Monday, March 1, 2010

Words, Just Words

“We’ve got a Washington here every day is Election Day” proclaimed Barack Obama at a grassroots fundraiser for Senator Michael Bennet in Denver. Yes, that’s right, the campaigner in chief -- standing smack dab in the middle of the campaign trail -- was letting the crowd of enthusiastic Obama supporters know of the difficulties of working in a city where “every day is Election Day."

This guy really is President Preposterous, Captain Contradictory, Lord of the Lemmings, the Prince of Projection, the Duke of Double Talk, the leader of the Cult of the Credulous, President Say Anything as Hugh Hewitt has termed him, and then some.

Here is some more of the absurd ranting of the Messiah of Misinformation in this particular sermon:

Look, something you got to understand — for those who don't believe in government, those who don't believe that we have obligations to each other, it's a lot easier task. If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken, if the Senate doesn't get anything done, well, that's consistent with their philosophy. It's a whole lot easier to say no to everything. It's a whole lot easier to blame somebody else. That politics that feeds on peoples' insecurities, especially during tough political times — that's the easiest kind of politics. There's a long, storied history of that kind of politics.
“If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken…,” I wonder if the Republicans had more success with this approach in late August and early September when everybody in Washington “gets all wee-wee’d up.” I will agree though in part. RINO’s do assist in “making things broken.”

“It’s a whole lot easier to blame somebody else.” This is some unbelievable hypocrisy here. The absurdity of this statement given the constant drumbeat of “the last eight years” and “we inherited” is absolutely mind-boggling. Let’s face it, Barack Obama is more at ease with the blame game than ACORN is with teenage prostitution. And to make matters even more interesting, he makes this point at the very same time that he is doing what? You guessed it, blaming somebody.

With this progressive sob-story, Obama is blaming those terribly unfeeling laissez-faire worshipping Republicans for their ability to make progress so difficult, because they have chosen a carefree, selfish, and backwards philosophy that allows them to achieve success by simply “saying no” and “blaming somebody else.”

“…if the Senate doesn't get anything done…” This statement is laughable as this administration has unfortunately gotten a lot done. Byron York points this out in his Washington Examiner blog, and in his piece he quotes Obama as saying at a DNC fundraiser last October: “If we stopped today, this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation."

Of course as York points out “when you hear the president and Democrats in Congress complain about not being able to get anything done, or about Washington being broken, they're talking about one thing: their inability to pass a national health care reform bill.”

“That politics that feeds on peoples' insecurities, especially during tough political times — that's the easiest kind of politics” Come again? Isn’t your chief of staff the guy that said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste?” The hypocrisy here again is absolutely astounding.

He is spot on though in assuming that much of the populace would be feeling a bit insecure right now. Having someone in the White House pushing big government as hard as he has and making statements like these is going to make many Americans a little nervous:

“They cling to guns or religion…,” “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” “when you spread the wealth it’s good for everybody,” “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health-care plan,”“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded,” “it [U.S. Constitution] also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day,”…

“…for those who don't believe in government…” Wait, didn’t you yourself say Mr. President, that “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems?” And didn’t the esteemed congressman from Massachusetts – a member of your party -- Mr. Barney Frank ask us “whoever told [us] to trust the government?” So to the extent that Republicans in Washington and Americans in general don’t “trust the government,” I think you can understand why.

Amazing, isn’t it, the amount of nonsense this man can spout in a very small amount of time.

A few of my other favorites from this particular Obama lecture included his pronouncement that Michael and he “don't have time for that nonsense”; his lament that “We're just accustomed to falsehoods and exaggerations and slash-and-burn politics”; and I especially like his line that “people are fed up because it's not a game. It's not a game.”

What was Joe Biden’s comment about the stimulus? Oh yeah, right, he told Harry Smith “It was designed to have two stages to it,” and “The job creating portions are really loaded at the second half here…” Gee, with an election coming up in November that sounds an awful lot like a “game” to me. But then I’m just one of those backwards thinking free-market types.

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” declared then candidate Obama at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Founders Day Gala back in February of 2008.

Well I would agree with the President there, but not because I’m taking his word for it.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Party of Hope and Change Set to Bust Out the Big Guns at Blair House

Well now that the line-ups seem to be set for the health care summit, I must say I am beginning to feel a little queazy about things. Beyond the fact that it is their court, they’ve set the format, and they’ve installed their leader as the “moderator,” the side representing hope and change tomorrow is also going to have a pronounced advantage when it comes to Washington experience.

Let’s face it this group of Democrats scheduled to show up at Blair House tomorrow has been through some wars and with politics being a game that tends to reward knowledge, experience, cunning, and guile our side could be in for some tough sledding. Things could get real ugly real fast if our side isn’t at the top of their game from the outset.

With long-time established Washington pols like Dingell, Rangel, Baucus, Dodd, Harkin, Waxman, and Miller all ready to wage rhetorical war, the side representing us simple patriotic conservative Americans is going to have their work cut out for them to be sure.

Believe it or not the twenty one members scheduled to represent team “yes we can” together have over 590 years of experience battling in the political trenches of Washington DC. This is over 28 years of populist and demagogic experience per person. To put this in perspective, this means that the average Democratic lawmaker at the Blair House will have more experience than John McCain, who started his career in Washington way back in 1983. There are actually seven individuals on the Democratic roster that have at least eight more years of experience legislating in Washington than does the Republican senator from Arizona.

And this big government legislative all-star squad that the Democrats are set to assemble across the street from the White House tomorrow doesn’t really have a weak spot either. There isn’t one legislator on their roster that doesn’t have a wealth of inside the beltway experience to draw from. The least experienced members of their team have over 17 years of experience politicking on Capitol Hill. By contrast there are seven Republican lawmakers expected to attend who have less than 10 years of experience in Congress.

It’s actually pretty frightening to think of what could transpire tomorrow when you consider that John Dingell with his 54 years in the House has more congressional experience than these seven Republicans combined. I mean let’s face it legislators like Marsha Blackburn, John Kline, and Eric Cantor are mere political pups in comparison to Capitol Hill fixtures like Dingell, Rangel, Baucus, Dodd, etc.; and Washington newbies like Charles Boustany and Peter Roskam with not even nine years of inside the beltway experience between them are liable to be devoured tomorrow.

With 13 Democratic lawmakers scheduled to attend that each possess more than 25 years of experience pushing legislation on Capitol Hill we are going to just have to hope against hope that our guys can do what they’ve been doing so far, and that is simply hold the line.

Of course we could always hope that John McCain will simply lull them to sleep with stories of successful past efforts working together with those on the other side of the aisle. But more than likely Americans will simply be treated to an awesome display of big government rhetorical firepower by the true party of the establishment. Because when it comes to political con men Barack Obama will have a fine cast of supporting actors assembled.

Hey, nothing says hope and change like a bunch of wily Washington retreads mugging for the camera.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Hmmm, Evan Bayh the Fiscal Conservative

“Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN, has always been somewhat fiscally conservative…,” writes Senior Capitol Hill Producer Trish Turner in her foxnews.com entry “With Bayh the Writing Was on the Wall…”

Somewhat fiscally conservative she says? She is talking about the Democratic senator from Indiana right? Well let’s take a look at Senator Bayh’s record and see if Turner has tagged him correctly.

For starters Bayh has a lifetime rating of 25 with the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (thru 2008). And though this rating does show him to be fiscally conservative as Democrats go (Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold are the only two current Democratic senators with higher lifetime CCAGW ratings) it does not make him anywhere near fiscally conservative. Olympia Snowe is no fiscal conservative, but her lifetime rating of 50 -- though it is the lowest of any current Republican senator -- is twice that of Bayh’s.

The result is much the same if you look at the National Taxpayers Union’s (NTU) congressional ratings. From 1999 when Bayh began serving in the Senate, thru 2008, he has received an average NTU rating of 19. Though he did 5 points better than the average Democratic senator over this period, the average Republican in the Senate bested his score by 55 points. To put Bayh’s score into perspective even further, Arlen Specter received an average NTU rating of 48 over this period.

And it really doesn’t matter what measure you use, either. The results are basically the same.

The Club for Growth has given Bayh scores of 2, 1, 9, and 11 respectively from 2005 to 2008 (Specter – 47, 40, 39, 39), the American Conservative Union gives Bayh a lifetime rating of 21 thru 2008 (Specter - 44), and from Americans for Democratic Action he has received an average score of 85 (with 100 being most liberal) over the course of his Senate career prior to last year (Specter – 41).

So when Evan Bayh says during his retirement announcement that “He has often been a lonely voice for balancing the budget and restraining spending,” you simply just have to laugh. Even if he added “within my party” to this statement it would still be ridiculous. After all this is a person who had a solid liberal record before he voted for massive government programs like Obamacare and the stimulus.

But no worries Senator Bayh, we know what you meant to say. Many of us out here have gotten pretty good at reading between the lines, and we are fully aware of how hideously leftist your party has become.

As for Turner’s mislabeling of the man, she is by no means alone in wrongly characterizing Evan Bayh and other “more moderately statist” Democrats like him as fiscal conservatives, centrists, blue dogs, etc. After all, the Democratic Party and the American media apparatus have a great deal at stake in making sure that the illusion of the Democratic Party as an authentic institution fighting on behalf of the public good is preserved for as long as possible.