What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”
So Rahm Emmanuel is quoted as saying in the gripping opening paragraph of the WSJ’s review of the stimulus package entitled “A 40-Year Wish List”. It argues that the “stimulus package” can properly be described as a national renovation aimed at fulfilling every liberal wish of the last 4 decades.
We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.
In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.” Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities. Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.
As for the other 88 cents on the dollar, don’t ask. Just read the rest for yourself. It’s going into the trough. Nothing you can do will stop it. At best, you might get some if you start on it soon. So get your choppers clattering for all they’re worth. Swill and forget. Circe would have understood.
Simply remember that whatever opinions you come away or whatever dignity you may dimly recall with won’t for the moment matter. Because as Joy Behar said on Larry King, it is hard to make fun of the new administration unless it is at the expense of Biden and Palin, who were born for comic relief. As for Obama, don’t even think about it. We’re in a special time.
KING: OK, is this administration going to be hard for the comics to have fun with?
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He’ll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?
And in case you think Joy Behar is joking, ask yourself this: what are the odds that Obama won’t get his 40 year wish list?
Behar is a bully. I can’t understand why she is considered to be a comedian or an entertainer at all.
The very, very unfortunate thing is that conservatives and republicans keep referring to this agenda as socialism. Socialism would be wise, prudent, and a welcome investment compared to this nonsense. This is nothing more than political patronage and an attempt to wipe out people’s savings with a massive dose of inflation.
The list is set
But don’t forget
We do it for the kiddies
For union folks
And old cowpokes
And people in the cities
The money will
Great joy instill
In portions of the voters
That vote the guys
Who cut the pies
And divvy up the bloaters
Let’s all give thanks
To crooks in banks
For caring for the money
And Mr. Dodd
You think he’s odd
And Mr. Franks is funny?
But have no fear
Obama’s here
He’ll solve the problem easy
But as for me
I’ll wait and see
Though infinitely queasy
Revolting, rotten…
Any other adjectives you could add to it. This is pork/patronage, plain and simple, not economic stimulus. It will not put many people to work. I saw the complete list yesterday on another web site and I almost gagged when I was halfway down the list.
But the media will give him a pass on it. Most of the sheeple will bleat their approval.
Pick any item on that list and you can make a powerful case that this is utterly ridiculous.
Obama will become a laughingstock, just wait. However, the humor industry doesn’t realize that. It probably never will.
The political opposition is the new counterculture. Get used to it. Embrace it. Now is the time for the opposition to make a long march to take back our institutions. And the easiest institution to take back is humor.
Perhaps those who claim “The Dream is Fulfilled” should go take a safari to see what people are like outside of Oz.
@ 2. James:
The very, very unfortunate thing is that conservatives and republicans keep referring to this agenda as socialism. Socialism would be wise, prudent, and a welcome investment compared to this nonsense. This is nothing more than political patronage and an attempt to wipe out people’s savings with a massive dose of inflation.
Huh? Pass that by me again… (absolutely not! That was a bsarcasm!)
What on Urf gave you these ideas, pray tell?
Socialism is nothing but patronage! You keep yours on the top of the food chain and mercifully give to the rest just enough to keep them alive and content, while skimming their dimes and nickels, billions of them a day. Socialism is presented as a redistribution scheme from rich to poor. But that is just its first phase–to strip those with old money of power. Once accomplished, the wealth flows from poor to the new rich.
You did not know? Now you do.
Liberals like to blame everything on George Bush, which normally I hate. But who is to blame for this? George Bush! He set all this up. Obama is only costing along the path cleared by him, Tom DeLay, and Henry Paulson.
@ 7. Thrasymachus
D’nno. Seems like GWB stopped caring about domestic scene a while ago and kept just on track with foreign matter, albeit barely in his last year.
A tired man, and a lot was slipped past him. Implications of a set up (a conscious effort to con) on his part are not warranted unless you have some tangibles.
Twobyfour:
I stand by my original comments. I know what socialism is. I’ve lived under it. And well, actually the medical care was far superior to what we have in the US, lifespans were longer, etc., etc. Socialism while certainly not ideal, is not necessarily an epithet either. There are many socialist policies which don’t particularly bother me.
what does bother me is flat out payments to one’s powerful supporters and associates. particularly when it’s clear and obvious that there’s not even a conceivable redeeming value to any of them. If Obama wanted to build basic medical clinics in poor areas, I could imagine some sick people getting some needed care. But that’s just a fantasy with this cynical ploy of the democrats.
Its an opportunity for the Republicans, but based on past experience, its unlikely they will take advantage. This will pass, but it should be with no Republican votes and after every parlimentary obstruction possible.
I’d like to see this held up to public ridicule, but I don’t see many in public life who are up to the job and not part of the problem.
The real elephant in the room is entitlements, particuarly Medicare, which dwarf even this (by about 40X). To this we can expect to add universal FedCare (poor care for all except the political elite) in a couple of years.
This is not likely to end well. I rather expect Eurozone results – high structural unemployment, low growth, low freedom – and increasing inflation.
House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”
He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds.
President Wilson had a private army of 250,000 to punch the seditious mouth and so shall President Obama.
Apparently Rush Limbaugh is the schwerpunkt of Dear Leader’s effort to shut down every voice that could point out his absence of a wardrobe. So called Republican leadership is joining with Dear Leader in this noble effort lest their lack of principle become too obvious to too many.
It is very difficult to remain optimistic about the future of this Republic.
@ 9. James
1954-1984. 30 years of socialism. Thank you very much. So I had friggin enuff of it, ‘k?
Initially, the medical care, when I was a kid, was really good. But starting from 70′s, it went downhill. If you haven’t had a medical professional friend and a bunch of spare hard currency certificates, or say, half of a pig for a serious arterial surgery, your goose was cooked.
Even with a pig, you had to wait your turn. No wait if you were an upper echelon apparatchik, but we aren’t talking about that, are we?
Longer lifespans… what a BS! Or you mean those fudged stats were produced by the government? Which, BTW, did not govern, they ruled.
The cage, the greyness of life and persistent self-policing… that was the worst part.
Or maybe you mean Swedish type of socialism. Well, it was only possible on a borrowed time, financed on the backs of future generations. And required an influx of gastarbeiters to sustain. Which at present is resulting in a slow takeover by an alien and hostile culture. What a marvel!
Stuff it, will ya?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10147726-46.html
Do-No-Evil Google in partnership with Dear Leader are installing persistent tracking cookies on your computer when you visit a White House website (and who knows where else).
Why would Dear Leader want to know the exact location of your computer and all the websites you visit from your computer? Not to worry. We will soon have the answer from NBC and CBS. Our citizen watchdogs in the national media work relentlessly against the overreach of government.
A lot of this is in there just keep the whole false economy of paper pushing Liberals employed.
Lawyers, Non-profit/NGO wonks, media types, unions, “teachers”, lobbyists, financial types and, of course, government employees.
The parasitic, jabbering and effeminate liberal workplace is what this is about.
There is a sop to the only productive part of the whole pack of jackals: Techies, though I wonder if their full migration over to the pig trough will so corrupt them that they too will cease to be a productive economic force. Keep an eye on the so called “green tech” industry. Pure cronyism, outright fraud and the fattest of pork will be the rule here, and I will wager right now, little good or true wealth creation comes of any of it. Just another migration of this bubble we have been passing around from sector to sector for the last 15 years or so. Until we get back to honestly creating wealth in the global market, these dodges, cowardices and irresponsible shirkings of duties will grow until the whole nation breaks.
It cannot last. We cannot continue this way. We cannot generate wealth this way. We cannot build a future worth having this way.
Will we descend into a sort of amalgum of the old soviet bloc, Latin American socialist kletocracies and failing EU states like the UK?
This bill not only will not stimulate the economy, it will wipe out the middle classes’ wealth when the inflation it will surely cause hits us in a couple of three years. If you ask me, that is half of what this is about.
A communist coup, evidently completely unopposed. Americans will be shocked to learn how hard it will be to get these thieves out of power. They will be shocked as well to learn that two centuries of wealth has vanished into thin air.
The whole nation will be like Detroit, New York (City and State) and California. What then?
Has our moral fiber completely collapsed? Are the American people still made up of the stuff that values liberty and our traditions?
What a bizarro world. If the GOP tried a rip off like this they would be crucified. We all just find a way to stand this down. The GOP needs to grow a pair and get out there and denounce this each and every hour of each and every day.
One of the marks of corruption is the obsession with trivia. Pyramids, human sacrifice, gas chambers. When it is claimed that two greatest things a person can achieve today is to promote abortion and reduce our “carbon footprints” then it is a sign of both opportunity and danger. It is a sign that the future belongs to whoever can keep his wits. But it’s a warning that survival is possible only if he survives the insanity.
The idea that extremism is appropriate to times of crisis is a mirror of those who are about to be driven mad by it. Quite the contrary. The key to surviving crisis is to understand what truly matters. Friends. Knowledge. Trust. Faith. All the things that are out of fashion are in fact the very things that any one who wishes to make it through these dark times needs.
What is the secret to survival? Competence. What is the shield against despair? Faith. What will endure in the face of adversity? Love and family. What will see us through the shadow of the valley of death? Courage. None of these things are new. They are as old as mankind itself. Today it is fashionable to disparage them. That’s your problem right there.
Thrasymachus: What hogwash, this is almost wholly on the Democrats hands.
Also I do not know why you would ever hate such a good a decent man like Bush. He has helped the nation more than youever will, you bank on that.
The Democratic party “paved the way” for all of this mess, not Bush., and they have been “paving the way” since FDR. Obama and Co. will lead us right iver a cliff into a totalitarian socialist/communist state. That is their intention, and most decidedly not the intention of GWB.
You need to get your mind clear of left wing agitprop.
Stop be a tool for the totalitarian left.
You comment is total baloney.
James: You have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about. I really doubt that you have “lived under it”.
Socialism is a great evil. You should have a chat with Eastern European immigrants that lived under that system.
Health care? America has the best health care in the world, bar none, and to hold otherwise is just to believe the vile agitprop of the Left. And I have news for you, with Medicare and Medicaid, health care for the “poor” (as in Democrat rip off artists) has effectively been socialized. This is just why it cost so much for the rest of us.
You are spouting fatuous nonsense. you have not the faintest idea what socialism is. I can assure you that the notions about socialism that your college professors gave you are just lies.
correction: amalgam
Wretchard. So right you.
What we things is permanent and solid is the most fleeting and evanescent of things, what we hold to be ephemeral, temporary and volatile are the most enduring and unchanging of things.
The WTC vs Mozart.
self interest vs love.
Abstractions vs. being.
The soul sickness you describe is the modern world’s greatest cures.
I was downtown when the WTC was hit, Wretchard, and thoughts simliar to your came upon me right then and there.
As 2×4 said the other day, we need to be doers, not hopers.
we things=we think; is = are (to early, sorry)
Here’s my suggestion: do something. Send five bucks to Geert Wilders. Start a discussion group among your friends. Buy a case of beans. Get into shape. Get involved in politics. Whatever, however, and whatsoever. No matter how little. Just do something. Don’t worry that it’s too small; it could make all the difference. And above all, be happy. Don’t worry.
programmer dons flameproof suit and starts typing:
All is not lost. So called pork projects are not all bad. Money given must be spent, will be spent. It will circulate from pocket to pocket. Who really cares if it starts in the hands of the National Endowment for the Arts (okay, okay, I know most of the commenters here really hate the NEA)? But the artists need food, they need cars, they need clothes,…you get the drift. What is wrong with providing funding for extra meals for kids in kindergardens? What is wrong with buying condoms and handing them out? Is it any different than providing free polio shots?
Anyway, who will end up with the money? Eventually the entrepreneurs, the doers, the providers, the builders will get the money, for the “huddled masses” receiving the largess are not going to save it, they are going to spend it as fast as they can. Just as the venal politicians know they can buy votes, the doers and producers know that the money will end up in their pockets as sure as water runs down hill.
Cultivate a buddha mind. Do not grasp “things”. Do not desire “things”. Tend your garden, create beauty and value with your hands and minds. Those of the monkey mind will come to buy for they cannot create beauty and value.
Having mangled enough methaphors, programmer takes off his flameproof suit, thanks Wretchard for his example and very nice clubhouse and quietly exits the room.
So programmer, what is it? Did you find a unicorn in your back yard this AM or what?
Who will end up with it? Well after inflation destroys most of it, why the Democrats, their cronies and their henchmen — with a few crumbs to the useful idiots (for the moment). Take a trip down Mexico Way.
The Entrepreneurs? Providers? Builders? That is rich.
(Flash: lobbyists, cronies and political hustlers are not “entrepreneurs”, they are crooks. How do you think we got to this place in the first place.)
The notion here is almost aa hilarious as the one that the NEA sponsors “artists”.
(BTW, if there are any real “artists” left out there, you can bet that they will continue to languish in the obscurity that Political Correctness so stridently enforces. I wonder if things get bad enough will we see “art riots”? Maybe you are onto something, we could say they were “performance art pieces” – Get Close with Close! or somethin’. Well, it is an idea.)
Mongoose asks:
So programmer, what is it? Did you find a unicorn in your back yard this AM or what?
programmer answers:
Yeah, and if he hadn’t “jumped the string” (inside bowhunter’s joke), I would be having unicorn steak tonight. Oh well,….
Say…if you do work that out, can I get the horn?
Programmer’s a trip.
Mr. Fernandez @ 21.
Beautifully said and as Shug used to say: “You’re so right”
RedState.com has a program to retake the Rep Party from the “Pros”
Write, fax, email, call, send money.
Programmer @ 22.
Disagree but not violently.
The left uses the arts as a tool to shift the culture. FDR pumped money into plays photography and writers and films and visual arts that extolled the collective and the unsuccessful Govt efforts to spend the US and the world out of a depression. We now have to excavate a huge pile of crap to show how bad things were in 1941, after 9 years of Herculean efforts by his small group of socialists to collectivize America.
Go to a concert or play and see how they view America.
Every so often the History Learning Discovery Channel will play a series of shows that are little documentaries on the lives of lottery jackpot winners. I’ve caught bits of them on occasion, and my primary reaction is to the extravagant tackiness of the spending sprees they go on, often blowing millions of dollars in a matter of months. Some end up deeper in debt than when they started.
That’s the role model the Democrats have chosen to emulate.
So called pork projects are not all bad. – programmer
In my view it’s the math. The numbers don’t add up – $2T to $3T of overleveraged debt to “unwind” – like using a flyswatter to beat back a water buffalo. That’s a mighty expensive jump start to get confidence moving. Nope. I favor short-term pain rather than the spread-footing design.
And of course enforcement and prosecution.
One expenditure I favor is temporarily beefing up the security nets.
Every time I think I may be overreacting to the current political situation… well, it just never seems to stop.
Drudge is reporting this morning the Dems are trying to put together a petition declaring Rush Limbaugh officially evil – have we gone insane? Obama called Rush out last week, and now this? Is the political leadership of the United States trying to isolate and villify a private citizen because they perceive him as the strongest voice of opposition? Must every dissenting voice be discredited or silenced?
“The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.”
“The real elephant in the room is entitlements, particuarly Medicare, which dwarf even this (by about 40X). To this we can expect to add universal FedCare (poor care for all except the political elite) in a couple of years.”
very true Wireline! This pork package is bad enough on its own, but it only a small addition to the unfunded entitlement costs headed straight for us in only a few years.
Ditto, Herb @30
Programmer, this is why the nature of the recipients matters.
The campaign to hook adults on government programs used to be overt. FDR pulled no punches when he called his giant infrastructure programs “authorities:” he knew and expected that, once served by a power grid, a highway or a work-program, constituencies would submit to being governed by them. And so, deep down inside, did the constituents.
But today’s progressives are more cunning. They’ve learned to couch their authorities’ malign intents behind benign-sounding names, like health care, or day-care, or tax credit. But in the end, the desired outcome is the same. Once parents yield another inch of their parenting responsibilities like education, providing food, and basically caring for their children, to the Party’s engineered authorities, they can be counted on to vote for evermore of such “caring.”
Followed to its natural outcome, “parents” will be completely absolved of their parenting responsibilities, government services will crowd-out and disparage those “backward” rubes who insist on parenting for themselves, and, children will become wards of the state at birth.
(Sound familiar? Think Hitler’s Lebensraum.)
So, reread the list of recipients as though each were an embryonic organ in the Left’s grand plan, and knowing that each will grow and gain in intractability in proportion to its receipts – this, in a political milieu that eschews the winnowing forces of real competition, and ask yourself whether it’s really “all good.” bro.
buckets says:
“The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.”
programmer responds:
“I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!”
Mongoose,
I was a Bush Cheney ’04 community chair. It was desperately necessary to get Bush reelected because the alternative was to end the war on terror and the Iraq war. Unfortuneately Bush bought support for his policies with many bad spending bills, the Medicare drug bill, the new farm bill, the steel tarriffs, and countless other things that put the budget way out of control
At the time it seemed like a necessary evil. The Democrats would have spent the same money while surrendering. But Bush should have exercised real leadership and worked to get support for his policies without buying it, without just rolling over to a bunch of corrupt pseudo-Republican congressmen who said “We have to have all these things.”
The Paulson bank bailout completely erased any psychological barrier against huge deficit spending. “Give us $700 billion, right now, to buy worthless bonds from people who were stupid enough to buy them. Don’t question us, don’t debate the wisdom of it, just give it to us immediately or the economy will collapse.” And they got it.
Now how can anyone say no to anything? The answer is and will always be “The banks got $700 billion why won’t you help the farmers, autoworkers, teachers, nurses etc.?” Notice how the “stimulus” is $825 billion- more than the bank bailout but not too much more.
Really, all the resistance to insane spending was broken under Bush. Obama doesn’t have to do anything.
Opportunity knocks, with those who wish to shirk responsibilities enjoy the handouts and in general retreat there will be those with courage, conviction and smarts to take advantage. There is no zero sum game, the way is clearly on the side of the hard worker who will take up the reigns of commerce. The Ivy League mutts with paved advancement on Wall Street will have to earn their way now. The bean counter who rises to the top of a Corp. who knows nothing of the product will be relegated to the cubical. It was the best of times, It was the worst of times.
Raoul@31,
I’ve caught those, and it’s pretty amusing how they try to get you to feel sorry for somebody that won like $50 million because they spent it all.
But it’s sort of the American way, you know? If I was handed $50 million, my life would change in that I would get a modest house on a nearby lake instead of in the woods, and I would quit my job and spend more time volunteering. If I was feeling really frisky I might buy a Harley to replace my 12-year-old Suzuki Marauder, or maybe a Corvette to replace my 13-year-old Tracker. 100% of the rest would go into the safest investments I could find (gold, T-bills, money market account in a stable bank, etc.) When I tell people this, they almost always scorn me for my lack of imagination.
It’s a sick culture that scorns someone for living modestly, or at least well below their means. There’s HUGE value in just being secure and not being forced to work a job. Many people seem to have forgotten that. I haven’t.
programmer states:
I cannot disagree with any of the well constructed and clearly stated positions pointing out the “rising and swelling of the dark”. BUT, it is coming, hell and high water. As Wretchard and others of this club, far more eloquently that I can, point out, there are things we can do, things we must do. IMHO, we must be nimble akidoists. Embrace the attack, use it’s own force to turn it away from ourselves, and lovingly send it to crash into the ground well past us, wondering what happened.
Compared to other members of this club, I have little to contribute in terms of economic savvy, geopolitical understanding, or political knowhow. But my heart and soul are firmly rooted in the common soil of America and I have faith in my fellow Americans. In times of trouble, they always seem to somehow manage to rise to the occasion and do the noble thing. I believe they will do so still.
programmer@40
It’s not faith in middle America that has floundered but raw rage at the “elites” or whatever they’re being called.
It’s not the mistakes, but the collusion, the turned back to warnings, the Hugh Hefner merry-go-round lifestyle that would never end – all the while we were fighting a nasty war in Iraq in service of the larger War against Terrorism – or whatever that is being called.
Yes – one more time – middle America will bail your (their) @ss out. Count me as one middle American who is sick of it. And I’m not seeing nobility in any of it.
But maybe I should speak for myself.
Programmer,
I confess that I share your Daoist principles, but, I plan to continue expending words describing “the attack” to people who may not see it coming in time to “embrace” it.
That, and I am too narcissistically attached to seeing my words in print to stop: even Gandhi combed his hair in front of a mirror once in a while.
Programmer,
Touche. And I haven’t quite lost all hope, but things seem more grim every day. As an interesting aside, I would be interested to know how many denizens of the Belmont Club read Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. Is there something in that epic that speaks to those with the ability to hear and understand it? Or is it something in the libertarian/conservative mindset which draws us to writers like Tolkien?
A Elbereth Gilthoniel!
“Or is it something in the libertarian/conservative mindset which draws us to writers like Tolkien?”
I think it is the classic tale of good versus evil and how even the smallest individual can make a difference in the world.
Thrasymachus: Oh come on, that is just nonsense.
First, stop conflating the Democrat establishment with Obama.
No one was saying that Obama himself was the chief suspect (though he obviously is part of the pack).
You are just putting word in my mouth here, and it is intellectually dishonest of you to do so. Stop it.
Next, this crisis was triggered by the CRA business and the derivatives created around it.
It has nothing to do with the legislation that you to which you allude. It is a matter of record how Bush tried to reform the whole mess.
In all probability it was willfully set up by the Democrats; Soros covering off shore naked shorts of Lehman, and so forth and so on.
You are being illogical and, here again, intellectually dishonest. You should be ashamed of yourself. Do not use this crisis to rock around on you conservative purist hobby horses. It is as bad as the Dems blaming this crisis on “deregulation”; you are just inverting things. You are projecting.
This is squarely at the feet of Democrat in Congress and the (mostly democrat) big wigs on Wall street.
Bush had to compromise to get his WOT stuff through an often hostile congress and a completely rabid and downright traitorous media, did that ever occur to you?
Get off your conservative hobby horses and stop slandering good men like Cheney and Bush who happen to live in the real world and have to accomplish real things.
Stop blaming the GOP for the mess that the Leftist have create over the last 60 years.
No wonder we are losing election if people like you are involved. It is people like you that were whinging over every tiny little thing throughout the whole Bush administration that weaken things to the point were the Democrats could find weak points to attack GWB and the party. That is one of the reasons that we are were we are now. I mostly saw so call conservatives out shouting and whining just as loudly as the Democrats during the second term. It was pitiful. You “all or nothing”, “lesser of two evils” purists have done almost as much damage to the nation as the democrats.
So called “conservative” Republicans need to stop blaming GWB for their political problems and naivete, and start looking in the mirror. I am sick to death of whinging conservative purist like you that will not take any personal responsibility for their own actions. Now look were we are after all that purist b!tching.
You could do the GOP a big favor and sit the next couple of election out.
My powers of critique and persiflage are not equal to the task of capturing the “Obama world” we live in — its delusion, sanctimony and strange, sick mix of narcissism and self-hate. I think sometimes it would take a person with the combined talents of Twain, Orwell, Chayefsky and Nathanial West to get a bead on this moment in time.
it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?
It is permissible to make fun of Barrack’s ears.
I’m actually not at all interested in making fun of Obama. Mind you, I am not against levity – Lord knows in these dark times we need more of it. I’m just not into the politics of personal destruction of the kind visited upon George Bush for eight years. I left high school many years ago and its locker room humor and mentality.
I made myself a promise weeks ago: I would criticize policy and performance – fairly and accurately. I will oppose Obama from positions both principled and pragmatic.
We are going to miss the class and caring that George Bush brought with him every day at the office in this country. He never fed it back to his enemies, even when we were crying for him to do so.
nullification 38: I would like to believe your comments were accurate, but reason leads to a different conclusion. The “Ivy League mutts” still have their path to riches greased with butter that properly belongs to the middle class, witness the overwhelming senate confirmation of a self admitted tax dodger as Secretary of the Treasury. Likewise, the bean counters who head the big three auto manufacturers have no intention of giving up their power, prestige or position so an engineer or true industrialist can lead the “to big to fail” conglomerates to success in their core business. The greedy politicians who enabled this train wreck have yet to experience the dethroning, tarring and feathering they so richly deserve. A great deal of house cleaning is needed throughout the corridors of power in the United States, and all of western civilization before the situation will improve. Until that time, any recovery will be fragile, false and built on a house of cards, atop a mountain of debt, and all on the backs of future generations.
Mongoose,
I thought the spit-wads many Conservatives aimed at Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination diminished the GOP in just the way you describe.
The Right’s criticism of Bush’s nominee was over the top, and it fed the Left’s media-machine enough predigested talking points from the “other party” to allow the media to feign “balance” while conducting Daschle’s Senate’s filibustering on our television sets.
Not Conservatives’ best day, then.
I, for one, look forward to the day when an enraged mob drags someone — oh, Barney Frank, Jamie Gorelic, Paulson, Madoff, Pelosi, Reid, whatever — out into the street and connects them to the business end of a rope. That, and only that, repeated a few dozen times, will begin to concentrate some minds.
Never gonna happen though. Pity.
steveaz observes:
the spit-wads many Conservatives aimed at Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination diminished the GOP
programmer comments:
Well said. Those who I, in my conversations with my friends, describe as the ivy league conservatives have much to answer for. Their constant drum beat of criticism of President Bush because he did not meet their standards of ideological purity have contributed to the situation we now find ourselves in.
Programmer #36: right you are. I hold to the five F’s: Food, Fuel, Firepower, Friends and Faith. I’ve got the Ring right here in my pocket.
Rex It looks really bad today, as Iraq looked in the middle stage. I am seeing a flicker of hope here and there, of course I live in Texas and the Republic will survive. The Oil bidness has always relied on the tech guys to bail out the wildcatters but the wildcatters still move on to the next deal. Maybe that is where W got his considerable thick skin and ignored the sniping, you just can’t worry about the last dry hole, spub in the next.
The big O is just another Warren Harding and will not survive close observation.
@48. fred:
Bravo! that is what I have been trying to say since November, don’t be the nutcase standing on the corner with a sign.
Take a principled stand, object to the pork-laden bail-out for all of it’s obvious flaws not because of who put it forward. And when it comes to a vote, make the Dems pass it on their own,
Let them “embrace the suck”, let this vast, wallowing beast they have created call them “Daddy”.
“The WTC vs Mozart.”
Bagging on JS Bach? Oh, THAT WTC.
Not that I can pull much music out of a prelude and fuga. But it sure as hell is in there.
One of the problems with the “bailouts” seems to be that once people are bought, even with their own money, they stay bought.
After the purchase they concentrate to the point of obsession on trying to jump to the head of the lineup for the next “favour”.
I hereby present Canadian Medicare for your examination and approval.
And I don’t think I’ll buy that Chevrolet, thank you.
#49 “The greedy politicians who enabled this train wreck have yet to experience the dethroning, tarring and feathering they so richly deserve.”
Quite right. This is the real, necessary “change” – that is, of Hercules and the Augean stables – as inconceivable to today’s “agents of change” as the prospect of it is terrifying to our current powerful elites, e.g., to the horribly dishonest Obama and his collectivist apostles. Obama took us one giant leap back from true change; but ironically he may have made a violent or traumatic reckoning with it more likely than ever. Obama may really prove to be the candidate of change: the one who pushed America to a point of clarity and disgust over the Left’s malevolence and incompetence.
Fred: agree about Bush’s basic class, but his failure to stand up to the lies and slanders directed against the office, country, party, troops, supporters allowed the Left to metastize into the mainstream. The Left fed off his unconscionable silence. This was the signal failure of his presidency. Something as preposterous as a “Barack Obama” could only have emerged out of this void.
@ 58. Cosmeau Bugleweed
once people are bought, even with their own money, they stay bought.
That fickle bunch? Yes, they would line up for further handouts, but if the next handout is not forthcoming, their consumer loyalty won’t last to day after.
Programmer@52:
“Well said. Those who I, in my conversations with my friends, describe as the ivy league conservatives have much to answer for. Their constant drum beat of criticism of President Bush because he did not meet their standards of ideological purity have contributed to the situation we now find ourselves in.”
I’ll buy that ideological purists of most stripes are by and large asshats, but Bush pulled a really dumb move with the Meirs nomination, and I don’t fault anybody for saying so. It was pure cronyism, and I don’t like that on the left OR right.
It was dumb politically, she wasn’t at all the best choice and it gave ammo to an already screeching opposition and press (if they can be distinguished anymore).
Wretchard and Programmer,
Thanks for keeping your perspective and your persistence in stating it.
Best wishes,
Jim
I’m 56 and won’t let this mess ruin my life. I don’t need money.
But I don’t know how I can prevent it from ruining my sons’ lives. I think they will become jaded…continually forking over their hard-earned money to undeserving ingrates.
Or my grandchilds’ (due 4-23-09)
Just makes me very sad.
15. wretchard
One of the marks of corruption is the obsession with trivia. Pyramids, human sacrifice, gas chambers. When it is claimed that two greatest things a person can achieve today is to promote abortion and reduce our “carbon footprints” then it is a sign of both opportunity and danger. It is a sign that the future belongs to whoever can keep his wits. But it’s a warning that survival is possible only if he survives the insanity.
The idea that extremism is appropriate to times of crisis is a mirror of those who are about to be driven mad by it. Quite the contrary. The key to surviving crisis is to understand what truly matters. Friends. Knowledge. Trust. Faith. All the things that are out of fashion are in fact the very things that any one who wishes to make it through these dark times needs.
What is the secret to survival? Competence. What is the shield against despair? Faith. What will endure in the face of adversity? Love and family. What will see us through the shadow of the valley of death? Courage. None of these things are new. They are as old as mankind itself. Today it is fashionable to disparage them. That’s your problem right there.
Wow, wretchard. You sound exactly like Glenn Beck.
Stephan: Jeez..there is one on every crowd.