In the aftermath of the 2008 Republican electoral bloodbath, many are discussing what direction the party should take to recapture its vitality and viability. Liberals -- as if they have the best interests of the GOP at heart -- and so-called elitist, Northeastern Republicans seem to agree the party should tack center. I disagree.
Traditional conservatism and its advocates invariably get bad raps. They're painted as uncompromising, uncompassionate extremists who won't adjust to the realities of the 21st century.
But those familiar with modern history understand that these intramural debates have been going on for decades. I remember my father complaining about Rockefeller Republicans in the early '60s, so the schism had to have begun much earlier than that.
From what I can gather, the David Brooks and David Frum wing of the conservative movement wants conservatism to grow, sort of like liberals want the Constitution to be a "living document." Big government -- at least, an active, energetic government -- is here to stay, and we better get on board. Our debate with liberals must be one of minor degree rather than kind. We should accept, rather than resist or attempt to roll back, the leviathan and instead address how best to direct it, lest we relegate ourselves to political irrelevance.
We traditionalists should acknowledge that in one sense, the Davids have a point. After all, it was no less a traditionalist than Mark Steyn, if I may categorize him as such, who recently lamented that "settled democratic societies rarely vote to 'go left.' Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone."
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I think Steyn is merely expressing the paradox that democratic societies are difficult to sustain in the spirit of the oft-stated axiom -- attributed to a half-dozen people -- that a "democracy" would last until people figured out they could vote themselves money from the public treasury. Benjamin Franklin offered a similar admonition when a woman asked him to describe the form of government the Framers had just crafted: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
This, I think, gets to the very heart of the rub between the traditionalists and the Davids. The Framers designed a scheme of limited government because they believed that such was the best -- or the least worst -- avenue to maximizing individual liberty. They believed that though man has a yearning to be free, his fallen human condition militates against freedom for society as a whole, absent mechanisms in place to check the natural and clearly established historical tendency of man toward absolutism.
Traditionalists see themselves as guardians of our unique Constitution, which secures liberty as a byproduct of pitting levels and branches of government against one another.
They believe that unless we rededicate ourselves, intellectually and emotionally, to our founding ideal of individual liberty -- as opposed to succumbing to the insidious, intoxicating, cowardly promise of government-provided security at all levels of our existence -- we can kiss liberty -- and the United States of America as we have known it -- goodbye.
Part of the problem is that we have enjoyed such unparalleled freedoms and prosperity that we have been lulled into the false notion that they will continue in perpetuity, even as we betray, to ever-greater extremes, our founding principles. But traditionalists understand that there is a tipping point beyond which this incessant socialist piggybacking on our capitalistic economic system and these ever-deepening encroachments on our scheme of government (for example, through judicial activism) will finally bring us to our knees.
Traditionalists don't oppose this or that "high-minded" plan aimed at delivering security (e.g., health care) or prosperity (e.g., direct transfer payments from producers to nonproducers) because they don't want more people to be prosperous but because they do and because they cherish freedom. We know that socialism never works and always results in less prosperity, on top of its obvious freedom-stripping inevitabilities.
The nontraditionalists don't seem to share our recognition of the ephemeral nature of liberty -- as if all of human history weren't enough proof. They don't appreciate that by joining liberals intellectually on their turf by simply quibbling over what percentage of abject socialism we'll permit, we are ultimately signing our own national death warrant.
As quaint as it sounds, someone has to advocate a return to first principles. We don't have to concede that America cannot reverse its path toward European socialism. But we will have conceded if we merely try to outdo liberals on their terrain by being "compassionate conservatives."
Our charge is to make the case for liberty and that traditionalism is inherently compassionate. If we don't have the courage to confront the seductive promises of socialism and demonization by the politically correct and pseudo-compassionate, we will surely fail in our duty to bequeath the blessings of liberty to our posterity.
God bless Sarah Palin, and shame on elitists from both sides of the aisle who have denigrated, demonized and dissed her. I don't care how many "smartest people in the room" types offer pseudo-sophisticated analyses to prove she was a drag on the GOP presidential ticket. They are all manifestly and embarrassingly wrong -- and woefully out of touch -- which is par for the course for elitists.
Speaking of elitists, it's time to address their contempt for rural and southern America, particularly their ongoing smear of the South (and, truth be told, rank-and-file conservative Republicans) as racist.
For all the accolades Barack Obama is receiving, he should acknowledge a bit of egg on his face for invoking race with his failed prediction that his opponents would play the race card. "They're going to try to ... make you scared of me," he said. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough; he's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."
Then there was Newsweek's poster boy for liberal smugness, Jonathan Alter, hypothecating a scenario in which Obama could lose because of racism. Alter said the following factors would have contributed:
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--"Erosion in the critical I-4 corridor near Tampa and in the Panhandle, where the astonishing Republican margins among whites could be attributed only to race."
--"The transformation of the northern part of (Virginia) couldn't overcome a huge McCain margin among whites farther south. They weren't the racists of their parents' generation, but they weren't quite ready to vote for the unthinkable, either."
Alter then cited an earlier Newsweek story, which asked, "Is America Ready (for a black president)?" "The answer: only if Obama proved close to a flawless candidate, and even then, we won't know for sure until Election Day. That doesn't mean Obama lost because all, or even most, McCain voters allowed race to be a factor. But enough did to change the outcome."
While Alter said he didn't think his scenario would play out, it doesn't excuse his presumptuous, unfair and erroneous assessment of people he doesn't know.
But Alter's piece was no more offensive than a postelection story by The New York Times' Adam Nossiter, in which Nossiter echoed Obama's comments about rural America and some people's discomfort with his looks and name (read: race).
Nossiter wrote: "Fear of the politician with the unusual name and look did not end with last Tuesday's vote in this rural red swatch where buck heads and rifles hang on the wall. This corner of the Deep South still resonates with negative feelings about the race of President-elect Barack Obama."
But the South, gloated Nossiter, is no longer going to be a major factor in presidential politics because parts of the "'suburban South' ' have experienced an influx of better educated and more prosperous voters in recent years." Southern counties voting more Republican this year, he said, "tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter," as they have been "rural and isolated (and) less exposed to diversity, educational achievement and economic progress." According to the omniscient Nossiter, "Mr. Obama's race appears to have been the critical deciding factor in pushing ever greater numbers of white Southerners away from the Democrats."
Nossiter cited one political analyst saying "there's no other explanation than race" for Obama receiving a smaller percentage of the Alabama white vote than John Kerry did in 2004.
Oh? How about reasonable anxiety about Obama's alliances and gaps in his biography, not to mention that he made the mistake of revealing his socialism and contempt for rural, Bible- and gun-toting Americans when away from his teleprompter?
One might think the liberals' persistent demagoguery on race mostly for partisan gain would subside with the election of Barack Obama, but one would be wrong.
Prescient commentators predicted that if Obama won, there would be no letting up. They speculated that charges of racism might even escalate, as an emboldened left would begin an all-out war against conservative talk radio.
Lo and behold, before the Electoral College has even convened to formalize Obama's victory, the slanderous group e-mails have begun. I personally received a number of them today, one of which said conservative talk radio is "'All Hate All The Time' -- racist, homophobic, sexist."
Don't think they aren't methodically laying a foundation to strip conservative America of its most powerful First Amendment outlet, talk radio, so they can restore their coveted liberal media monopoly.
There's apparently no limit to the shameless tactics of those willing to use false and divisive charges of racism to vilify an entire group of people (which, ironically, is the pernicious thought process inherent in racism) who are probably truer to racial colorblindness than their sanctimonious accusers.
Perhaps the most disheartening reaction to the November 4 election of Barack Obama has been the attempt by conservatives to laud his victory as some sort of worthy racial milestone in American history. This lame effort to find conciliatory ground with the far left will ultimately prove futile. Worse yet, it lends an air of credibility to a malignant and corrupt political machine that threatens the very future of America and thus deserves no such tribute.
In truth, the racial 'glass ceiling' that once tainted the American political landscape has quietly been eradicated for perhaps the past three decades. During that time, numerous American black luminaries have risen to the pinnacle of their fields, including several who achieved very high positions within the U.S. Government. Admittedly, as Republicans and conservatives they are rarely credited for their groundbreaking achievements.
Dr. Alan Keyes, for one example, has been a United States Ambassador and a driving force of the conservative movement, as well as a presidential candidate, during his prominent career. While Dr. Keyes' ideological motivation and energy may have better lent themselves to the landmark work of re-establishing and reaffirming America's spiritual roots than to the 'nuts and bolts' pragmatism of the political realm, he is nonetheless respected and venerated with near unanimity among grassroots conservatives.
Along with Keyes, other notable individuals include Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, owing to his moral decency, wisdom, and bold regard for the integrity of the U.S. Constitution. Clearly, Justice Thomas could have swiftly garnered enormous conservative support had he ever shown an inclination to change careers and run for high office.
In much the same manner, the one-time widespread popularity of Republican Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell resulted in their enthusiastic consideration for the presidency, though on closer examination both proved to be far too liberal to warrant unconditional conservative support. Nevertheless, the ebb and flow of their political careers was based entirely on political philosophy and not race.
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All of the above examples are inarguable testimony of the post-racial mindset that has prevailed in this country for many years, at least on the right. Conversely, it is worth remembering the obscene treatment these same individuals received from the left. It was not Republicans or conservatives who resorted to revolting racial stereotypes in efforts to undercut political adversaries who happened to be black. The epithets of 'Uncle Tom,' and 'Aunt Jemima' were deployed by the left, not the right, as weapons of bigotry and racial subjugation, proving beyond any doubt that the liberal facade of racial sensitivity is completely conditional and exists wholly for its political advantages.
Thus, in the thoroughly poisoned atmosphere of present-day America, Barack Obama's presidential win simply cannot be interpreted as the ascendancy of America over past struggles with race, but instead an indication of the ongoing manipulative use of race for political expediency. Obama himself contributed significantly to this travesty by regularly invoking race when among certain crowds, and then completely denying its relevance when appearing before others. In the end, he did not gloriously ascend upon the shoulders of his brethren, but more accurately achieved his goal by standing on their backs.
It is far more significant however to recognize that the racial game Obama played represents only one aspect of the twisted political movement that seized the presidency for him. From its shady financing, to the innumerable incidents of voter fraud and intimidation, to the media propaganda blitz that rivaled anything seen since the days of Joseph Goebbels, the incessant parade of despicable behavior indicates that Obama and his political apparatus believe that they could not have won a sincere and open political competition.
Ultimately, instead of highlighting the ascendancy of the American mainstream above past racial prejudices, the 2008 election will ever after serve as a bell-weather of the total collapse of the American political process, possibly marking the end of the freedom and greatness of America.
In response, real Americans must put futile attempts at 'graciousness' aside, recognize the dire nature of the situation in which they find themselves, and say so publicly. They must immediately return to a political discourse that is defined by truth, and not tainted beyond recognition with 'political correctness.' Good must be called 'good,' and evil must be called 'evil,' with no concern for the predictably overblown and hysterical reactions of the opposition.
No quarter can be offered in response to the false supposition of liberal sincerity. Those on the left care about the supposed sexual harassment of women only when they can gain political traction from the ensuing controversy surrounding it. They tout 'morality' only when a scandal emerges that might cost a Republican Senator his seat. When such problems are unearthed on their side of the aisle, they turn a blind eye and deliver platitudes about one's 'private' life or the 'politics of destruction.' Likewise, liberals throughout the Democrat political machine and the old media cite race only when they can use the issue to bludgeon their rivals.
This year, liberal Democrats showed their true disdain and contempt for the wishes of the American electorate by ignoring the countless incidents of criminal vote tampering that inarguably altered the outcome of the 2008 elections. Consequently, patriotic Americans owe no unconditional 'oath of loyalty' to Obama, who now leads the political movement that loudly flaunted its total disloyalty to the current president even when doing so undermined the interests of this nation as he sought to preserve and defend it.
It is high time for conservatives to recognize that since the 1990s, the rules have changed. The only 'new ground' broken during this year's election cycle was the boundary of law that had once been instituted to ensure a just and equitable execution of the democratic process, but is now in shambles.
The underhanded Democrat tactics of the 2008 political season are no less a declaration of war on the conventions and institutions of the American heartland than were the numerous Islamist attacks preceding 9-11. And anything short of a full and appropriate political and ideological counterattack from the right will guarantee its eventual defeat.
For the first time in 32 years, Democrats got more than 50 percent of the country to vote for their candidate in a national election, and now they want to lecture the Republican Party on how to win elections. Liberal Republicans have joined them, both groups hoping no one will notice that we just lost this election by running the candidate they chose for us.
For years, New York Times columnist David Brooks has been writing mash notes to John McCain. In November 2007, he quoted an allegedly "smart-alecky" political consultant who exclaimed, in private, "You know, there's really only one great man running for president this year, and that's McCain."
"My friend's remark," Brooks somberly intoned, "had the added weight of truth."
Brooks gushed, "I can tell you there is nobody in politics remotely like him," and even threw down the gauntlet, saying: "You will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men."
That took guts at the Times, where McCain is constantly praised by the op-ed columnists and was endorsed by the paper in the Republican primary. Even Frank Rich has hailed McCain as the "most experienced and principled" of the Republicans and said no one in either party "has more experience in matters of war than the Arizona senator" -- the biggest rave issued by Rich since "Rent" opened on Broadway.
They adored McCain at the Times! Does anyone here not see a cluster of bright red flags?
In January this year, Brooks boasted of McCain's ability to attract "independents."
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And then Election Day arrived, and all the liberals who had spent years praising McCain all voted for Obama. Independents voted for Palin or voted against Obama. No one outside of McCain's immediate family was specifically voting for McCain.
But now Brooks presumes to lecture Republicans about what to do next time. How about: "Don't take David Brooks' advice"?
According to Brooks, the reason McCain lost was -- naturally -- that he ran as a conservative. If only presidential candidates would spurn polls, modern political history, evidence from campaign rallies, facts on the ground and listen to the wishful thinking of Times columnists!
If McCain lost because he ran as a conservative, then how come I knew McCain was going to lose before Brooks did? About the same time Brooks was touting McCain's uncanny ability to attract independents, I was writing, accurately: "John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth."
Using the latest euphemism for "liberal," Brooks complains that "reformist" Republicans like John McCain are forced to run for president as smelly old conservatives: "National candidates who begin with reformist records -- Giuliani, Romney or McCain -- immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base." (Some "tack" so far to the right they almost adopt the positions in the GOP platform!)
In another sign of how popular liberalism is, liberals have to keep changing their name, like grifters moving from town to town. Liberal Republicans used to be known as "moderates," then "mavericks" or "centrists." I guess now they're "reformists." Why, liberals are so popular they have to disguise themselves for fear of being mobbed by an adoring public!
I gather by "reformist," Brooks means liberal only on the social issues like gay marriage and abortion because -- apart from abortion and gay marriage -- Rudy Giuliani was a right-wing lunatic. He engaged in aggressive policing, cut taxes and government bureaucracies, abolished New York's affirmative action office and was repeatedly denounced as a storm trooper by The New York Times.
The same thing goes for Romney, who also cut taxes and government regulations, but promised Massachusetts voters he would not tinker with their beloved abortion rights.
Ironically, McCain was a liberal on virtually every issue except abortion and gay marriage, but he bashed social conservatives to his friends in the press, so they excused his pro-life voting record as a cynical ploy to get votes in Arizona.
So "reformist" evidently means a Republican who is liberal on social issues. My term for that is "Joe Lieberman." Whatever the merit of being liberal on social issues, both Joe Lieberman and the Republican Party's history suggest that the winning formula is the exact opposite combination.
If liberals are going to use their first majority vote in a national election since Helen Thomas was spilling champagne on Liza at Studio 54 to lecture Republicans on how to win elections, I have a tip for them based on the exact same election: Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage passed in every state they were on the ballot -- Florida, Arizona, even in liberal California.
I'll accept the results of the presidential election, if you anti-Proposition 8 die-hards in California accept the results of that vote. Earth to protestors: Most Americans oppose gay marriage. On this, even blacks and Mormons are agreed! Why don't you people go find something useful to do?
Let's see, who was avidly pro-gay-marriage? Oh I remember: The guy who's once again lecturing Republicans on how to win elections: David Brooks.
The most unnerving aspects about the Democrats' sweeping victory Nov. 4 are their intolerance for dissent and their willingness to censor and otherwise suppress their opponents. Consider:
We keep hearing that Sarah Palin's criticism of Obama for "palling around with terrorists" increased death threats against him, which is bogus in the extreme but consistent with the inveterate liberal tactic of chilling conservative speech by saying it incites violence.
Ohio state employee Vanessa Niekamp said she was ordered to run a child-support check on Joe the Plumber, the man who asked Barack Obama an innocuous question about redistributing taxpayer income. Niekamp doesn't remember ever having checked into anyone else without having a legitimate reason to do so, such as discovering that someone recently came into money.
Democratic prosecutors in St. Louis threatened criminal prosecution against candidate Obama's critics. In Pennsylvania, lawyers for Obama wrote intimidating letters to TV and radio stations that aired unflattering ads documenting Obama's anti-gun record. The Obama campaign complained to the Department of Justice about the American Issues Project's ad tying Obama to William Ayers. Obama supporters flooded Chicago radio station WGN with harassing calls during its interviews of conservative writers investigating Obama.
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On election night, Philadelphia police arrested a man who dared to wear a McCain-Palin '08 T-shirt at an Obama celebration rally. What's scarier is that the Obama crowd reportedly chanted with joy as cops arrested the man for exercising his freedom of political expression. According to the liberal worldview, arresting someone for disagreeing with you is not censorship, but implying someone is not patriotic is.
Obama has made no secret of his plan to pass "card-check" legislation, which some have described as the most radical revision of labor law since 1935. It would permit unions to eliminate secret ballots -- against the wishes of 78 percent of union members -- which would represent a radical blow to democratic principles.
Democrats fully intend to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, a euphemistically named regulation aimed at shutting down conservative talk radio, which Sen. Chuck Schumer has compared to pornography. Remember that conservatives have never advocated government action to suppress or censor the liberal media monopoly, which has existed for decades and still dominates mainstream media today. Their answer was the alternative media.
But what is even more frightening than the sinister schemes of liberal politicians to silence and criminalize political opposition is the apparent eagerness of rank-and-file liberals to go along with them, as witnessed by the many examples I've cited and numerous gleeful e-mails I get taunting me about the imminent re-invocation of the Fairness Doctrine.
I believe this arrogant attitude can largely be traced to the top-down indoctrination in our schools, cultural institutions and media that liberalism is morally superior because it is tolerant, diverse, intellectual and enlightened. This view holds that conservative expression doesn't deserve constitutional protection because it is inherently evil. As one liberal academic administrator said in justifying his Draconian action in suppressing a Christian viewpoint, "We cannot tolerate the intolerable."
This self-blinding, superior mindset explains how liberals can accuse conservatives of racism for their legitimate political differences with Barack Obama while demeaning, with racist epithets, Condoleezza Rice or Clarence Thomas. It's how they can mock conservatives for being close-minded while unilaterally declaring the end to the debate on global warming because of a mythical consensus they have decreed. It's how they can demand every vote count and exclude military ballots. It's how they can glamorize Jimmy Carter for gallivanting to foreign countries to supervise "fair elections" and pooh-pooh ACORN's serial voter fraud in their own country. It's how they can threaten the tax-exempt status of evangelical churches for preaching on values, even when the churches don't endorse candidates, but fully support a liberal church's direct electioneering for specific candidates. It's how they can ludicrously depict President Bush as a dictator while romanticizing brute thug tyrants Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. It's how they can falsely accuse President Bush of targeting innocent civilians in Iraq when he does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties but demand our withdrawal from South Vietnam, which resulted in the massacre of millions of innocents. It's how they can advocate the banning of DDT in the name of environmental progress but be unconcerned about the untold malaria deaths that resulted. It's how they can oppose the death penalty for the guilty but protect the death penalty for the innocent unborn. It's how they can prevent the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools in the name of science but defend the many documented myths of biological evolution in public-school textbooks, also in the name of science.
If you believe the left is tolerant, open-minded and democratic, you're in for a rude awakening.
Last night was truly a historic occasion: For only the second time in her adult life, Michelle Obama was proud of her country!
The big loser of this election is Colin Powell, whose last-minute endorsement of Obama put the Illinois senator over the top. Powell was probably at home last night, yelling at his TV, "Are you KIDDING me? That endorsement was sarcastic!"
The winner, of course, is Obama, who must be excited because now he can start hanging out in public with Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright again. John McCain is a winner because he can resume buying more houses.
And we're all winners because we will never again have to hear McCain say, "my friends."
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, Hillary Clinton immediately announced that, henceforth, she would be known as "Hillary Rodham Clinton." So maybe Obama can now become B. Hussein Obama, his rightful name.
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This was such an enormous Democratic year that even John Murtha won his congressional seat in Pennsylvania after calling his constituents racists. It turns out they're not racists -- they're retards. Question: What exactly would one have to say to alienate Pennsylvanians? That Joe Paterno should retire?
Apparently Florida voters didn't mind Obama's palling around with Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, either. There must be a whole bunch of retired Pennsylvania Jews down there.
Have you ever noticed that whenever Democrats lose presidential elections, they always blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate? Kerry was a dork, Gore was a stiff, Dukakis was a bloodless android, Mondale was a sad sack.
This blame-the-messenger thesis allows Democrats to conclude that their message was fine -- nothing should be changed! The American people are clamoring for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, gay marriage, the whole magilla. It was just this particular candidate's personality.
Republicans lost this presidential election, and I don't blame the messenger; I blame the message. How could Republicans go after B. Hussein Obama (as he is now known) on planning to bankrupt the coal companies when McCain supports the exact same cap and trade policies and earnestly believes in global warming?
How could we go after Obama for his illegal alien aunt and for supporting driver's licenses for illegal aliens when McCain fanatically pushed amnesty along with his good friend Teddy Kennedy?
How could we go after Obama for Jeremiah Wright when McCain denounced any Republicans who did so?
How could we go after Obama for planning to hike taxes on the "rich," when McCain was the only Republican to vote against both of Bush's tax cuts on the grounds that they were tax cuts for the rich?
And why should Republican activists slave away working for McCain when he has personally, viciously attacked: John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans, National Right to Life director Doug Johnson, evangelical pastors Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee, various conservative talk radio hosts, the Tennessee Republican Party and on and on and on?
As liberal Democrat E.J. Dionne Jr. exuded about McCain in The Washington Post during the Republican primaries, "John McCain is feared by Democrats and liked by independents." Dionne proclaimed that McCain "may be the one Republican who can rescue his party from the undertow of the Bush years."
Similarly, after unelectable, ultraconservative Reagan won two landslide victories, James Reston of The New York Times gave the same advice to Vice President George H.W. Bush: Stop being conservative! Bush was "a good man," Reston said in 1988, "and might run a strong campaign if liberated from Mr. Reagan's coattails."
Roll that phrase around a bit -- "liberated from Mr. Reagan's coattails." This is why it takes so long to read the Times -- you have to keep reading the same paragraph over again to see if you missed a word.
Bush, of course, rode Reagan's ultraconservative coattails to victory, then snipped those coattails by raising taxes and was soundly defeated four years later.
I keep trying to get Democrats to take my advice (stop being so crazy), but they never listen to me. Why do Republicans take the advice of their enemies?
How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that "moderate," "independent," "maverick" Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?
Indeed, the only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He's like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That's why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as "The One" these days.
Like Sarah Connor in "The Terminator," Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That's why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I'm tired.
After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.
We'll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina -- states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.
For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.
The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency makes me very nervous.
Obama's entire campaign has been based on the need for radical, transformational change, which implies there is something very wrong with America.
It's hardly surprising, then, that he has painted the bleakest picture of America instead of acknowledging, as a starting point, that we are still the greatest nation in the world.
For the past eight years, Democrats have slandered America as an imperialistic country that always prefers force to diplomacy; that attacks nations without provocation to enrich itself and to project its power; that intentionally targets civilian lives; that encourages sadistic torture of enemy prisoners, as opposed to tough interrogation techniques to extract information to save the lives of its people; that eavesdrops on private conversations among its citizens rather than monitoring terrorist communications into its borders; and that abuses rather than goes out of its way to accommodate the savages in Guantanamo's prison. None of it is true.
For eight years, Democrats have poor-mouthed the mostly growing economy. They've lied that Bush's tax cuts for all income groups were only for the wealthy and that the cuts reduced revenues. They pretend to be deficit hawks, when Obama's new spending plans alone will make Bush look like Scrooge. They said Bush wanted to destroy Social Security, when he's the only one in the past 20 years who had the courage to try to reform it. All lies.
They've preached bipartisanship while exhibiting the nastiest partisanship in my lifetime, calling Bush "King George III," "Hitler," a "murderer," a "war criminal," a "reckless cowboy," a "moron" and a "Christian throwback." They've caricatured Bush as an unbending partisan who wouldn't reach across the aisle, in the face of his countless and mostly rebuffed bipartisan overtures and legislation. More disinformation.
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They've deliberately divided this nation on the basis of race, class, gender and religion while telling us, falsely, that conservatives are racists, greedy, sexists, homophobes and religious bigots.
The propaganda triumvirate -- Democrats, the liberal media and leftist bloggers -- have portrayed President Bush, Vice President Cheney and America as dark and evil forces and have whipped the country into a frenzy of desperation, setting the table for a charismatic leader to deliver us from the despair they've manufactured with relentless precision.
Barack Obama, with his mysterious past and messianic aura, then burst upon the scene with the focused purpose of capitalizing on the public's perceived woes by offering dramatic change and unspecified hope. As if the script had been written just for him, he stepped right into his role, expanding on this theme of despair. He stressed how bleak conditions are, how unfair America is to the less fortunate and middle class, how ugly America is in foreign affairs, how the values of average Americans are warped (bitter clingers), how hardworking producers who oppose confiscatory tax rates but who contribute more to charity than Obama and his running mate even contemplate are selfish, and how America is a global environmental menace.
With all respect, almost everything about Obama's campaign is fraudulent. He masquerades as a uniter while dividing, polarizing and alienating us. He denies he's liberal, when objective sources score him as the most liberal senator. He says he barely knows militants and radicals with whom he has spent his lifetime cavorting and whose worldviews -- horrifyingly -- he shares. He brazenly disguises welfare redistributions as tax cuts. He and his surrogates keep changing his tax plan.
With his ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness, the ongoing "original sin" in our Constitution, the inherent evil of corporations, nationalized health care, and the civil rights movement not doing enough to bring about "economic justice" -- a euphemism for "Marxism" used by radicals, such as Bill Ayers, who still hate America -- are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back?
With his known discomfort with American exceptionalism, his naive mindset about good and evil in the world, his reckless underestimation of threats to America, his stated intention to disarm our nuclear weapons unilaterally, his open-borders extremism, his willingness to relax our intelligence monitoring, and his misguided concern for terrorists' rights, how can America be as secure under his watch?
With his sordid background in "community organizing" and his symbiotic relationship with an organization that is engaged in a systematic effort to steal this election, his thug tactics to investigate and silence his critics, and his Democratic colleagues' willingness to use government to shut down conservative talk radio, are you not worried about our liberties under an Obama administration?
Before our very eyes, America stands poised to elect as president the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly. Don't say we didn't warn you.
It is a safe bet that Barack Obama will never again engage 'Joe the Plumber' or anyone like him in a discussion of policy without 'preconditions.' Some things are just too dangerous to the future of liberal America to be left to chance.
On October 12 Joe, a real American with legitimate concerns for his future and his country, questioned Obama as to why the Democrat Presidential wannabe would see fit to punish Joe for establishing a successful business. Since then Democrat political attack dogs and their media minions have not stopped delving into any and every aspect of Joe's life, in a desperate effort to cloud and eventually erase the real significance of Joe's encounter with Obama from the minds of the American people, hopefully before it influences their voting decisions.
Adding to all of the distractions and diversions from their brief exchange, it turns out that 'Joe the Plumber' (In reality, Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo Ohio) is an extremely well versed and articulate speaker, who regularly offers very profound observations on every topic from America's current economic crisis to the War in Iraq. Some enthusiastic onlookers are even postulating as to his worthiness to run for Congress in 2010.
So it is not surprising that the Democrat/media axis has focused an enormous amount of attention on any perceived flaws in Joe's past life. Among other transgressions, it turns out that he is not a certified plumber. But despite the inordinate hype that the monolithic cabal of liberals made of Joe's lack of official certification, the matter is wholly irrelevant to the critically important point that resulted from his meeting with Obama.
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Likewise, for all of his verbal proficiency and appeal, Joe's driving political philosophy is not the issue of primary concern. Even the very question he asked of Barack Obama is itself a secondary matter. Of singular importance is the repugnant nature of Obama's answer to Joe. Claiming that he did not want to 'punish' anyone, Obama went on to voice his belief that life in America would be improved if he and his class were able to 'spread the wealth' on behalf of others who might not be doing as well as Joe aspired to do.
The rare simplicity and direct candor of Obama's answer is singularly telling, and leaves no room for 'reinterpretation.' It cannot be claimed, as the Obama campaign has so often done, that the narcissistic Illinois Senator was 'taken out of context.' He believes in socialism and the forced confiscation and redistribution of wealth, under government direction, from the 'haves' to the 'have nots.' Thus, the event serves as a damning indictment of Obama's contempt for the freedom and opportunity that for over two centuries has underwritten this nation's prosperity and greatness.
As such, immediate damage control from the left was in order. On one 'news' program after another, Joe was demeaned and belittled. Joy Behar, offering her typically vapid commentary on the ABC program 'The View,' mocked Joe as 'engaging in fantasy' for hoping to eventually buy the plumbing business where he is presently employed. Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden (D.-DE) similarly demeaned him for worrying about the possibility of eventually earning the $250,000 that at least on that date (The number has predictably dropped to $150,000 in Obama's more recent speeches.), qualified him to be a target of Obama's fiscal fairness police.
Perhaps most reprehensible of all is the grim revelation that Helen Jones-Kelley the Director of Ohio's 'Department of Job and Family Services,' suddenly decided to do a thorough background check on Joe. Of course she denies any connection between this vindictive move and her having made the maximum legally allowable donation to the Obama campaign.
Such a colossal attack by virtually the entire Democrat political assassination squad, directed at a person of Joe's average social status may strike some naive liberals as completely out of character for the party that so proudly declares itself to be the advocate of 'the little guy.' Yet, considering the ugly realities of liberalism, the situation makes perfect sense.
In truth, Democrats and liberals have always had a vested interest in keeping the 'little guy' in a downtrodden and disadvantaged state. A preponderance of such vulnerable and feeble individuals represents their greatest hold on political power. Consequently, anyone who strives to elevate himself out of needy circumstances to a position of autonomy and self-determination represents the greatest of all threats to the liberal agenda. Obama is certainly no exception. 'Community Organizers' need, above all else, an exploitable community to empower them.
Ambitious and self-motivated, 'Joe the Plumber' does not fit that mold. In the end, the visceral loathing exhibited towards Joe by the left was merely a dark glimpse of its regard for any American who might spurn the promise of subsistence at the hands of the 'nanny state' and exchange its insipidness for the risks and rewards of good old-fashioned liberty.
In this manner can be explained all of the seeming contradictions of liberalism that have baffled many who might presume liberal intentions to be inherently good. Among the best examples is that of liberal culpability over the failure of public education. While claiming heartfelt concern for disadvantaged youth, liberals fiercely and determinedly oppose any efforts to let inner city children be set free from the educational wastelands of urban government schools.
Obama's own involvement with the Annenberg Foundation (originally established to fund education), along with fellow radical and domestic terrorist William Ayers, stands as further proof. Clearly, their mutual goal was not to boost the traditional academic atmosphere for Chicago's inner-city youth. Doing so would only open the doors of true American opportunity to those impressionable young people, allowing them to break free of the liberal snare in which they would otherwise remain in perpetuity.
Fifty million dollars later, another entire generation of Chicago's urban population is almost universally steeped in venomous liberal social/political philosophies that hang on their wrists and necks like shackles, barring them from ever rising above the squalor of their current existence. Yet in that state, their helplessness translates to the maximum benefit of Ayers, Obama, and the others who hold a firm grip on those shackles.
In contrast, 'Joe the Plumber' personifies the spirit of those Americans who once chose to abandon the comparative safety and stability of the plantation, and instead risked the hazards and uncertainties of Harriet Tubman's 'Underground Railroad' in hopes of finding freedom, who overcame the hardships and deprivations of the Oregon trail in pursuit of a land of opportunity, and who steadfastly refused to accept their lot as members of soup lines, opting instead to strike out on their own for a better life.
As such, he and his kind are a mortal threat to the liberal paradigm, and must be stopped at any cost. And as such, every 'Joe the Plumber' across America must stand resolute in the face of the ongoing propaganda onslaught from the leftists, and flatly tell them 'No! Real America will not go quietly into the night!'
The mainstream media, who forgot Felix Frankfurter's admonition that "freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society," long ago abdicated their role as government watchdog and now require a watchdog themselves. Never has that been clearer than in the 2008 presidential election, during which they are covering up rather than covering Barack Obama's shady past and alliances, his knee-deep involvement in corrupt practices threatening the very core of our democratic system, and his many policy misrepresentations.
Consider some items the MSM would have explored if they were guardians of liberty instead of the Obama campaign.
--When Democrats insist every vote must count, do they also mean multiple votes from individuals and votes from dead and nonexistent people? If not, why aren't the MSM demanding answers about Obama's incestuous relationship with the criminal enterprise ACORN, whose serial crimes could alter the outcome of this election?
--How can the MSM allow ACORN's dissemblers to deflect the charge that they are seeking illegal votes with "these are registrations, not ballots," as if there is any purpose in procuring illegal registrations apart from maximizing illegal votes?
--The MSM preach that money in politics necessarily corrupts, so why do they ignore Obama's broken promise to accept public financing, his record-breaking campaign receipts, and the large number of untraceable contributions?
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--Why do they dwell on VP candidate Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience but ignore presidential candidate Obama's thinner experience?
--As champions of the "little guy" and privacy rights, why are they not outraged that the Obama campaign targeted, slandered and investigated Joe the Plumber by illegally using government computers merely for asking Obama one of the many questions they should have asked him?
--Why did they let Obama get away with falsely denying his culpability in opposing an Illinois bill that would have provided medical care to infants born despite failed abortion attempts?
--Why do they ignore what have now become real questions about Obama's birth certificate, when he could summarily end the speculation and win the lawsuit challenges on the merits rather than on technicalities simply by producing the document?
--Why are they completely incurious about the many gaps in Obama's past, including his years at Columbia and Harvard?
--How dare they accept Obama's insulting claim that he was unaware of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's anti-American, racist and blasphemous diatribes after attending his church for two decades and calling him his spiritual mentor?
--Other than being sympathetic to Marxism themselves, why don't they ask Obama about his mentor Frank Marshall Davis and his admitted Marxist influence on him or that of his "openly Marxist" mother? Why was he "drawn to" Marxists? Why did he seek them out? Why don't the MSM explore the logical connection between that background, his alliances with Marxist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, and his advocacy of "spreading the wealth" today?
--Why don't they examine his self-description as a post-racial unifier against his autobiographical accounts of personal racial bitterness and his alliances with the Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan?
--Why do they conceal his complicity in Fannie and Freddie and his alliance with disgraced Fannie exec Franklin Raines?
--Why don't they demand the release of the videotape of his appearance at a 2003 dinner with Palestinian supporter Rashid Khalidi?
--Why don't they challenge his denial that he made a gross mistake in judgment in opposing the Iraq surge? It sure bothered them that George Bush couldn't admit a mistake.
--Why don't they ask him how he would immediately withdraw from Iraq regardless of the advice of commanders on the ground and the inevitable consequences, including forfeiture of our victory and our precious lives lost in combat?
--Why don't they ask him how he could possibly consider al-Qaida a threat if he thinks Iran is just a tiny country and not a threat?
--Why don't they wonder how he dares to mock the Holy Bible while he claims to be a devout Christian?
--Why do they give him a pass on his many duplicitous shifts of positions on the threshold income level for tax cuts from $300,000 to $250,000 to $200,000 to $150,000? How can they let him masquerade as a tax cutter and fiscal conservative when he has been the most liberal and tax-raising senator and his new spending easily would exceed $1 trillion? Does he support government control of our 401(k)s?
--Why did they affect hyperventilation over Sarah Palin's supposed wardrobe extravagance, which was merely a matter of projecting her best image, yet wholly ignore Obama's obscenely idolatrous million-dollar Greek coliseum mirage?
--And if he is really his brother's keeper, as Rush has noted, why can't he take care of his poverty-ridden brother and aunt, and why don't he and Joe Biden contribute more to charity?
As the case of Ashley Todd reminded us again last week, racial bias crimes are almost always hoaxes. Todd is the Republican volunteer who claimed that a black man in Pittsburgh had pummeled her and carved a "B" into her cheek after spotting the "McCain-Palin" bumper stickers on her car.
A lot of people suspected the case was a hoax from the outset, including Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, who immediately said: "It could be bogus. I'm a little skeptical about this, but our duty ... is to report everything to you."
The claim was bogus, but on MSNBC, instead of citing the Todd case as further proof of the maxim "Never believe claims of racial bias until proved," the hoax hate crime led to somber discussions of -- you guessed it! -- racism in America.
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann histrionically described Todd's hoax as "a narrative straight out of Reconstruction-era, race-based fear-mongering: a black man, 6-foot, 4-inches, attacking, sexually assaulting, fondling, mutilating a young white woman."
His expert pontificator on race was The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, who said the Pittsburgh hoax was "the blood libel against black men concerning the defilement of the flower of Caucasian womanhood. It's been with us for hundreds of years and, apparently, is still with us."
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Robinson was last heard from on the subject of race crimes in his famous April 25, 2006, Post column melodramatically saying of the Duke lacrosse rape case: "It's impossible to avoid thinking of all the black women who were violated by drunken white men in the American South over the centuries. The master-slave relationship, the tradition of droit du seigneur, the use of sexual possession as an instrument of domination -- all this ugliness floods the mind, unbidden, and refuses to leave."
Note to Mr. Robinson: There's a pill you can take for that now. Makes those endless, incessant thoughts of interracial rape just go away. Ask your doctor if this new pill is right for you.
As is now well-known, the alleged gang rape of a black stripper by white lacrosse players never happened. At least Ashley Todd's hoax didn't almost ruin an actual person's life.
Meanwhile, back at Hoax Interpretation Central, Olbermann spent most of October issuing blistering denunciations of John McCain and Sarah Palin based on the claim that someone had yelled "Kill him!" in reference to Obama at a Palin campaign rally.
"There's a fine line between a smear campaign and an incitement to violence," Olbermann lectured. "If Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have not previously crossed it this week, today even, they most certainly did."
One of Olbermann's many guest-hysterics was Newsweek's Richard Wolffe. Equally excited, Wolffe said it was "no excuse" that McCain and Palin couldn't hear what the crowd was shouting because "what you're seeing here is a very conscious attempt to paint Obama as un-American, as unpatriotic and, yes, cohorting, consorting with what they call, 'domestic terrorists.'"
(Liberals indignantly reject the label "domestic terrorists" for former Weathermen, preferring to call them "future Cabinet members.")
After beating the "Kill him!" story to death for a week, Olbermann delivered one of his comical "Special Comments" about the incident. "You, Sen. McCain," he pompously announced, "are not only a fraud, sir, but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence."
Olbermann demanded that McCain cease campaigning: "Suspend your campaign now until you or somebody else gets some control over it. And it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation."
Anything else, Keith? Should I just concede the election now -- or would next week be all right? While I'm up, can I get you a sandwich? How about a hot towel?
As has now been conclusively established, no one ever shouted "Kill him!" at a Palin campaign rally. The Secret Service undertook a full investigation -- listening to tapes of the event, interviewing people who had attended the rally, and interrogating Secret Service and other law enforcement officers who were spread throughout the crowd.
As even an article on the crazy, left-wing, don't-make-any-sudden-moves-around-them Salon site noted: "The Secret Service takes this sort of thing very, very seriously. If it says it doesn't think anyone shouted 'kill him,' it's a good bet that it didn't happen."
While we're on the subject of massive deceptions, Olbermann regularly has Chris Kofinis on his show to talk about the sleaziness of Republican candidates. But why has Olbermann never asked this former communications director of John Edwards' campaign about the hoax Edwards was pulling running for president as a family man with a sick wife while carrying on an extramarital affair?
What were they planning to do if Edwards got the nomination? Claim that Rielle Hunter's baby was fathered by a black man?
Having helped promote massive hoaxes that lasted for weeks in the case of "Kill him!" and years in the case of the Duke lacrosse case, you would think liberals would go easy on the crocodile tears over a 24-hour hoax by an obviously disturbed girl in Pittsburgh.
