Comments Posted By Bob C
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 18 Comments
"It is the Republican Party elites that have gotten us into this disturbing situation in the first place. Their brilliant candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives are the spineless wimps that allowed a Democratic minority to ride roughshod over them. They wanted to be LIKED - when instead they should have aimed to be respected. When you stand up to a bully, he will run away and he usually won’t start up with you in the future. This the Republicans in Congress should have done and didn’t do. So forgive me if I’m not impressed with the eminence grise of the Republican Party who are so in love with Mitt Romney! He’s a grey little manager-type! Won’t excite or stimulate the base - which Sarah Palin will do. I’m speaking from experience with these tiny-minded little drones back when I was young and energetic instead of old and crabby as I am now."
Bingo, Gayle. The likes of this blog, and the rest of the Republican functionaries, talking heads, pundits, and assorted dreck JUST DON'T GET IT. I can absolutely guarantee you that Sarah Palin, tomorrow, without any preparation, money, or plans, would draw bigger crowds on the stump, and more Republican votes at the polls than Romney or whoever the designated "I'm next" drone the RNC tries to foist on the party. They spend their time writing their oh-so-sophisticated drivel for the consumption of the hoi polloi, smug in their superiority, aghast that this backwoods hillbilly woman can excite the party like no one since Reagan. Now I realize I'm supposed to listen to my betters, but I would vote for her before any of the worn out retreads listed in this commentary. If nothing else, just to watch their heads explode.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 11.07.2009 @ 16:45
"But I think the gist of the argument rings true. It isn’t enough for liberals and the media to oppose Palin. It isn’t enough to attack her. She must be destroyed, left emotionally drained and gagging at the obscenity of the attacks on her children because she is a danger to their one dimensional, shallow view of conservatives and Christians. "
'Liberals and the media'? Your list is too short. The Peggy Noonans, Kathleen Parkers, and other 'conservative' pundits despise her for precisely the same reasons that liberals and the media do...she doesn't come from their elite echo chamber, where saying "Burkean" is a ticket to entry, and you don't need to ask to know where they got THEIR degrees. They share with their counterparts the same sneering mockery of the flyovers, gun nuts, speakingintongues God-botherers...whose kids can't get into college so they enlist in the Marine Corps or make their living with wrenches and hammers, who don't pretend to have the Vision Of The Anointed that Sowell so brilliantly defined. No, it's as much on the self-proclaimed right as it is on the left. Whatever her faults...whether or not Sarah Palin has made a fatal political mistake...the fact of the matter is that she, her husband, and her children, have been the target of a relentless, vile smear campaign the likes of which this country's politics have not seen. At least those on the left who participate gleefully have the balls to put their names on it.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 6.07.2009 @ 08:29
CPAC AGENDA SHOWS CONSERVATIVES STILL IN DENIAL
Oh, this is just too good to pass up...as posted on Ace of Spades, taken from a WSJ op-ed:
"Genuine bipartisanship assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained -- by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate -- to negotiate in good faith.
"If these conditions do not hold -- if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so -- the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this 'compromise' of being 'obstructionist.'
"For the minority party in such circumstances, 'bipartisanship' comes to mean getting chronically steamrolled, although individual senators may enjoy certain political rewards by consistently going along with the majority and hence gaining a reputation for being 'moderate' or 'centrist.'"
Wow. If that doesn't describe to the letter what is going on in some Republican circles today, I don't now what does.
The writer? Barak Hussein Obama. Smart guy, no?
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 11:01
"Apply conservative principles to governance". Sounds like a plan to me...but in my advancing years, the short term memory is lacking. Remind me again where I, or anyone else on this thread, has said otherwise.
Where we, apparently, part company is that I believe that conservative principles are an anathema to that Great Society, New Deal, Nixonian government; applying those principles begins the process of doing exactly what you claim is "daffy" (can we be adults, just for a post or two, and dispense with the name calling?). As I've said (post 35)...I'm not so Pollyannish to believe that conservatives can sweep to electoral victory by promising to "repeal" the Great Society. I've also said that it took 70 years for the Democrats to construct the government we have. Incrementally, stealthily in some cases, but inexorably. And they continue that slow, unflinching move to include health care, the Fairness Doctrine, and the Rodney King approach to foreign policy. Why do you, and others, convince yourselves that those of us who disagree with you are somehow mired in some "daffy" belief that what took 70 years to assemble can be disassembled in one fell swoop...or over one political term in office, or in anywhere less than another 7 decades? It will be a long, slow, difficult process...but it is a process that this nation desperately needs, lest we end up destroying that which we hold most dear.
Now be nice.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 10:03
"Wow, what a thread between Rick and Bob C. At the risk of being f bombed and slogan slandered by the editor (despite being a tip jar member, I might ad), I prefer the click my heels 3 times approach embraced by Goldwater, Buckley, Reagan and Bob C"
Not to worry, fellow dreamer. It's all part of the 'big tent' of the "new" Republican party/conservative movement.
Before you inadvertently squeeze off another round into the circular firing squad by asking for your money back from the tip jar, I'll duck the next "poopyhead" response from the editor and say that there is indeed much to be said for a new approach for Republicans and conservatives, and agree with Ruffini in saying that we've been outgunned by Dems and liberals over the past several election cycles in getting out the message, and in recruiting a new cohort of candidates and citizens. That much, I think, we can all agree upon. The remaining difference, unfortunately, is that you and I seem to agree that there is a timelessness of the Reagan/Buckley message that we'd be insane to abandon. And as I see it, that message doesn't include acceptance of 'the government that we have', at the expense of the government we believe should be.
I never said accept "government that we have." I have been writing for 4 years about accepting the best conservative government we can get, applying conservative principles to governance. By doing so, it will change government, make it better, more responsive, less intrusive. My basic message has been directed against those who believe we can repeal the Great Society, or Nixon's vast expansion of government, or most of the growth that we have seen from government the last half century. This is not going to happen. It is unserious to argue it. And it is daffy to promote it.
ed.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 09:28
It has taken Democrats and liberals 7 decades to assemble the thousands of agencies and dozens of departments of which you speak. I don't pretend to speak for Mr. Howard, but I suspect that he believes, as I do, that the process of dismantling it is not one of eliminating them with the stroke of a presidential pen; it is the proverbial journey of a thousand miles that begins with one step. Would conservatives like to do just that...send educrats at the DoEd scurrying home to make a living outside of the federal cocoon? Most assuredly. Do conservatives believe that is remotely possible? Most assuredly not. What many do, however, believe is that it should not be accepted, QED, that because that's the government we have that's the one that we must learn to deal with. They believe that, had a Republican congress simply controlled spending, as they promised they would, protected the borders, as they promised they would, and maintained a strong national defense, as they generally have, there would be little need for $1 trillion dollar handouts.
The seductive nature of government largesse has always been, and always will be, a difficult opponent for those whose message is 'you can make it on your own efforts'. When Democrats define the issue...and they are very, very good at that (recall how Bill Clinton's veto of Republican budgets was ultimately twisted into Congress shutting down the government)..conservatives lose. Defining 'compassion' as that only provided by government is what has succeeded. We have to do better than 'compassionate conservatism is redundant' bumper stickers.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 08:55
"I see the problem pretty clearly now."
Followed by semantic gibberish about differences between "philosophy", "ideology", "principle", and topped off by a simplistic portrayal of what was written. No, einstein, I don't believe in low taxes simply for the sake of low taxes; nor do I believe that taxes should be low enough to 'meet the obligations of the government'...that, of course, would be a really stupid belief, since the party in power gets to define what the obligations of the government are. Nor do I believe that taxes should be low because government shouldn't sieze the private property of the citizens without "good cause"...since, again, it is the party in power that defines what those good causes are. There are a boatload of "good causes" in the stimulus bill, sport. Few, if any, of them are defined as responsibilities of the federal government as provided by the citizens in the Constitution. The government 'as it is' is a behemoth, an incomprehensible almalgam of "good causes". Yeah, let's 'adapt' those conservative 'principles' (or 'ideologies', or 'philosophies', or whatever word of the day stains your shorts) to government "as it is", rather than working long and hard....as the Democrats have done...to make the government what we want it to be. Hah. "Low taxes", without nuance and context. What a maroon. Doesn't see the genius of Douthat, or Frum, or Noonan, or Parker, who in their refined wisdom see Sarah Palin for what she really is, no doubt.
Noonan, for example, got caught on open mike. She tried, at first, to make silly excuses, but the cat was out of the bag. She, and those mates of her you write of, despise the flyovers, people just like Sarah Palin, so much that they are quick to define her falsely, with canards about 'social conservatism', portraying her as some kind of speaking-in-tongues, Ruby Ridge "godbag", when she is exactly what the party, and the movement, needs. A plain speaking, dedicated reformer, who applies her conservative (fill in the blank) on a practical level in her state, who believes that individual liberty is sacred, that the Constitution means what it says, without the need for emanations and penumbras, and that it is the citizen, not their government, that is the key to prosperity and security.
"Goof". You betcha. Now carry on with your childish insults.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 06:54
"There is nothing that make me angrier than some dumbshit getting his nose out whack without even reading what I’ve written."
No, there is nothing that makes you angrier than someone who writes on your blog questions you have to actually think about to answer, so you dismiss them by picking one small phrase, building your straw man, and demolishing it, while completely ignoring the bulk of the post.
"Freeper". Now that's a page out of the left's book, isn't it. Just toss a couple of "Freeper", Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter references into your rant and declare victory. No, no Freeper here. My daughter is Political Director for our congressman, Eric Cantor, whom you seem to have some positive things to say about. She learned that from her father. No, no 'God and guns' here...I'm a somewhat lapsed Catholic, and have never owned a gun. I abhor labels, and I suggest that your dialog might be more effective if you did as well.
What I do suggest is that the brand has been rejected, not the ideals...ideals that are every bit as applicable today as they were back in the Reagan 'stone age'. I suggest that the 'redefinition' of the party, as pushed by the likes of Patrick Ruffini, Ross Douthat, David Frum and their ilk, is exactly the colossal error that brought George Bush into office. "Compassionate Conservatism"? You're seeing compassion, as defined politically, in spades in the 'stimulus' bill Congress has just passed. A moratorium on payroll taxes. Brilliant. Yes, that'll put some money in the pockets of citizens. What it won't do is what cutting capital gains taxes and corporate taxes (among the highest in the industrialized world) will do: free up capital for investment and create jobs. Not make work jobs, not the temporary consumer spending that tax 'moratoriums' might create, but the kinds of jobs that will bring the economy back long term.
Again...those that believe as I do...that conservatives (and Republicans, to the extent that the party's core tenets so define it) don't need to look to fill the "center right" occupied by Snowe and Collins and Specter with "process". If the party had governed by the principles that brought it to power from '80 to '94, you would not have the "specter" (pun intended) of Pelosi/Reid/Obama haunting your electoral dreams today. It did not. It abandoned those principles in return for K Street money and the inevitable corruption it brought, to simply win elections and pay off voters with spending, while allowing the Democrats and their media lackeys to falsely define them as the 'bitter clingers' that you seem to abhor.
If I were indeed the caricature of a "freeper" as your intended insult portrays, I might be tempted to return the insult, calling you and your chosen messengers Douthat et al no better than the elitists on the left, and dumb as a box of rocks to boot. But I'll pass.
I see the problem pretty clearly now. Goofs like you are unable to grasp the simple concept that you can promote "core beliefs" while dealing with the world as it is - not as you click your heels together three times and wish it to be. And you are another who confuses ideology with philosophy - something Reagan never did and because of that was able to accomplish a lot. Low taxes is not a "conservative" principle. It is not a principle at all. It is a talking point (even though I support low taxes - the conservative principle that taxes should be as low as is consistent with meeting the obligations of the government), an issue on which you have taken an ideological stand. The "core belief" behind low taxes is what is important - a well ordered and free society should have a government that does not seize the property of its citizens in the form of taxes without good cause. Low taxes for the sake of having low taxes is meaningless drivel.
As for Mr. Potato Head, why should I listen to anyone who didn't bother to read what I wrote - a not insignificant point. How could the gentleman criticize what I wrote without reading it? Are you really that much of an idiot that you would defend someone's critique based on whatever the hell the person thinks I wrote rather than the actual words on the page? And you call that a "strawman" argument?
ed.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 05:57
Arlen Specter and Susan Collins???? Good lord. Where in God's name do these two fit into a conference of conservatives? It is you who are conflating...not "principles" and "ideology", but politics with ideology. You actually believe that government 'as it is', with an Obama administration and a willing Congress, is good for this country? What do you see different in what is going on now at the federal level and what went on for 50 years of New Deal Democrats? That they're communicating on Twitter and using Blackberrys? The liberal message is no different today than it was when McGovern ran for president; there was no 'adapting' done by Democrats and liberals when they were rejected in 1980 and 1994. What they did to, however, is get their message out, and govern in the manner in which they campaign. Republicans, unfortunately, did not. The message of lower taxes, smaller government, individual liberty and responsibility is wonderful, but when the party doesn't follow through, it is the party that is rejected, not the message. Mocking capital gains tax cuts? Oh, just brilliant. No sir: Igor R is spot on. If you want a party of Collins', and Specters, Lugars and Lotts, have at it, because this conservative wants nothing to do with it. And that, sir, is very much sacrificing principle, rather than honing the message and doing what politics is meant to do, and that is convince the citizenry that your way is the better one.
Wha? Who? WTF? What are you talking about? Where do I say that Collins and Specter should be invited to CPAC? Where does it appear anywhere on the blog?
There is nothing that make me angrier than some dumbshit getting his nose out whack without even reading what I've written.
I think you better go back to Freeper land and resume your nap. It's clear everything I wrote, Frum wrote, and Douthat wrote went so far over your head it didn't even muss your hair.
ed.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 16.02.2009 @ 16:35
NEIWART AND THE LEFT DON'T GET IT
Press' "argument", such that it is, is an outgrowth of the 'liberal media myth' mainstreamed by Eric Alterman...that the MSM isn't liberal, because it is owned by big corporations and, after all, everyone knows that big corporations are lackeys of the monied right wing. Liberal talk has failed not because there is no market for it, but that liberals get their fill simply watching the networks, CNN and MSNBC, and reading the NYT, WaPost, LAT, et. al. I mean really, how much of that can even the most dedicated Huffposter stomach in 24 hours?
Although Press' justification is nonsense, the danger is real. What conservatives should do is to prepare for the worst...by being ready to flood the FCC with complaints about the likes of NPR, Olbermann, Brian Williams and The View. Turnabout is fair play, and I suspect that there are no small numbers of liberals who are as fearful of the return of the Fairness Doctrine as there are conservatives.
Comment Posted By Bob C On 17.02.2009 @ 08:20
