About this thread:
CONCLUSION:
If you’re not a right-winger, you’re a leftist and centrism doesn’t exist. That’s how narrow-minded these people can be!
Wake up! There is a huge Silent Majority and it’s centrist. The right and left FRINGES are tiny, but very vocal. You know where you are.
“Maybe Obama is reading Atlas Shrugged.”
If he is, you can be assured he will adopt none of the right ideas from it, and all of the wrong ones. He will be James Taggart ten lifetimes before he gets close to being Henry Rearden.
Obama knows that his Presidency will be judged on whether he pulled the nation from the brink. If he fails, it will be because he was unable to get enough Republican support .. which means he needs to be pragmatic to start.
#69 Ken Hahn, you’re exactly right. Obama is far from being a centrist. This is all an enticement to get the conservative and evangelical vote come 2012. That’s why he wants Rick Warren at his inauguration. That’s why he’s kept Bob Gates at Defense. And that’s why he’s now talking about tax cuts for even the wealthy. This is all so gullible people forget his past and the fact that he was voted “the most liberal senator of all time”. Even a hard-core liberal friend of mine said that on Obama’s last year of his term, you will see the extreme leftwing side of him come out fiercely. But throughout his administration, including in the beginning, you will see the subtle liberal jabs like a gay junior cabinet member here and there and extreme, ultra-liberal, pro-union cabinet members and underlings at Labor and at the State Dept., etc., etc.
A person’s past colors a person’s thinking and motivation, and remember his past is Ayers, Wright, Rezko, ACORN, Chicago political machination, Blogojevich, hiding behind his birth certificate, etc., etc., etc.
Jennifer, Jennifer: I’m an amateur voyeur to the political arena, but I know that Obama’s raison-d’etre is to make Capitalism more “fair”. That dwarfs his other concerns. He wants continued and even more income-transfer from higher-earners to lower or no-earners. He’s discussed his tax plans quite a few thousand times and he’s doing nothing to surprise us. We are sunk. He doesn’t understand that high-earners and businesses MUST see decreased tax rates, or our economy is sunk. Jeeeesh……I can’t even go on. It’s so elementary. We are freaking toast with this semi-socialist.
“To say that the Republicans lack both a message and leaders is to understate the depth of the problem: if Obama has his way they will lack a reason for existence.”
Fallacy. This is like saying that if McCain won, and then did a lot to tick off conservatives, it would have taken away the Democrats’ reason for existence.
However, we know from experience that when George W. Bush tacked to the center, the Democrats called him a fascist and used that as a way to move things even further left.
What will take away the GOP’s reason for existence is not anything Obama does. Rather, it will be if they decide to try to beat Obama by joining him.
It’s not that the terms “left,” “right,” and “center” don’t mean anything, it’s that they’re relative terms, and thus mean different things to different people.
There are only three primary political urges, and the vast majority of us possess all three to one extent or another: the urge for public morality, the urge for social justice and the urge for freedom. The problem for us as a polity lies in the fact that policies designed to serve any one of these three urges conflict with each other at some point, forcing us to choose one goal over the others.
Obama is all about social justice. It’s all he’s ever done and all he ever knows. So while he might deflect some ot the ire of social conservatives over the issue of gay marriage and gain a little cred with Jacksonians regarding foreign policy, at the end of the day he will not let the cause of freedom compromise any of his social justice priorities. The left will like him just fine.
yours/
peter.
He’s going to give in to his lefty tendencies soon enough. If his latest spiel about Israel only being able to defend herself without endangering the humanitarian aide mission nonsense holds up.
DEMOCRAT HYPOCRITES CANNOT HIDE
The Democrat Party destroyed the “Waters Edge” concept and will have to live with the results now that they are in control.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/war-in-iraq-lest-we-forget.html
Obama is no more a Centrist than is George Soros nor is Nancy Pelosi , Harry Reid and the other 51 in the Senate or a 171 in the House .
His inviro GAL from Chicago is a devout Socialist and all on his Economic staff are high taxing big Govt. Liberals who believe in the Kenysian theory on Big Govt. Socialism is the answer not Capitalism .
Obama is a racial Well taught Socialist no matter what his start not even into his first day in office .
The problem is Republicans are ”Centrist ” not Conservatives ,
“If you’re not a right-winger, you’re a leftist and centrism doesn’t exist. That’s how narrow-minded these people can be!”
CONCLUSION: If you’re not a leftist, you must be a narrow-minded right-winger.
Certainly there are many centrists, and many centrist notions. People can embrace all kinds of inconsistencies, or believe there are degrees that need to be balanced, trade-offs that are appropriate, etc.
And, you’re right, most people are ‘in the center’. Most people are pragmatists and have no consistent philosophy at all. But we’re not discussing most people; the topic is Barack Obama and his proposals, positions, and appointments.
The only thing the Republicans did wrong in the Terry Schiavo case was Gov. Bush did not seize custody of Terry and order the reinsertion of the feeding tube regardless of what any judge said. His brother would have pardoned him for that stunt, and Terry might still be alive if he’d done that.
We can make all the predictions and projections until the cows come home. Here’s min: we’re likely dealing with a guy who holds only one unshakeable core belief: “It’s all about the O.”
If I’m correct, then this could result in significant political success for Obama in the short term. However, I’m afraid it’ll be the death of all of us if or, more likely, when he finds himself in a jam that, at long last, he won’t be able to schmooze his way out of.
@105
You should be ashamed. Force feeding someone is not the American way.
DS
#72
Here is a screen shot of the site before she became a “centreist”
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/warm_and_red/
104. Jeff Perren:
“If you’re not a right-winger, you’re a leftist and centrism doesn’t exist. That’s how narrow-minded these people can be!”
CONCLUSION: If you’re not a leftist, you must be a narrow-minded right-winger.
Certainly there are many centrists, and many centrist notions. People can embrace all kinds of inconsistencies, or believe there are degrees that need to be balanced, trade-offs that are appropriate, etc.
And, you’re right, most people are ‘in the center’. Most people are pragmatists and have no consistent philosophy at all. But we’re not discussing most people; the topic is Barack Obama and his proposals, positions, and appointments.
_________________________________
B/S !
You believe in getting info from Terrorist any why you can from stopping and attack or America or you don’t .
You believe in Global Warming or you don’t .
You believe that Those that don’t sign the Geneva Convention and don’t honor it should be given civil rights .
You believe in Gay Marriage or you don’t
You believe in Abortion or you Don’t .
You believe in Death Penalty or you don’t
You believe in Gays serving with Straight men or you don’t .
You believe in High taxes , Welfare and Socialism or you don’t
You believe Capitalism is evil and needs to be replaced with Socialism .
You believe in Big Govt , more regulations and govt playing Nanny or you don’t
You believe the top 10 % don’t pay 67.9 % of al taxes and should pay more while te Bottom 50 % only pay 2.00975 % in taxes is fair .
You think Unions are a good thing .
You think riding in the middle of the road helps decide important decisons is Bright ?
I think your full of B/S !
Real leaders made decisons , live by them and arre needed not some half ass politician that goes with the wind to avoid difficulty .
It would seem that the opinions all stated above depend upon the answer to one question:
Will Obama remain reasonably anchored close to his deepest convictions and intellectual formation (which is revisionist Marxism)? Or, is he really just an opportunist without any strong ideological moorings? I hate to sound grating, but I think that those who believe him to be the latter are themselves more anchored in a cynical view of the world rather than deeply steeped in the history of ideas.
I believe Obama is the former, not the latter. Whenever he has appeared to be the latter, it has been in the service of the former. I believe he truly does hate capitalism and a strict understanding of the Constitution. The EVIDENCE of his life strongly suggests this. Perhaps this is my bias because I’m a former Marxist and I think I understand those people.
If I am wrong I will be the first to admit it. It would be better for the country if he indeed was more pragmatic than ideological. But if I’m a betting man I place my bet that he will, more often than not, defer to his inherited worldview. This guy has been vetted for a couple of decades by his fellow Leftist peers. If they saw ANY hint that he would double cross them, they would have dropped his ass faster than a hot potato.
As a professional investor, right now I have serious doubts about how he AND Congress will go about business. My best guess is that he and Pelosi are going to work at breakneck speed to push through the things they want. They know that 2010 is coming, so they don’t have a lot of time to do their stuff. Some would say that such a deadline with the voters would in fact moderate them. I think that they think the nation has indeed moved Leftward. There is some evidence that this has in fact happened, which I think will embolden them to generally not be centrist.
ReConUSMC,
You’ve targeted the wrong guy. I didn’t say I was a centrist or that I was sympathetic to anyone who doesn’t have a consistent philosophy. But the fact is that many people can and do embrace contradictions or sit in the middle. It’s a fact I didn’t invent and whether I like it or not doesn’t change that. Neither does your list.
I was quoting someone above. I’m not arguing that anyone who is ‘right wing’ is narrow minded. Nor did anything I wrote suggest that fence sitting is a desirable position.
90. vivo:I meant people like you need to understand the problems and the solutions so the Country can get ahead.
Jan 13, 2009 – 2:13 pm
I see. So … solutions like “bankrupt[ing] the coal industry”? Is that what you’re talking about? Or solutions like sitting down for tea with dictators? Or solutions to the problem that “… as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution …”. These are the ideas that need “understanding”? LOL.
You people are despicably insane. You think that your socialist, anti-American views are going to sell for much longer, then you are deluded, too. After the US takes another hit, or the dollar actually collapses due to idiotic social/environmental engineering by the idiot left kills the dollar, you people are going to have to go into hiding. You are aware of that, right?
The spending Obama will push through will go a long way to bankrupting this country. All that has to happen is for China to stop buying our Treasury paper.
You young people who wanted this cool black guy with his “Hopenchange” are going to get scrod like you have no earthly idea.
I hope you like the idea of working 40 years and paying 70+% of your dwindling income to the government.
For myself, I’m “going John Galt” for a few years.
Screw the GOP. They are not conservatives. And what is this crap about ‘centrists’ – all that means is no balls, mind-numbing cowardice, stand-for-nothing tripe. You wild eyed Obama cultists have no clue what you have done to us, you vapid morons. Screw you too.
Centrist?
Obama is appointing the most vapid Liberal Partisans…
The biggest joke so far, is the revelation of what the word “change” means to Mr. Obama.
Regretfully, Mr. Obama’s idea of “change”, is clearly a return to the disastrous Clinton Era of Corruption that enabled – inspired so many of the problems we see today:
1. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (perhaps the most dishonest Celebrity we have in Washington today – who recently lied about ‘dodging sniper fire’) is to become the next SEC of STATE? * This was the CO-President of an Administration that appeased the killer named Arafat, placated the Despotic endeavors of the tyrannical rule in North Korea, and made it their policy to lie about the Genocide in Rwanda.
2. Leon Panetta who spent most of his days as the Clinton White House Chief of Staff spinning the various Clinton Lies about Filegate, Travelgate , Billing-gate, Whitewater, etc., as the new CIA CHIEF?
3. Robert Reich (top economic Obama Adviser – slated for something big) who helped provide massive Federal Loan Guarantees to Enron during the 1990′s?
4. Attorney General nominee Eric H. Holder Jr., who was Deputy AG under the Clintons, who helped produce the pardon for MARC RICH and clemency for the FLAN Terrorists?
5. Rahm Emanuel chosen to be the new White House Chief of Staff, who is heavily connected to the massive Illinois corruption, which includes the corrupt Gov. Rod Blagojevich?
Whoaaaaa…
Of course, the selection of Joe Biden, a Beltway Insider for Decades who seems to lie as often as any Clinton Crony, was a vivid sign of a contradiction of the Obama sales pitch. Biden even voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, a clear contradiction to the negative Obama Campaign pitch about the Liberation of Millions of formerly oppressed Iraqis.
It is so laughable, it begins to get sad.
While the MSM is only focused on the Obama Children’s first days at a new school, the stage is being set for more disastrous failure.
“Change” seems to be nothing more than the return of the unethical, incompetent, greedy, deceitful, who obsessively spend taxpayer money while dreaming of new ways to raise taxation. These are the same tired Washington Insiders, who have a history of producing the most divisive Partisan diatribe, while they personally profiteer in the guise of public service.
The former Clinton Administration Officials are the same failures, who ignored the rise of Radical Islamic Terrorism, and enabled the danger posed by Al Qaeda throughout the 1990′s, even after the first attack on the WTC in 1993.
It is truly regretful and deeply concerning.
A sign of more folly to come.
112. “You people are despicably insane.” These leftist vampires are NOT insane. They ARE despicable and pure evil. Marxists lie because that is who they are, liars. They will do anything, say anything, sacrifice ANYTHING in service of the “cause.” It is their raison d’etre, it is in their DNA. They are not insane, silly, ignorant. They are utter absolute evil and they will destroy us.
As soon as that fellow who claims to have been born in Hawaii was elected, I offered that the Conservatives were far better off with him kissing our asses than having John McCain kissing the Progressives’.
I’d just remind one and all that he’s only brown-nosing the Conservatives because he wants to keep his tenuous hold in places like Virginia and Indiana.
Someone above correctly pointed out that the REAL acid test will be his judicial nominations.
REconUSMC – The below litany only makes you appear a dimbulb clown who cannot think but in black and white, all or nothing take it or leave it sloganeering answers to societal issues.
B/S !
You believe in getting info from Terrorist any why you can from stopping and attack or America or you don’t .
You believe in Global Warming or you don’t .
You believe that Those that don’t sign the Geneva Convention and don’t honor it should be given civil rights .
You believe in Gay Marriage or you don’t
You believe in Abortion or you Don’t .
You believe in Death Penalty or you don’t
You believe in Gays serving with Straight men or you don’t .
You believe in High taxes , Welfare and Socialism or you don’t
You believe Capitalism is evil and needs to be replaced with Socialism .
You believe in Big Govt , more regulations and govt playing Nanny or you don’t
You believe the top 10 % don’t pay 67.9 % of al taxes and should pay more while te Bottom 50 % only pay 2.00975 % in taxes is fair .
You think Unions are a good thing .
You think riding in the middle of the road helps decide important decisons is Bright ?
I think your full of B/S !
One sees a smattering of absolutist clowns on the Left or Right – like Alan Keyes and Dennis Kucinich. The important thing to remember is they have marginalized themselves so much with extremist beliefs that 95% of the public will not vote for them. And members of their own Party give such clown ideologues in the rank&file as well as leadership polite smiles as their pet vein-popping hairy thunderers – but thats about it. They are not taken seriously,
*****************
105. myth buster:
The only thing the Republicans did wrong in the Terry Schiavo case was Gov. Bush did not seize custody of Terry and order the reinsertion of the feeding tube regardless of what any judge said. His brother would have pardoned him for that stunt, and Terry might still be alive if he’d done that.
Anything that was Terri Schiavo died within half an hour of her brain being destroyed by lack of oxygen. What was left as the autopsy showed, was a veggie husk, and several dozen Right-to-Lifers nuts lying their asses off about her miraculous cognitions. Had Jeb Bush gone outlaw for a rutabaga, he would have been pulled from office.
***********
#74 – momof3:
Why are bible and backwoods always put in the same phrase?
Because political scientists have noted that the the Religious Right tends to concentrate in low-educated whites in lower socioeconomic strata and tend to live backwoods, or are 1st, 2nd Gen out of the backwoods and rural areas into suburbs or cities.
Believing in God, and believing that killing a child is wrong, and that 2 men or 2 women marrying is wrong, does not make one backwoods.
No, but it becomes likely that the typical person believing things like a zygote is a child, the Bible is literally true, evolution is a hoax, and homosexuality is mostly genetically determined – tend to come from the backwoods or have recent ancestors emerging from backwaters or low educational attainment families..
Momof3 – Quite frankly, health insurance is a commodity, not a right.
Quite frankly, everything the government does is a material or service commodity. Voters get to choose if they want to pay for such commodities, like schools, military protection, police, basic research, paying interest to the Chinese vs. stiff them for out competing us at a cheap labor price.
Sometimes we have chosen government because private enterprise and “freedom-lover’s free markets!!” have proved singular failures at providing comparable product via private enterprise. Now we have evidence that the private health sector in the US has failed to work as well as universal care – we pay 50% more per capita, have higher death rates & lower life expectancy than Europe or most of Asia, the number of uninsured is exploding again as costs explode and place private health insurance outside affordibility of the working poor.
Momof3 – walk around whining about not being able to afford health insurance, I am much more likely to spit on your stupidity than feel sorry for you. And that is exactly who most of these “uninsureds” are: people who just would rather spend their money on other things. You make that choice, you live (or die) by it.
With 40% overhead and another 20% of US medical costs attributable to fees for med profesionals, med facility, hospital and nursing home owners far higher than those charged in the advanced countries of Europe and Asia.
Annual private health care insurance costs have approached 10,000 per family vs. 6,000 in France. Poorer workers are faced with a choice of spending on inadequate insurance or going without and deliberately having no personal property or savings – becoming asset-less indigents.
As for spitting on the working poor and former Reagan Democrats, fortunately, Ayn Rand style conservatives, Wall Street ripoff artists, and the backwoods Fundies that do not believe in Darwinism except as applied to the poorer Americans? Well, you have no political power anymore. You scared the Silent Majority and Reagan workers away from such religious and conservative extremism.
You won’t be spitting on anyone.
This is a smart move on Obamas part. He is positioning himself for his second 4 years. Obama knows that Democrats will always vote Democrat no matter what. If Satan were to rise from hell and run as a Democrat the registered Dems would vote for him. However; the Republicans who are thinking voters weigh their options and vote accordingly. So, in closing, Obama will stay close to center for the first four years to keep the Republican vote, then will move far left for the second term.
116
If that is all true, and people who feel that government can and should play a roll in making peoples lives a little bit better are “pure evil”, why don’t you do something about it?
Mike @118,
Therefore (if you are right) it would not behoove Republicans to vote for Obama for a second term. I did not vote for him and there is absolutely no way I will vote for him in 2012. Former Leftists like me know these people too well. There is no way I am going back over to the other side, or even give them a second life. And I still think this guy will try to appear to be centrist but will actually move in the collectivist direction. He is a Marxist to the core. I know those people. From age 22 until age 32 I was a Marxist and I know how these people think. They will deceive in every possible way in order to get to their goals. By 1987 I had to break with them, for a lot of reasons, intellectual and personal. Obama is a man who is clearly a practitioner of the ethics of expediency. It’s hard to come away from a close examination of his life and influences and not conclude that.
The only way he’ll drive the GOP out of business is if he embraces free markets and disavows class warfare and bloated government, and stops idolizing the New Deal. I don’t see that happening. (I know I mean the reified GOP, not the actual one which he may indeed drive out of business. But if the GOP returns to defending small gov and capitalism it can actually offer an alternative.)
109. ReConUSMC:
“I think your full of B/S !
Real leaders made decisons , live by them and arre needed not some half ass politician that goes with the wind to avoid difficulty”
53% of voters elected Obama, 66,882,230. Talk to them. Your mixed soup bs doesn’t make sense. You cornered yourself as a fringe right winger. Very vocal. In a society, people help each other in peace.
105. myth buster:
The only thing the Republicans did wrong in the Terry Schiavo case was Gov. Bush did not seize custody of Terry and order the reinsertion of the feeding tube regardless of what any judge said. His brother would have pardoned him for that stunt, and Terry might still be alive if he’d done that.
Anything that was Terri Schiavo died within half an hour of her brain being destroyed by lack of oxygen. What was left as the autopsy showed, was a veggie husk, and several dozen Right-to-Lifers nuts lying their asses off about her miraculous cognitions. Had Jeb Bush gone outlaw for a rutabaga, he would have been pulled from o
________________________
So why do Leftist want “Convited ” Mass Murders to Live ?
115. brooklyn:
“Centrist?
Obama is appointing the most vapid Liberal Partisans…”
And you expected Republicans?
118. cedarford:
REconUSMC – The below litany only makes you appear a dimbulb clown who cannot think but in black and white, all or nothing take it or leave it sloganeering answers to societal issues.
B/S !
You believe in getting info from Terrorist any why you can from stopping and attack or America or you don’t .
You believe in Global Warming or you don’t .
You believe that Those that don’t sign the Geneva Convention and don’t honor it should be given civil rights .
You believe in Gay Marriage or you don’t
You believe in Abortion or you Don’t .
You believe in Death Penalty or you don’t
You believe in Gays serving with Straight men or you don’t .
You believe in High taxes , Welfare and Socialism or you don’t
You believe Capitalism is evil and needs to be replaced with Socialism .
You believe in Big Govt , more regulations and govt playing Nanny or you don’t
You believe the top 10 % don’t pay 67.9 % of al taxes and should pay more while te Bottom 50 % only pay 2.00975 % in taxes is fair .
You think Unions are a good thing .
You think riding in the middle of the road helps decide important decisons is Bright ?
I think your full of B/S !
One sees a smattering of absolutist clowns on the Left or Right – like Alan Keyes and Dennis Kucinich. The important thing to remember is they have marginalized themselves so much with extremist beliefs that 95% of the public will not vote for them. And members of their own Party give such clown ideologues in the rank&file as well as leadership polite smiles as their pet vein-popping hairy thunderers – but thats about it. They are not taken seriously,
__________________________
TOO -118. cedarford
How about you answer those questions Jerk Off !
What are you answers ..”"I’m not sure ” PRESENT ” ,Maybe , What ever you want , how ever they voted , TABLE THE MOTION , WHAT WILL GET ME VOTES AND RETURNED TO CONGRESS , I HAVE NO OPINION ?
The ”problem ” with the republican party is THEY HAVE BECOME CANDY ASS’S WHILE THE NANCY PELOSI , HARRY REID WHO RUN CONGRESS ARE AS RACIAL AS Dennis Kucinich EVER WAS SO YOUR B/S IS POINTLESS .
112. progressoverpeace:
“You people are despicably insane. You think that your socialist, anti-American views are going to sell for much longer, then you are deluded, too. After the US takes another hit, or the dollar actually collapses due to idiotic social/environmental engineering by the idiot left kills the dollar, you people are going to have to go into hiding. You are aware of that, right?”
Americans are not stupid. They know that the dollar is stronger when manufacturing, agriculture, innovation, entertainment and services drive the economy. Profits and taxes help share the wealth. That’s what capitalism and socialism drive to. Both CAN coexist. You’re living it right now. Egoism can hamper it. Life is not fair anyway.
I keep having to say it over and over again, but there is this hugely hilarious disconnect with what Obama’s base actually is and what conservatives think it is. It isn’t a bunch of wild commie college students. Obama’s base was to the right of hillary and edward’s. Hell, part of the problem of folding Obama’s campaign organization into the DNC was the fact that it contains tons of republicans and independents that might not want to work for the democrats in an official capacity. Just Obama.
And then there is this complete ignorance as to just what Obama’s been saying for the past year
Obama’s foreign policy will echo Bush SENIOR. Obama’s only said it a million times. If that didn’t scare his base off in the PRIMARY. Then it’s not going to do it now.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/969594.html
“Obama likens his foreign policy to that of Bush Sr., JFK, Reagan”
HE SAID THAT IN MARCH. When are conservative critics and the GOP going to get around to actually dealing in reality? How can you effectively oppose a guy that you lag behind by TEN MONTHS in identifying? Seriously? This just drives me crazy. He did that and he ended up with more money, and more supporters, not less. Where is this base that’s supposed to be angered by Kristol’s revelation?
Then there is this complete unawareness of the center shifting out from under the right. It’s like the GOP wants to run this stupid “i totally blocked your fist with my face!” strategy. “You’re only going to get a trillion dollars in spending, suck on that Obamabots!”
I’m seriously growing to detest columns like this.
3. vivo:
109. ReConUSMC:
“I think your full of B/S !
Real leaders made decisons , live by them and arre needed not some half ass politician that goes with the wind to avoid difficulty”
53% of voters elected Obama, 66,882,230. Talk to them. Your mixed soup bs doesn’t make sense. You cornered yourself as a fringe right winger. Very vocal. In a society, people help each other in peace.
_______________________________________________________
YOUR RIGHT EVEN VINO EVEN …
CASTRO , HUGO CHEVEZ AND THAT NUT IN IRAN SUPPORTED OBAMA
147 Million American ”PAID ” No Tax at all in 2007 . Voted Obama .
KNOW NOTHING College students Brain washed by LEFTIST PROFESSORS VOTED OBAMA
82 % OF JEWS VOTED OBAMA
HOLLYWOOD VOTED OBAMA
THE LEFTIST MEDIA VOTED OBAMA
GAYS VOTED OBAMA
GEORGE SOROS VOTED FOR OBAMA AND GAVE HIM MILLIONS
SOCIALIST UNIONS VOTED OBAMA
SOCIALIST PARTY VOTED OBAMA AND THEIR WEB SIGHT SUPPORTED HIM .
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY VOTED OBAMA AND SUPPORTED HIM ON THEIR WEB SIGHT .
BILL AYERS AND REV WRIGHT VOTED FOR OBAMA
THE BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT VOTED OBAMA
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA VOTED OBAMA AND THEIR WEB SITE SUPPORTED HIM
FOREIGNERS LIVING ON THE BACKS OF AMERICAN TAX PAYERS VOTED OBAMA
The bottom 50 % paid 2.0975 % in Taxes VOTED OBAMA …… Yet he is going to give a tax brake to the Middle class ?
Obama got 97.1 % of all Black Votes
Obama got 68.4 % of the Hispanic vote
Obama got all major Cities that receive lots of Welfare .
___________________________
REAL TAX PAYERS DIDN’T VOTE OBAMA
72 % OF MILITARY DIDN’T VOTE OBAMA
THOSE AGAINST WELFARE AND SOCIALISM DIDN’T VOTE OBAMA
THOSE THAT BELIEVE IN INDIVIDUALISM AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NO NANNY STATE DIDN’T VOTE FOR OBAMA .
Ronald Reagan a devout ConservativeWON BY A LANDSLIDE got 73.9 % OF ALL and won all 50 states including his Liberal app.State … McGovern only got Wash.DC . OBAMA NUMBERS ARE NO WHERE NEAR REAGANS ……SO WHAT IS YOUR POINTLESS POINT ?
SO Obama in comparision to Ronald Reagan and Bull S**T
Mc Cane was a Joke but he still got 48. % of all votes …… that is amazing …. a real app. could have kicked Obama butt like Gen David Petraeus
Here is some braking news for all you Lefties and so called Centrist
FLASH: FOXNEWS ‘HANNITY’ a Devout Conservative ……..
debuted big at 2.9 million viewers — beating MADDOW & KING COMBINED…
Far Left NSNBC , CSNBC were rating Jokes .
Two men that would grab their Ankles for Obama Chris Mathews , Keith “O” were so low in the rating they should be fired and go on the Air Head “View” ….. The Bastion of old Broads well used up Liberals gone wild .
Obama: The prophetic visionary: Can’t see anything past the tele-prompter.
Let’s make this clear Obama will talk to Iran, but not Hamas? Iran and Hamas have the same objective and policy toward Israel: Destruction. What is the difference between the two? I imagine that Hamas is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb as much as Iran is. This seems very asinine to me. Iran does not view Israel’s right to exist as much as Hamas.
I think the centrist talk is really premature. Of course that is what he wants to project. But soon, he will have to stop voting present and policy decisions will have to be made. some things I see that are hard left and don’t really count as centrist:
1. Treating terrorists as criminals to be handled by our domestic justice system. The hard left sees this as a way to create show trials for pushing propaganda. Allowing a person to commit acts of war and kill or attempt to kill hundred or thousands of innocent people and then get a show trial is almost nihilistic. Couple that with the possibilities of jury nullification and you encourage not discourage terrorism.
2. Ending the secret ballot for organizing labor unions is a sop to the hard socialist left.
3. Crushing regulation and taxation in the name of Man Made Global Warming is not centrist. It is a tool of the Marxist left. He has signed up a person as his advisor on this issue who has strong associations to Christian Democrat groups in Europe which hold Marxist ideologies.
His positions on these non-trivial things are signs that his world-view may make him inclined to turn us hard left. I am not encouraged.
This article and others like it on NRO make me believe Ms. Rubin is really a Democrat, thats OK, but like a certain Mayor in Brewster NY, a lifelong Democrat ran as a Republican and runs his office the same way he would if he was a democrat, which he is, whats the difference Rubin?
I wouldn’t call Rubin a democrat, but the problem is obvious. Bush and Mccain both pulled to the left on various issues. This ridiculous overthetop support by conservative pundits of whoever the GOP put in charge blinded them to these facts. So now I’ve got to hear how Obama isn’t really “change” and he’s a centrist, and TAKE THAT OBAMA BASE! As though there is some victory to be celebrated even as the left drags the american population and republican leaders to it’s turf.
cedarford;
but as long as it isn’t Diane Feinstein II Time for taking away gun rights, or shoving the black grievance or gay agenda down other peoples throats.
Without going back 40 years in our 350 year history. What is shoving the “Black grievance” down others peoples throats? What has Obama said or done to lead you to believe he plans to serve part of the population?
Quite frankly if Eric Holder on behalf of the president started holding law enforcement accountable. For murdering young Black men. I would think that would be good for all.
No Black person who lives in this world thinks or believes. He or She will be compensated for the history of our country.
You just really showed your true colors. As with every PJM reader,poster who never actually listened to Obama or his ideals.
But it is amazing that you can make a statement like that. Knowing that it’s actually the backs of Blacks who made this country profitable for you. That is precisely why your family migrated here.
Evil otto;
First you must understand regional politics. He had constituents. Second every Dem pres candidate has had a way left record before trying to win party nomination.
He is not representing the south side of Chicago where I am quite sure it is left. He will now be managing the USA. Which requires a center position. And that was the platform he ran on.
How can Palin be considered a conservative? She bloated the Wasilla budget,the Alaska budget and gave refund checks to Citizens from oil revenues. Because of regional politics thats how. She would never be a republican in Texas.
Memo to Rubin: The GOP has been out of business since the Shrub spoke of “compassionate conservatism”,called Islam a religion of peace, and tried to pimp out the USA to Vicente Fox’s Mexico. Third party anyone?
138.” …[Shrub] tried to pimp out the USA to Vicente Fox’s Mexico.” LMAO Pathetic, but true. Shrub decided that US citizens were no longer entitled to a sovereign nation and the bastard refused to close our borders. Compassionate conservatives, my ass. Subsequious, ankle grabbing bendover boys, yes. Been the 3rd party route; we’ll have to think of something else.
cedarford:
Do you know what America’s Number 1 sporting event is?
Have you ever been to a NASCAR event?
Do you know America’s Number One selling beer?
Are you familiar with the past times of “rural” America?
Are there more of you or more “Joe the Plumbers” in America?
OR LEFTISTS MIGHT BE GOOD NEWS FOR GOP
The far left is just what the Republican party needs.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/best-hope-for-gop-far-left.html
Obama is a man of the left. The left is interested in one thing: control of the economy and culture. They may use the Iraq war as a stick to beat their political enemies, but they care only about their domestic agenda.
Obama has “centrist” foreign policy appointments (as far as they can be called centrist) because his heart is not in it and he wants no distractions in his quest to change America. The gullible fools on the right will reflexively gather behind him (Obama kills terrorists, yay!) while the left will use the opportunity to marginalize them even more at home.
He has made very clear that he welcomes the opportunity the current recession offers him to change the country and its people, about which he never says a positive, loving or even respectful word.
Since it is not in his character to stick his neck out and lead from the front, he will use appointments, the courts, arcane legislation, environmentalism, transnationalism, health care, direct handouts and a pliant media to weaken the constitution, weaken federalism and expand government into every aspect of your life.
As a result, America will become like this: nominally socialist, but in reality corporatist, class conscious, basically unfree but intensely patriotic, ruled by a well credentialled and inbred elite of corrupt businessmen, politicians and their subsidized intellectuals and artists, highly taxed and regulated, with both a permanent underclass and a middle class having little economic opportunity or social mobility and looking to the government for any initiative and a few bread crumbs. A bit like France, you know.
And that is not a small insignificant thing. If Republicans find nothing to oppose there, they are not conservative and, like the rest of the country, will not have much of a future.
As the title says; Obama is already driving business into the ground at Wall Street!
Good luck, America; May God be with you.
Even those in canada who supported Obama are starting to question some of his promises he made and what he actually doing.In addition notice hes appearing EVERYWHERE?On coffee cups,inside video games,of course the media,talk radio(cant seem to go by a week without someone bringing the guy up),billboards,the list goes on.I dont remember any other president having this much attention BEFORE they were even in office.Im watching and im spreading the word to others here in canada as well to watch this man.It smacks of communism the way the media is acting.How long before a statue goes up?
I explained to some that raising taxes on business particularly small ones will kill the economy and they agree now.The blinders are coming off of some of those on the left and they are starting to really scrutinize Obama.
As far as the global warming goes,Canadians arent stupid.Its a scam and many starting to see it as such.Google-magnetic reversal.This theory makes more sense than the theory of evolution to me.
Obama was indeed supported by Americas Communist movement before they took down their support for him.I double checked when a blogger said he couldnt find it.Unfortunately for him i saved it and sent it to good friend of mine.:D
This quote here;
THOSE THAT BELIEVE IN INDIVIDUALISM AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NO NANNY STATE DIDN’T VOTE FOR OBAMA .
Is the reason my wife voted for Mccain.
We are watching the United States adjust to socialism and a one party system. The Senate race in Minnesota is a blatant display of Democratic rule in the court system and also in the Senate.
Al Franken is demanding his senate seat, even though the proper channels should be taken before certification.
We wonder if the corruption by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich will also prevail and he will remain in office. This last election of 09 was by Hook or crook, especcially funded by foreign money for most Democrats. We are no longer a free nation, and many think the constitution will be changed.
Every American who has known freedom and capitalism is wondering what life will be like in the future.
We are now The Late Great United States.
Adding trillions more to Bush’s trillions should leave a lot of reasons for an opposition party. True, the Republicans we’ve seen of late, like Bush and McCain, won’t do for an opposition. We need a real alternative. Not politcians who quibble about the amount or kind of the massive unfunded spending, but who oppose the very idea and have the guts to stand firm against it even, no, especially when told that these are exceptional times.
Conservatives on the supreme court just ruled that the police can stop you in your car or break down the door of your home and just say it was all a mistake. Then arrest you for whatever infraction they happen to find. Have these conservative justices ever heard of “unreasonable search and seizure”?
I think liberals is exactly what we need on the court, now more than ever.
#147 Jonesy:
“Conservatives on the supreme court just ruled that the police can stop you in your car or break down the door of your home and just say it was all a mistake. Then arrest you for whatever infraction they happen to find.”
As I said about Obama, I hold about Bush.
By their judicial appointments ye shall know them.
My buddies on the Left would scoff and roll their eyes, drop their bongs, and gnash their teeth when I pointed out that Bush was NOT a Conservative, but a right-of-Centrist.
Consider that after eight years, Abortion is still legal, the Government can seize your property for the benefit of a private party if that party can convince the government that it can realize higher taxes from the property seized,(“Kelo”) and that the police do not have to be held accountable to the same laws they claim to enforce.
Only earlier this year did the Roberts’ Court (finally), decide that the Second Amendment to the Constitution means exactly what it says,(and they even hedged their bet…a bit…in “Heller”).
“W” is a Centrist.
“We need a real alternative. Not politcians who quibble about the amount or kind of the massive unfunded spending, but who oppose the very idea and have the guts to stand firm against it even, no, especially when told that these are exceptional times.”
Bravo! From your keyboard to the RNC’s ear. Sadly, I don’t think they’re listening.
Watch out Jennifer..People will say you’re in love…The ONLY people who thought that Obama was some “liberal extremist” were people who would be potential posters on pajamasmedia…No one, left of HRC believed that National Journal cherry-picking “liberal ratings”…One point that I agree with is that Obama IS making the GOP obsolete..In fact he’s serving notice on the whole “left-right” notion…Obama is a member of the “Party of Lincoln”. At one time (long ago) that meant the GOP..Today, it simply means pragmatic competence..Of course, most of your colleagues won’t pick up on this fact until it’s far too late. Now, if the Israel’s-never-wrong fanatics can simply pause; Obama may get the middle-east back to some sort of normal chaos.
129. ReConUSMC:
I’m glad that you realize what your country is made up of, they are your neighbors and coworkers. Get a grip!
“Mc Cane was a Joke but he still got 48. % of all votes …… that is amazing ….”
Yes, amazing. That tells you what kind of brain they have.
Bilgeman,
the KELO decision was voted for by the LIBERAL 5 on the supreme court.
“Conservatives on the supreme court just ruled that the police can stop you in your car or break down the door of your home and just say it was all a mistake. Then arrest you for whatever infraction they happen to find.”
That is NOT what they ruled, but since when do liberals bother with facts or details?
TO: Jennifer Rubin, et al.
RE: Only
….if he is a true ‘centerist’. As oppposed to the Clintonesque, put up a good show, ‘centerist’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Deeds Not Words. -- Motto of the 22d Infantry Regiment, US Army]
“Obama the most liberal candidite since McGovern” – ridiculous!
John Kerry was far more liberal, he just happens to be a longterm senator used to deal mongering to get the best for Mass.
Obama is pro death-penalty, for example. And Chicago is not exactly a hot-bed of liberalism, unlike much of the north-East from The Jersey Shore and Northwards
Why is the US right wing so obsessed w marxism/trotskyism? Obama is no more an extreme leftist that is GWB. Painting all non-conservatives as extreme leftists and communists (a somewhat dead and ineffective insult) is a sure path to future and permanent defeat. It merely shows the congealed paralysis of current right wing thinking.