Arise! - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Arise!
by

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
Re: Philip Klein’s Conservatism Can Rise Again:

Mr. Klein, I have my own convictions on the matter, identity politics, etc., but I’d like to know: why the first black president had to be a Marxist?
Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas


16 years is too long to wait so your message is not very encouraging. Since speech will now be severely restricted. I think you are too optimistic. No one will be taught anything accurate about conservatism, and then they will forget it existed. What am I fighting for? If people are stupid enough to re-elect John Murtha I do not see any hope. I have a young son. I do not want him to be brainwashed by teachers and the media. How is anyone supposed to dissent and fight when information is not available to them?

Well, I hope Peggy Noonan is happy!
Karen Kelly


As a federal employee (this message is NOT, in any way, to be taken as representing an official government position) who has also worked at the state and local level in various capacities, it has become all too evident to me that the purpose of government has been corrupted from that envisioned in the Constitution. This is a problem with both parties, but especially so for the GOP.

Limited government should be the mainstay of any successful party wishing to be an advocate of liberty. Fiscal responsibility is a major tactic within that goal, such that it is long since time for ALL federal spending to be placed on the books, and the Executive/Legislative branches required to identify and eliminate spending which is duplicative, cannot be shown to serve a delineated purpose, or is clearly not producing the intended benefits. It would also be useful to impose a mandatory restraint on spending; no increase for the next two years and shifting of funds to priorities as determined by the budget and appropriation bills until such time as the financial crisis has been stabilized, if not solved.

This also requires federal employees to be responsible partners in this effort. I propose that pay and benefits be frozen until such time as the financial crisis is stabilized and any future increases be limited to an appropriately devised “misery index” i.e. a ratio to unemployment, inflation, student achievement on national tests, etc. If this means a freeze of several years or more, so what? Employment with an increased cost burden, given the pay and benefits available to most federal employees, is by far better than the situation faced by many of our counterparts in the private sector–the folks who actually generate the wealth which funds that compensation package.

A party that promotes both liberty and fiscal responsibility will have a message consistent with the original republic concept–and perhaps will provide suitable basis to draw adherents from all spectrums.
John Furutani, CPA


Philip Klein writes that conservatism is not dead. I am not so sure.

During the Bush years I came to wonder whether or not I was still a conservative. Did I leave the movement, or did it leave me?

The corruption of the Tom Delay Congress reminded me of the days of Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski, when power is wielded for its own sake. Bush’s foreign policy tilted hopelessly away from realism into what we call neo-conservatism but is more accurately understood as neo-Wilsonianism. It has been disastrous abroad and at home. The most grotesque moment of the last eight came in the Terri Schiavo case, when the US Congress, in violation of the separation of powers and the 10th amendment, intervened in a single family’s most private and sacred business. Meanwhile, mean-spirited talk show hosts bash illegal immigrants who are only in the United States because we give them jobs, and gays who just happen to be born that way. Nothing about any of this reminds me in the least of the noble spirit of Ronald Reagan, for whom I worked as a college student in 1984.

Something new must rise from the ruins to counter-balance the left. A complete reformation is needed to attract people who now call themselves centrists.
Stephen Erickson
Portsmouth, New Hampshire


Had you considered the irony — some might say distasteful irony — in employing the term “Rise Again” in an article prompted by the election of the first Black president? As in “the South will Rise Again?” Just a thought.
Brian Johnson
Overland Park, Kansas


I found McCain to be far more “liberal” than Obama. Obama’s health plan is a lot like Mitt Romney’s, McCain’s was a radical transformation of the financing and delivery of health care in the USA. Can anyone read his plan to tax health benefits and redistribute the funds and not see that McCain really did want to spread our health care benefits around? Does any true conservative believe that if the money was run through Washington the politicians would not try to influence how it was spent? Lobbyists and social activists would target the program. There would be fight after fight over whether federal funds could be used to buy insurance that either did include something (abortions) or didn’t include something (chiropracters). How can a conservative not believe that would occur? Obama is not conservative, but McCain was worse.
— David Wyant


Conservatism can rise again if they articulate a clear understanding of what they are and what the word means.

In 1964 I was a 19-year-old college freshman deeply excited by Barry Goldwater’s “Conscious of a Conservative.” I worked to support his election despite the overwhelming odds because I believed in a “Constitutional conservatism.” As the next few years went on I became increasingly uncomfortable that Richard Nixon was going to carry this banner. I was very confused about what he meant by the “silent majority” that he infused in his politics. As several years went by and I began it understand that it was essentially “social conservatism” which simply didn’t fit with my idea of “constitutional conservatism.”

As the years went by the idea of constitutional conservatism was overwhelmed by “social conservatism” within the Republican party. In my mind, the Constitution reserves to the states those responsibilities not assigned to the federal government. Most social conservative issues (abortion, sex education, evolution, Christian and white supremacy, gay marriage and so forth) have nothing to do with the federal government’s role.

As far as I am concerned those issues have no place in national politics. They are church matters or at most state matters. Eventually I was simply driven out of the Republican party because their issues were not my issues. To this day I remain a financial and Constitutional conservative, but not without some rules for the road (bank regulation, anti-monopoly, labor relations, and regulations for basic public services). Libertarian I am not.

Reagan and Bush increased the size of government, increased the deficit, reduced taxes without reducing spending. This was not constitutional or fiscal conservatism. Don’t get me started on Bush’s utter disregard for the Constitution. He should have been impeached. Only Clinton worked at my brand of fiscal conservatism. He wasn’t very constructive because he got off to a slow start and then spent 6 years battling with Newt Gingrich over absolutely nothing!!

Really the Democratic party is now all that is left for me. So I contributed to and voted for Obama.

The conservative discussion needs to be about what they are and what they are not. I don’t think the Republicans are ready to do that.
David Ballard


I think we need to create a party machine that can counter the Soros money and all of the foreign campaign donations that Obama received. This is not about ideology. The American people agree more with conservative principles than liberal/leftist principals. They were duped by a huge money machine.

It doesn’t matter how good the message is if you can’t get it out because the left is shouting louder. It doesn’t matter how good the message is when the left is spewing lies that go unchallenged in the real world.

Conservatives failed to support President Bush. If we do not believe in ourselves enough to speak up for ourselves, no one else is going to believe in us either. The fact that the noise was generated often illegally is beside the point. We let it happen and did not challenge any of it aggressively enough.

Being right (correct) is a far cry from being effective. We need to figure out how to be effective without compromising our honor. Against a sincerely dishonorable opponent that has no qualms about violating morals, ethics and laws, we have to be a lot more aggressive…not obnoxious, just more aggressive.

And, maybe, just maybe, we need to let the chips fall where they may and let the public see what they have bought. If they suffer the consequences of their decision, then they will change their minds.
Gail Spurlock

Just an observation, Mr. Klein. Only a little over two years ago, in these very TAS pages, we were discussing with Jeffrey Lord the conservative paradigm shift and victory in November. Looking ahead, we also believed Hillary Clinton was the inevitable 2008 Dem candidate, beatable, because she was too liberal, even more than her husband.  Well, I guess we showed ’em!

Now, for my own little prediction, about which I would be more than happy to be wrong. We will not regain control of either house of congress in 2010, and BHO will be re-elected in 2012. Why?

We consistently underestimate the skill of the other side to misrepresent truth, and their control over the political agenda through institutions such as the public school system. If we somehow were to succeed in electing a Republican president within the next 3-4 election cycles, let’s hope he/she is smart enough, and maybe more importantly, has the fortitude to stand up to these professional punks of Progressive pedantry once and for all, and to quit making deals with the Teddy Kennedy’s of this country to fund them. We need a real alternative to the current public school system that teaches how to think, not what to think. That’s a tall order, I know. But, until the people of this country understand that it matters what you believe and why you believe it, we are headed for a calamitous end. They will ask themselves in wonderment how it happened, and be amazed that they are totally unable to give an answer.

Maybe now, that the Republican party has no more “it’s my turn” candidates over 65 years old, we can rebuild with the idea of nominating someone for what they believe in, and hopefully, that will be conservatism.
Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas

One thing I will not tolerate is when someone says,”we have to rally around the new president.”

No, we don’t.

We need to act like the liberal thugs and imitate what they did to Bush, except calling for his murder.

American has chosen a baby-killer in uber-pro-abortionist Barack. Everyone who voted for him are complicit in the murder of abortion. The nation has turned its back on God in a big way. The nation has chosen destruction.

In the words of Barack’s Preacher, Jeremiah Wright: “…….”

God will not bless America.
James E. Unger


In response to Philip Klein’s article, I find the suggestion that conservatives must immediately “resist his (Obama’s) agenda” and stop the Democratically-controlled Congress short-sighted. Don’t we need to see the proposals and evaluate them on their merits before we take them out back and put them out of their misery? Isn’t there a possibility that conservative principles can find their way into the agenda if President-elect Obama makes good on his bipartisan rhetoric? Why are the next 4 years of legislative and executive actions being rejected without a hearing? If the art of compromise is not even on the conservative table, then the promise of better days ahead for our country is dead-on-arrival.
Nick Ruth


Mr. Klein writes: “America is not as conservative as it seemed in 2004 and it isn’t as liberal as it looks this morning.” I think this statement captures where Americans are politically. I believe this is fundamentally a centrist nation. Voters reject the policies of the extreme right and the extreme left when they become manifest. We saw this in the election of Ronald Reagan and we saw it again last night. Barack Obama’s victory, in part, is a rejection of the core principal of conservatism – that the pursuit of the common good is achieved only through individuals pursing their self interests unfettered by government regulation and taxation. This philosophy fails to recognize that we live in communities and that there are some interests that we cannot pursue without government. Well ordered financial markets that are transparent and fair is the most painfully obvious example we have before us right now. It was stunning to see Mr. Greenspan express amazement that Wall Street institutions, free from government oversight, did not perform perfectly in the interest of all individuals.

Further, Mr. Klein writes: “Some of those who identify themselves as conservatives would have us believe that the conclusion to draw from this is that the era of small government conservatism is over, and that the only option is to fight for a conservative welfare state to replace a liberal welfare state.” How can it be otherwise? Don’t Robert Byrd and Ted Stevens remind us everyday that constituents from both parties expect their political leaders to bring home the pork? Who among us really stands for small government? Alaskans clamoring for the Bridge to Nowhere? West Virginians looking for another government office? Who are the political leaders calling for Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country?” Is the word sacrifice any longer in the political lexicon?

And he observes: “The United States faces a long-term deficit of over $53 trillion that is set to bite us in just a few years…” And what do we have to show for that debt? A democratic, peaceful Middle East? New infrastructure? A well articulated energy policy that has set us on the road to energy independence? A cleaner environment? Confidence that we are secure against another 9/11 type attack? Confidence that our food, water and medicines are safe? A prosperous economy? Certainty that our civil liberties are being zealously guarded by a DOJ that operatives above partisan politics? And, who is going to pay for this debt? Being possibly the most unethical generation ever, I suspect we will kick the can down the road to our children and grandchildren. What political leader has the courage to ask us to tax ourselves to pay for the tab we
have run up?

Finally, Mr Klein writes: “The road ahead for conservatives is long, dark, and perilous –” This is a fairly apt description of the road behind us. War, debt, division, an economic meltdown, serious problems ignored for eight years – the legacy of the Bush administration – aided and abetted by “the network of conservative think tanks, journalists, and activists.”

Thanks.
Mike Roush


Mr. Klein – with all due respect, you are wrong. If you had said, “conservative principles can continue to live in the hearts and minds of its proponents”, I would have agreed. But to suggest that the electorate is going to turn against the Dems in the next few years is to ignore several facts. Not opinions — facts.

By 2012, The Messiah is going to have 12 to 20 million brand spanking new, freshly minted Dem voters. These folks are currently identified as “undocumented workers”, but with the assistance of McLame, Gramnesty and the other RINO’s we will turn them into citizen-voters.With the federal government confiscating my income and sending it out to the 40 million plus who currently pay no income tax, he will have solidified his “base.” He will further solidify it with the promise, if not the actual delivery of a new “free” health care plan, again paid for out of my income.

In addition, The Messiah will have at least two and possibly three brand new, freshly minted Ruth Bader Ginsbergs on the Supreme Court.

With the assistance of the RINO’s, the Dems will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Please, then, explain to me how this Conservative resurgence is going to be implemented. By what mechanism?
Keith Kunzler


BUT YOU’RE STILL A LOSER

Re: Robert Stacy McCain’s You Did Not Lose:

Senator McCain lost the election when he voted for the 700 billion dollar bailout. At that point, too many people decided there was little difference between him and Junior. McCain was in the pockets of the fat cats just as much as Junior.
Ed Conradt

To throw my thoughts in, I’m inclined to think a big part of the reason for McCain’s loss was that the Republican primary voters really expected their candidate to be facing Hillary Clinton in November, and not Barack Obama. Like most losses or victories, there are a lot of factors, and, I don’t doubt, will be debated over the next few days, weeks, and months.

However, there’s little time for that. There are larger issues than elections. It’s time to start the struggle to keep the damage the Democrats can do to a minimum, to fight it out in the political arena, and to prepare to take it all back in 2010 and 2012…
Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida


R.S. McCain is exactly correct, on many fronts. I and my wife, deeply-rooted conservatives, were amazed that J. McCain was the Republican nominee. She and I voted for Fred Thompson in the Tennessee primary, although he had dropped out after South Carolina. As conservatives (Reformed Christian — evangelical types too!), we could not embrace a candidate that had attempted, with significant Democrat and Republican complicity, to severely limit our free speech rights (McCain-Feingold), and worked to blunt attempts to allow up-down votes on federal judges as a member of the “Gang of 14.”

There was no place for my wife and I to turn (since we abhor choosing the lesser of two evils) other than the Constitution Party. I proudly “pulled the lever” for Baldwin-Castle ’08, and am not regretting it for a minute. If the country is going to be run by non-conservatives, then let Democrats do it so that they can receive the full “credit” for the results. I don’t believe putting a “conservative” in office that will attempt to govern as an ingratiating “moderate” ultimate serves any useful purpose.

Now, can we give Howard Dean some credit?
Morgan P. Yarbrough
Piperton, Tennessee


Contrary to the sugar coating, yes, we did lose last night and lost big. We will have a socialist congress, with a rubber stamping incompetent in the White House. There will a America-bashing, white-hating First Lady, who has undue influence over that empty suit. Every socialist program you can imagine will be passed along with the attendant tax increases to pay for them because no one will want to be called “racist” or resist the “mandate” of the self serving left, with their cadre of street thugs, who will ensure the average citizen stays within the “party” line. McCain was no prize, that is for sure. He wasn’t a fighter as shown last night by his capitulation ( and throughout his campaign) but he was a lot better than Choice “B.” For one who threw their vote away ( along with other “conservatives”) you have no room to say anything. At least a lot of true patriots voted for the better choice, no matter how we felt. The biggest loser, overall, last night has been people like you. No more will we listen to your BS about real conservatives or anything else. You cost us the nation just as surely as if an armed enemy stormed our shore and defeated our warriors…only this time the bayonet is in the back.
Pete Chagnon


The coming national catastrophe may be worse (or at least more absurd) than we imagined. Checking out the blogs today, I came across this from enthusiastic Obama supporter Jim Kunstler (whose blog is elegantly entitled “Clusterf**k Nation”):

“There’s a lot about the way we live now that is disgusting, degrading, demoralizing, and socially toxic — from our suicidal diet of processed fat, salt, and corn syrup byproducts…”

Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt any of us to knock off five pounds. It gets even better:

“…to the spiritually punishing everyday realm of the highway strip to the fantastic loneliness and alienation of a people made hostage to a TV-consumer nexus…”

Loneliness? What with cell phones, email, and instant messaging, it’s impossible to find five minutes of peace and quiet for yourself these days, without President Obama instituting a kind of national eharmony.com to keep us all cozy together. But I suppose it is high up on the list of the Obama-ites to destroy the last vestiges of self-reliance and self-dependence in American life. Morons always need to be told what to do with their time.

“Were done with that. We just don’t know it yet. Mr.. Obama may not know it, either, but he is a trustworthy soul to hold our hands as we enter this unknown territory.”

In other words, it’s not just economic and military collapse we need to worry about…it’s our descent into complete lunacy.

God help us.
Gene Schmidt

No, I did not lose, but I do feel the country has lost. Robert Stacy is not the real McCain, but the spin he presents today will surely be repeated by many conservatives in the weeks and months to come. Rush is running with this theme too.

Anyway, it’s pure bunk. Does anyone think the Romney would have performed better than McCain? I’m quite confident that there is no Republican that could have run better than McCain this election year. I’ve disagreed with McCain on a number of issues over the years, but the idea that he is not a “true” conservative is laughable. Wait till we see Obama’s selections to the federal bench, his interpretation of labor and environmental regulations, his international policy, etc., and then come back to me and say that McCain would have been no better. RET gave the best endorsement of McCain I’ve read anywhere. I’m quite sick of Robert Stacy and Rush Limbaugh denigrating someone who was actually a player in the Reagan Revolution. And, McCain may need to be a player in the battles ahead.

The Republican party better unite fast, and a good start would be focusing on core issues. McCain was always fine on core issues, and the focus on his heresy regarding campaign finance, etc. was always a very destructive red herring. The Republican brand needs to get lean and mean. Unless Republicans want to cede wide swaths of the US (try the entire Northeast and a good chunk of the Midwest), they better start uniting behind the core issues that McCain has fought for his entire life.

All the best. Love the Spectator.
Jason Davis


Obama and the Leftist Democrats do not need to live up to expectations. The partner media will present them as if they are, and what a wonderful world we have as a result of socialist care for the 40 percent who pay no taxes, while the innovative and enterprising Americans find it more difficult to make a living, and the elderly can no longer live on what they received in debased currency because of socialist profligacy.
Tal Campbell

As an Indy con who voted for the only real conservative in the race, Chuck Baldwin (though I am not a Truther), I salute you for writing an excellent piece today.

I’m assuming you aren’t related to John McCain.
David Levin

Robert Stacy McCain replies:

For many years, I had assumed I was no relation to the Arizona senator until, while doing research in 2000, I read his brief genealogical summary in “Faith of My Fathers” and realized that he and I have a mutual ancestor who lived in South Carolina circa 1790. One branch of the family went to Mississippi and became wealthy plantation owners, while another settled in East Alabama as red-dirt farmers. I’m a proud scion of the Red Dirt McCains, and have frequently referred to the Arizon senator as “Crazy Cousin John.” There is a wide streak of crazy in the family, as anyone who knows me would attest, but Cousin John takes the cake.

HISTORICAL ARC
Re: Peter Ferrara’s Catch a Falling Flag:

Mr. Ferrara asks “So what are President Obama and our new ultraliberal leaders going to do to get us off this road to devastation?”

I don’t know, but given recent history, I have to believe that Jamie Gorelick will be involved in some senior capacity.

Bravo, Peter Ferrara for this piece!
Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut


So Barack Obama and the evil party won with a combination of obfuscation, misdirection, and superior fundraising of questionable legality. Welcome to politics well played. I haven’t seen much of that lately, especially from the stupid party. So John McCain lost as he failed to deliver a coherent message, failed to overcome his RINO tendencies (didn’t help him much with his MSM buddies, did it?), and failed to raise any money for the message he lacked anyway. You may recall that in my series of letters recommending a blank ballot at the Presidential level, I said after the first debate it didn’t really matter anymore since McCain had lost the election at that point. There is some delicious irony in that McCain probably didn’t stand much chance anyway, since he was about to be outspent by 3 or 4 to 1, as the Democrat “commitment” to goo-goo campaign finance reform yielded to practical advantage and McCain had cut off access to possible funding alternatives due to his own assault on the first amendment and foolish commitment to public financing.

The Republicans are paying the price for betraying the promises of 1994, and becoming the Establishment party, and, unfortunately, we will be paying a price right along with them. The warnings were available, and yet we could watch our self-styled Republican revolutionaries as they became self-satisfied and corrupt, and as they clearly believed it all would come out okay for them. Prior to the 2006 catastrophe, leaders of the revolution such as Tom Delay were telling America that the Republicans had solved the spending problem and that there was nothing more to be cut. Those same leaders tolerated and tried to hide the character flaws of members who ended up either disgraced or behind bars. It was a sorry end to a blown opportunity.

Peter Ferrara is right that there is opportunity in this outcome. The Democrats will overreach as they always do. Even if Obama is more of a pragmatist than I think he is, he will not be able to restrain the bizarre collection of San Francisco Democrats that now make up the Congress. And he will have to take some steps to satisfy the nutburgers who provided the early enthusiasm in his campaign.

The real question is whether the stupid party will be able to take advantage of the opportunities they are offered. Will they roll over out of fear, or will they oppose? And if they do oppose, will they do so effectively, defining the Democrats as radical extremists and offering sensible alternatives? I’m afraid that even a groundswell of opposition to what we may expect from the effects of evil party governance will not help Republicans (and the country) if Republicans will not help themselves. Who will lead efforts to nationalize issues of Congressional lawmaking for 2010? (One would hope it would not be ANYONE who voted for or supported the bailout bill.)

The stupid party had better figure out how to translate its timeless message into attractive public policy and how to communicate it effectively on a national basis in the run-up to the 2010 election. The stupid party had also better figure out how to achieve a Palin/Jindal ticket for 2012.
Stephen Zierak
Kansas City, Missouri


ACTUALLY IT’S PRETTY EXPLICABLE

Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s What We Know:

I believe that Lisa Fabrizio is mistaken in writing: “Yet inexplicably, the fact that a demographic group that votes almost entirely as a block based on skin color will most likely be ignored.”

Black voters don’t vote based on the skin color of the candidate; Blacks vote for liberal Democrats. Just ask Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell.

Early in the primaries, Blacks were not united behind Obama — their preference was Hillary. In fact, for years, the Democratic bosses told Blacks to wait their turn, which they patiently did, all the while voting for White Democrats.

It makes no sense for Republicans to court the Black vote, because Republicans (even John McCain) can’t “out-liberal” a real liberal. Republicans should court the conservative vote, by running conservative candidates, including the aforementioned Swann, Steele and Blackwell.
Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania


IN OTHER NEWS, WATER IS WET

Re: Jay D. Homnick’s Can America Come to Its Census?:

Are you implying that Democrats cheat, and the media is complicit? I am shocked, sir, shocked.

Today in a gun store, a local reporter asked me why people seemed to believe new gun control laws would soon be passed. I was somewhat taken aback, and pointed out that Obama was on the board of the Joyce Foundation, supported the Chicago handgun ban after the Heller decision, etc. After I left, I began to wonder why no reporter had, to my knowledge, asked Obama about his position on gun control. Do we know this man at all? Truly a sad day for America. The Second Amendment may live, but the press has wasted the First.
Frank St. Clair
Lexington, Kentucky

NOT BUYING IT

A majority of The United States bought what he was selling. We’ll see if it arrives as advertised. I will remain agnostic; forgive me and the rest of the clear thinking “minority” if we don’t quite understand how Pelosi’s hyper-partisan explanation of a Democrat-dominated Congress and Presidency will be “more bipartisan.”

To me, this election was as much a statement about the evolution of our country’s electorate as it was about a hyper-partisan, manipulative liberal political party and its complicit mainstream media. A sense of entitlement has grown appreciably in far too great a portion of our population. It’s not surprising that people lined up to vote for the man who promised them free checks, free healthcare, perfect jobs and essentially freedom from responsibility and accountability for their actions, including living beyond their means though unsecured revolving credit (credit cards) and secured-but-unaffordable debt like a Clintonian-sponsored, FannieMae-backed home that was available for no money down and little means to pay the mortgage. A majority of our electorate became infatuated with the celebrity of a candidate, which means so much was left uncovered and unexplored as to what kind of person would be leading our country, and like all celebrity status, being famous feeds on itself and makes that person more famous for …being famous? Like most infatuation, there’s likely a more grim story beneath. Candidates must now study the American Idol popularity playbook to design a winning presidential campaign strategy, I guess.

Hopefully, truths and realities will be exposed. After witnessing this election cycle, I must disagree with so many of my fellow conservatives who are certain the “real Obama” will be quickly exposed and all but the hardest of liberal partisans will regret voting for him (I call this “The Carter Effect”). I expect that our mainstream media will remain apologetic to an Obama administration and a liberal Congress. With “Fairness Doctrine” actions (liberal, state-sponsored suppression of free speech), our media will become increasingly captured and controlled. If flaws and failures are to be exposed, it will have to be a grassroots effort and a thousand “Drudges” in support. With a full wind of media in his sails, Obama will likely continue to use President Bush as his excuse for any failure or gaffe that attempts to stick to him; he will point backward to sidestep accountability, and his flock will bleat, but not directly at him.

In his book-with-borrowed-title “The Audacity of Hope”, Senator Obama wrote: ”I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” Yes, his words. Or at least he audaciously claims them as his own. I’m only slightly less concerned with his concession of material conviction with this statement than my great concern for who will inhabit his proverbial projection room. Hate-filled left-wing attack groups (MoveOn, Kos, etc.) and liberal partisan hacks will constantly remind the Junior Senator from Illinois that his gilded prepared speeches wouldn’t have been enough to win without their support on his flanks. I fear what payback will be projected onto his blank screen at the expense of our beloved country.

Personally, I think Mr. Obama is a skilled political manipulator; I am sure he can conveniently morph “what the meaning of ‘is’ is” even better than his Democrat predecessor in a deposition. He’s been called “an exceptional man” from someone I know is close to him. I agree that he is exceptionally persuasive, but like the hope and change that he promises, the application of his exceptionality and his promise of hope and change may project onto his blank screen differently than his admirers expect. Instead of a blank screen, I rather like to think of Mr. Obama as an “Etch-a-Sketch”: something that projects two-dimensionally, in black and white, and when shaken, goes quickly blank again.

Good luck, Mr. Obama. Time will tell whether the citizens you will promise to serve and subsidize will actually get what you promise, or if they will get what they want, or get what they deserve. Only time will tell if there’s any intersection among those three, and only time will tell if your supporting electorate will even be able to identify the difference among those three. My Messiah will remain Jesus Christ, and yes, I’ll proudly cling to my religion, even if you’re going to cling to my wallet.
Bill Attinger
Carlsbad, California


WHAT BETTER TIME THEN NOW?

Re: Thaddeus G. McCotter’s Now, Seize Freedom!

Thank you Thaddeus. Can we start today?
Mike Falatko
Cass City, Michigan

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