The American Spectator : The Democrats' Rough Re-entry Into Reality

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A Further Perspective

The Democrats’ Rough Re-entry Into Reality

By Ron Ross on 10.19.12 @ 6:07AM

If Obama loses, will they resist blaming him for their own demise?

Is there a limit to self-delusion? And if there is, what happens when the limit is exceeded?

New York Times columnist Gail Collins began her column last week as follows, “When Democrats run into each other on elevators, they exchange glances and sigh. Or make little whimpering sounds.” She went on to observe that “Democrats are going bipolar. Democrats spend all their waking hours thinking about the swing states. If Wisconsin starts looking wobbly, their day is ruined.” It makes you wonder what their days are going to be like if Obama loses the actual election.

Liberals are angry and frustrated with Obama. He, however, is not the real object of their anger. Someone once observed, “Our strongest anger is reserved for ourselves.” (If you doubt that, just ask any golfer.) Liberals are angry and frustrated with themselves because they bought into the fantasy of Barack Obama.

For the past four years conservatives have been asking themselves, “Why can’t more people see what a fraud this guy is?” That may be an impossible question to answer, but the population of those who see him for who and what he is seems to be growing.

One of the things that makes Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” such an enduring parable is how it is both absurd and painfully true. The emperor was naked, but no one wanted to be the first to admit it. A kind of mass hysteria affected the citizens. Once a child spoke the obvious truth, the delusion was shattered. If there were not a lot of truth about human nature reflected in the story, it wouldn’t be such a classic.

Obama’s nakedness is not physical but rather intellectual. Time magazine’s Joe Klein said recently, “Anyone who says Barack Obama is not intelligent is either crazy or bigoted.” What makes Klein so certain that Obama is intelligent? The evidence is all in the opposite direction. Forrest Gump famously said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” The corollary is also true. Smart is as smart does. Was choosing Joe Biden as someone to be a heartbeat away from the presidency a smart decision? If you think so, you need to watch the video of last week’s vice-presidential debate.

Another reality that may be penetrating the liberals’ self-delusion shield is the Benghazi debacle. It’s been said that a liberal is someone who will not take his own side in a fight. A perfect example of that perverse attitude is how Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice were all so eager to take the terrorists’ side in the attacks on our embassies. They used the strongest possible words in condemning the obscure video and its creator. Ms. Clinton said the video was “disgusting and reprehensible” and “truly abhorrent.” By blaming the video so vehemently they effectively implied the attackers were justified. They took the terrorists’ side in the fight. They basically said, “We totally understand why you wanted to kill our ambassador. You don’t like America; neither do we.”

Democrats ridiculed Clint Eastwood for his empty chair speech at the Republican National Convention. In retrospect his metaphor appears to have been spot-on. Eastwood later observed that “Obama is the biggest hoax ever committed on the American people.”

Even if some Democrats are seeing the hollow reality of Barack Obama for the first time, it’s unlikely to affect their overall mind-set. When a liberal has a choice between fantasy and reality, he will choose fantasy every time. There’s no reason to think that will change anytime soon.

Beyond the specific reality of Barack Obama, the Democrats’ fundamental problem is their adherence to liberalism. Obama is a glaring manifestation of liberalism. If he fails to win reelection, Democrats will blame him. They will do everything in their power to deny where the real blame truly belongs.

About the Author

Ron Ross Ph.D. is an economist who lives in Arcata, California. He is the author of The Unbeatable Market. Reach him at rossecon@gmail.com.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (148) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

spike59| 10.19.12 @ 6:16AM

just read the on-line commentary from the Leftists and the tone of the MSM ObaMao cheering section; they KNOW what's coming in less than 3 weeks, even if they won't admit it-and they're in full panic/desparation mode...but what comes on Nov 7...the realization that the electorate has declared the Emperor totally nekkid...and then we'll all be enjoying the flow of hot tears of impotent rage...MSDNC will need to have trained staff on hand to prevent Madcow, and Tingles from committing suicide, and to respond to a 'code blue-stat!' when Ed Schultz strokes out on-air

Aristocat| 10.19.12 @ 6:25AM

Demoncrats are going to be like drug addicts going through withdrawal...It's going to be painful for them, but they need to grow up and stop feeding off the government teet.

Von Mises Jr| 10.19.12 @ 10:24AM

Liberals cannot grow up and remain liberals. Liberalism is a form of cowardice. It is a rejection of courage and manhood.
Le Bon in "The Psychology of Revolution" explained that the individual acted differently in crowds since to object to Robespierre "Off with their heads" could cost you your own noggin. So cowards cheered just as they had at Christ's Crucifixion.
Having spent way too much time around liberals in the Northeast, it is astounding the self-censorship. If that wall is broached, they have programmed responses to shut down the conversation like "it was the Coptic Christians right-wing video." If you press them, they actually get really pissed and storm off. It could actually be amusing.
They are too cowardly to face the truth, especially if other liberals are watching.
And it amazes me that anyone is afraid of these pantywaists.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 2:52PM

There's a Contest Today.

The only problem is, you're gonna have to go back to Yesterday, and Go Looking At Tunisia.

There's Prizes.

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:43PM

The founders were the liberals of their times.

Today's so called conservatives are basically a lynch mob.

Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 10.19.12 @ 5:55PM

I didn't vote for Obama in '08, and unless his performance (and substance) on Monday is top-notch, I wont vote for him next month. I was glad Obama was elected in '08 for two related reasons: Rove-Cheney were on their way out and McCain was back in AZ where he belongs.

Now I'm resigned to four-eight years of compassionate conservatism with a Mormon twist.

CrackerHound| 10.19.12 @ 10:34AM

I truly believe this will be an Reagan-Carter type landslide. I cannot see how Obama will get enough support for it to be anything but (with the exception of really die-hard leftists).

My only question is this: Can Republicans add to the House and take the Senate as well?

The talkers are acting like it' not likely or even impossible. I am just getting the same feeling I had in 2010, only stronger. I can almost smell an electorial revolution coming. What do y'all think?

Immortal 600| 10.19.12 @ 11:44AM

CrackerHound, I agree with your assessment. For the most part. For Romney to repeat what Reagan did would require more states than we are seeing in play. Remember Reagan took both New York and California. Neither of those seem to be available for Romney this year. However, here in Florida the momentum for Romney is clearly discernible. In my neighborhood and over most of Manatee County the Romney signs are visible easily outnumbering Obama signs 10-1. I firmly believe Florida will be called for Romney within an hour of poll closings. That will be a huge indicator of the defeat that Obama will endure.
On a side note, I keep getting calls from the RNC asking me to vote early. I keep telling them I don't believe in early voting. Show up to the polls the day of the election. If I have to stand in a line 2 hours long I don't care. I'll be there November 6th to vote for Romney and will stand in the strongest downpour to cast that ballot!

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 2:53PM

There's a Contest Today, gentlemen.

The only problem is, you're gonna have to go back to Yesterday, and Go Looking At Tunisia.

There's Prizes.

Von Mises Jr| 10.19.12 @ 11:21AM

If you want to see the Mitt Romney that the MSM does not want you to see, you have to go to The Blaze or just watch their video from the Al Smith Dinner. Mitt is hilarious and gracious. He will make a fine President.
If you want to see te Mitt Romney the MSM does not want you to see, please watch this Al Smith Dinner where Mitt is both hilarious and gracious:
http://www.theblaze.com/storie.....istribute/

sotto voce| 10.19.12 @ 1:19PM

You're right Von Mises, Mitt was wonderful at the Al Smith dinner. He was Arrow Shirt handsome in his white tie, solid, at ease, and effortlessly commanding, in a word: Presidential. He exuded warmth and wit, his timing was impeccable and his closing remarks were meaningful and gracious.

Obama, on the other hand, looked scrawny in his white tie, like he was wearing borrowed clothes a size too big. His jokes were wan and his closing remarks, delivered in his annoying staccato, were perfunctory. Overall, he was visibly diminished in comparison to Romney.

Debates aside, Romney's performance at the Al Smith dinner should seal the deal for any undecided voter who views it.

CJW| 10.19.12 @ 2:39PM

Von
Great delivery and timing. Mitt sliced and diced Obama with humor and wit. He should scrap all his ads and run excerpts of this. The best humor is based on truth, and the monologue here is devastating.
Looks like Katie Kouric had her eyes on Mitt.
One complaint, why is a scumbag like Chris Matthews sitting at the dais at a Catholic function? He mocks and denigrates the Catholic position on abortion as similar to sharia law.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 2:54PM

There's a Contest Today.

The only problem is, you're gonna have to go back to Yesterday, and Go Looking At Tunisia.

There's Prizes.

Where are you?

CJW| 10.19.12 @ 3:21PM

Just got in from trying to make a buck in the obama economy, posted two already, may have more.

Von Mises Jr| 10.20.12 @ 7:02AM

The lines were great.
"President Obama is looking at all the white ties and finery. He must be thinking: "so little time and so much to redistribute."
Mitt said his job was to lay out a future for the country. The press corpse job was to make sure nobody finds out about it.
It is a MUST SEE.

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:41PM

Speak English please, you are in America now.

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 6:51AM

Oh, please. If Obama loses, it's because the least informed of the voters were swayed by Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate. That's really all it comes down to. In the days before the debate, people here were either flatly denying the polls (they're all chirp-ely quoting them, now! Go figure - hypocrites are, as hypocrites do), OR complaining about stupid undecideds.

This guy with the economics PhD ought to be able to cotton on: swing voters are marginal voters: the least likely to vote, the least likely to know the issues. Easily swayed. Obama's overconfidence screwed his fortunes up, bad. And you know: if he loses, we won't have to pile on him: he'll be the first to admit, that he blew it.

If he loses, I predict people are gonna regret it, right quick. Obama's rep is going to be much better than his polling, now. And if he loses, it's not like he doesn't have a very worthy future role to play in American public life: he can very credibly put himself forward as a future one-term president, an elder statesman coming in to enact necessary policies that politicians interested in re-election can't touch - like entitlement reforms. And/or he could go to the Court. You may well come to regret it, if he loses...

TruSkeptik| 10.19.12 @ 7:54AM

I am looking forward to very deep regret, indeed. Have another cup of Kool-Aid?

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 8:02AM

Oh, sure. And I will toast to you (and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth of this site) when a half-tank Obama beats your car salesman up there.

Mike G| 10.19.12 @ 8:25AM

But it's obvious that Biden is the car salesman.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 9:40AM

I'm looking at a Column from Yesterday, entitled - Looking At Tunisia.

Did you know that they have Contests in Tunisia?

It's true.

You should check it out.

birmingham| 10.21.12 @ 9:05PM

Um, why don't they have "flag" comments on this thread? This idiot is clearly a spammer.

Truth to Power| 10.19.12 @ 9:30AM

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/.....-failures/

Here are the kind of clunkers that an incompetent President foists on the American people. Ted R is in love with a conman and thinks everyone is as stupid as he is. Check out Spain. It went with the "Green jobs" con and is now in a depression. It is time for a change.

Truth to Power| 10.19.12 @ 9:46AM

http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....54968.html

Again the big O is not interested in reality but he can't hide from it forever. What kind of idiots bought into this conman?

The Avenger| 10.19.12 @ 10:10AM

liberal idiots, that's who.

Dave Williams| 10.19.12 @ 3:30PM

Oxymoron...
Come to think of it, libbies ARE oxymorons...accent on the last two syllables.

The Big E| 10.19.12 @ 8:37AM

Witness above in Ted R. the perfect proof of the author's point.

Cobalt| 10.19.12 @ 9:41AM

Friday October 19, 2012

Romney +4.6%

UnskewedPolls.com

http://unskewedpolls.com/

swimdog| 10.19.12 @ 10:23AM

I appreciate your contribution to the above article Teddy. As the "guy with an economics PhD" so eloquently stated, "When a liberal has a choice between fantasy and reality, he will choose fantasy every time. There's no reason to think that will change anytime soon." Game-Set-Match, but thanks for playing.....

spike59| 10.19.12 @ 12:13PM

on the contrary-we STILL think the pols are screwed up; there's NO freaking way an incompetent babbling buffoon like ObaMao could even be withing striking distance of Romney-the economy still sucks, our 'foreign policy' is in burning tatters, the deficit is out of this solar system, the public is PISSED...and we're going to take it out on the Moron-in-Chief...2010 was a shellacking; this is going to be a massacre!

thanks, however, for the following joke:

"if he loses, we won't have to pile on him: he'll be the first to admit, that he blew it."

are you kidding? the man who commands the seas to stop rising and the planet to heal, he of the styrofoam Greek columns in front of a Nuremberg-worthy throng of fainting zombies? he who has declared himself AT LEAST the 4th greatest President of all time? he who has claimed to be 'the most interesting person in the room?', who has blamed bush, tsunamis, earthquakes, ATM's, and Fox News for his multidue of failures???? give me a break-he's yet to admit to doing ANYTHING wrong, except for his bowling score

sotto voce| 10.19.12 @ 1:42PM

When Obama loses, his immense ego will dictate that he take his statist aspirations to the global stage. He obviously doesn't care much for the U.S.; the corrupt structure of the U.N. would provide a more congenial setting for his delusional ambitions, with the bonus of zero accountability.

Or he'll a form some wacky and destructive NGO, amassing donations from rich useful idiots like Bill and Melinda Gates, providing unfettered opportunity to better spread his chicanery.

John Navratil| 10.19.12 @ 3:55PM

"And/or he could go to the Court."

I expect he will.

"if he loses, we won't have to pile on him: he'll be the first to admit, that he blew it."

Will he admit that before going to court or after Susan Rice spends the next weekend blaming the loss on something that never happened.

"You may well come to regret it, if he loses..."

Ah, sweet regret!

Appleby| 10.19.12 @ 7:06AM

Ted, I don't understand a single word you wrote. You need to pull yourself together before you hit SEND.

The one thing that will make the history books about the Obama Experiment is the wide, bright line people can point to as the final, definitive end to The Sixties. The past four years have been the last gasping try of TheKids from "The Greening of America" (read it if you can find it; it's funnier than you will believe) to put their grandiose, kumbaya ethos into practice; and just as the rest of us who were frequently the first members of our blue collar families to attend university and were there to make those families proud told them at the time -- discovered it was airy persiflage and nothing at all could make it work. In fact, I have a Dennis the Menace cartoon from several years ago that lays it out pretty clearly. Dennis and his friends are seated in the Mitchell family car, and Dennis in the shotgun seat is looking up at his father and saying, "We're going to the beach. Wanna drive?"

Well, no, we don't...and since TheKids' vision for America always rested on the unspoken assumption that Mom and Dad would continue to drive, they're having to admit that car ain't going NOWHERE. Lots of them will sit in that car for the rest of their lives, hoping for the best, but the engine is silent and nobody's gonna drive them where they Demand to go.

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 8:00AM

Well I'll happily admit that the Left has its share of rhetorical excesses, its share of die-hards. Our universities are liberal monopolies (basically by default - conservative ideas make great slogans, but far too few Cons actually know more than sloganeering - just look at this site).

But the professors on the left have not ruled the country, well, EVER. So you really gotta get over this constant war you guys've got going in your head with the 60's.

The Democrat agenda is difficult to enact, because it doesn't help increase the political bottom line in the immediate term. I tell you what does - cutting taxes and increasing spending. You Cons have got that one down to an art. It's ruined the country, but gradually, we're getting over the hangover from your binge, and as Americans always do, we will do the right thing after all the alternatives have been exhausted. Obamacare is just the start. Think it would be repealed under a president Romney? Man, I feel sorry for you. Almost.

Aristotle| 10.19.12 @ 8:18AM

The ideas of the Left are empty and devoid of open-minded reasoning. The Left works diligently to keep any real independent thinking out of the Academy because it threatens their political hold on the Academy. Leftist thought is a kind of intellectual poison that drives out sound thinking. Leftists rationalize. They do not reason. They vilify arguments rather than engage them. You demonstrate all these qualities as do the vast majority of academics.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:12AM

Something that puzzles me about the left: They have strong support from middle class educated white male voters as compared to the working class white males. Which is strange, to me, because I was raised in an FDR democrat working class household (despite that, my Catholic school educated father was a master of Chemistry, spoke 5 languages fluently including Latin, and was the intellectual equal of most people with masters degrees).

Anyways, I was raised FDR working class and getting to college, was disgusted at what I found: I was continually bashed due to my race and gender. Why would someone want to drink the cool aid for an ideology that despises them? And I was under no delusion that the Dems didn't want to help me get a job. This is all obvious in college. Yet, why would white males tend to fall more in love with leftism when it's full strength like that as compared to diluted by the media that the working class experiences?

Perhaps the working class experiences another more direct side of leftist ideology? The left moves away from inner city neighborhoods that vote for Obama but perhaps the working class actually WORKS with Obama supporters and are under no delusion, for survival sake, of when to walk home at night in which neighborhoods?

The Big E| 10.19.12 @ 8:44AM

"But the professors on the left have not ruled the country, well, EVER."

Except, of course, for the one ruling it now.

You are delusional Ted R. And as I noted above, prove author's point with every keystroke.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.19.12 @ 9:04AM

Exactly, and one of his deficits is a lack of historical knowledge, or perhaps he has forgotten about the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, Progressive President of Princeton, who got the lefty march of the 20th century started.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 9:27AM

Fortune Cookie sometime say - To understand the Contest of Today? One must sometimes look to the Past. Specifically to Yesterday, and go Looking At Tunisia.

That is all.

Dave Williams| 10.19.12 @ 3:32PM

And note his entirely inappropriate snarky condescension...pretty much all the lib playbook has these days....

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 9:32AM

The tiresome, unoriginal rhetoric of the die-hard liberal: Now everything's a "war" on this or that.

Uh, liberal intelligentsia is what has shaped this country in the last 30 years. Look at how your people have hijacked the education institutions. the media institutions, the entertainment institutions and even the religious institutions - conveniently taking the "god" out of popular religion and replaced with a carbon-copy liberal blueprint.

In other words, you are lying or you simply cannot see reality for what it is. In my opinon, there's not much of a difference - after all, the results of your policies have destroyed the black family in ways slavery never hoped to accomplish, but you still consider yourselves champions of the "oppressed" - even when it's your own foot on the throat of the people you fetishize to assuage your own cheap vanity.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:16AM

"Now everything's a "war" on this or that."

Sadly, the Republicans also have a hand in this with the "war on terror" (think about the literal meaning of that!) or the "war on drugs." In both cases, I think they are both examples of big government gone wrong. Our civil liberties were undermined and especially in the case of terror and TSA, we now have to be strip searched. How is that us "winning?"

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 11:30AM

Yes and no. The War on Drugs was modeled after LBJ's (i.e., Democrats') War on Poverty. The War on Terror, of course, was a weasely euphemism for War Against Jihadist Muslims Making War on Us Using Unconventional Tactics.

But this "War on Women," "War on the Sixties" and "War on the Middle Class" stuff is a different animal; these aren't quasi-official monikers as were the War on Drugs and the War on Terror or even the War on Poverty. These are ad hoc smears, with no basis whatsoever in reality, against conservatives and their ideas.

From a rhetorical perspective, it is more insidious than feckless phrases like "War on Terror." It is shorthand for who we are - a "dog whistle," if you prefer the current meme - that tells fellow liberals that our opposition to their ideas constitutes a violent, zero-sum attack on innocent progressives.

After all, you can make an argument that "War on Terror" is a term with some basis in reality; you cannot find a scintilla of reality in the imaginary "War on Women" phraseology - as if we have generals hiding in some bunker directing soldiers to kill women.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:58AM

Agreed. The "war on women" and "war on middle class" nonsense are terror tactics from the left (which I'm amused by when they claim that the right is trying to scare everyone so they can ram religion down their throats. Hilarious.)

In their opinion, the "war on women" simply means that when a Republican refuses to give a law student free contraceptives or expects women to actually show up for work full time to get paid the same as a man working full-time, that's the same as burning and pillaging villages.

spike59| 10.19.12 @ 12:15PM

ObaMao has been waging a 'war on competence'...

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:01PM

Right on the money, spike59.

Not to mention a war on reality.

Skippy| 10.19.12 @ 4:49PM

Sign me up for the War on the Sixties.
I was there and it sucks even more in reflection than it did in the moment.
I could write a book....

Appleby| 10.20.12 @ 8:46AM

Me too. If anybody can dig up some material on the attempt at a Woodstock Reunion, we'd all appreciate it -- that was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, even funnier than the group of Kids who tried to stage a "Hippie Day" at an Atlanta High School and instead of the Peace Symbol (which they had no idea what it represented, which was not peace) graced their signs and t-shirts with the MERCEDES BENZ LOGO. Woodstock was an hour or two from where I grew up and we were forbidden to attend (in those days when Dad said NO, it was NO), but we enjoyed the parade of Hippie Scum passing by our front yard. When the rains came and the H.S. were starving, freezing, coughing and wheezing, our church contributed to the airdrop of supplies. For which we have yet to be thanked, by the way. People who think Woodstock was fun were not there.

Dave Williams| 10.19.12 @ 3:33PM

Coffee-out-the-nose-FUNNY!
....and he has actually won that war big-time, yes?

Butch| 10.19.12 @ 4:39PM

And a "war on our pocketbooks."

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:21AM

I want to add regarding the "war on terror" that the best thing to have done after 911 was to take a deep breath, count to 10, and then rebuild the WTC to exact scale (demonstrate that we can't be beaten or even significantly altered) by them while instead the enemy has two holes in the ground to gloat over and a mosque to hold celebrations at.

Next, we should have just gone into Afghanistan, knocked out the Taliban, given the thing over the UN (let them screw it up, we get out of the way) and engaged in anti-terror tactics similar to what we do now. Secure the doors on planes and adopt a policy that flight crews will not cooperate with terrorists. Done. Other than that, we keep on our shoes and belts at the airports and live with the risk.

Does anyone here have a problem with all this?

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 11:32AM

I like your plan and agree with it - with one crucial difference:

We should have built the towers exactly as they were, but one tower should have been 9 stories higher, and the other should have been 11 stories higher.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 12:02PM

That's a cute idea. I also like the idea of perhaps building 5 tall WTC style buildings in the shape of a hand extending the middle finger.

But the idea is that if the towers were simply rebuilt to scale then the terrorists don't have visible monument to what they did. Some people sadly died and that would be it. Instead, I hate to use the term the Marxists love, we were "reactionary" and they have a point: When we're reactionary, they push our buttons.

What I love about Romney's campaign is that he's pushing THEIR buttons. Pick on big bird and watch them squeal. Most of America really doesn't care about it. But to them, their pet commie kid programming is sacred. Hilarious.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 12:16PM

Well, as Mencken said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

The truth is, I've worked in a couple of industries, both of which are infected 100% by liberals. And every social conversation one of these people starts invariably begins with, "I was listening to NPR the other day and . . . "

NPR and PBS are what make a lot of otherwise pedestrian middle-class people feel like they're members of the elite class - smarter, more educated, more refined, more cultured and, most importantly, morally superior to your Average Ugly American. And all of those people voted for Obama in 2008. There are MILLIONS of them who sought, among other things, absolution for being born white in a wealthy country.

Contrary to the point of this article, far too many of those people have a vested interest in preserving their delusions, not popping them and emerging from their comfy coccoons.

So I wouldn't say that most of America doesn't care about the "War on Big Bird." I think there are many out there who want to believe so badly that they are GOOD, ensconced in their little secular, liberal silos, who are aghast that Repbublicans would be so cruel as to want to slaughter Big Bird.

Moral vanity is the killer plaque in the arteries of what used to be American discourse.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 1:05PM

In a normal election, you would have a point that the public's sentiment towards Big Bird (fed him as children) would help pull levers for the left, but keep in mind that a lot of them are now struggling to buy a 4 dollar gallon of gasoline or working for half wage part-time as part of the "recovery". They'd be happy to kill big bird and fry him up on the BBQ to save on meat costs.

But yeah, NPR has serious snob appeal with them but I find it mind numbingly boring and patronizing and even lacking in useful information. On the other hand, evil "talk radio"'s brief news breaks contain more useful information than a day's worth of CNN.

NPR may have had a point back in the days of the 3 major networks pumping out westerns and cartoons with cigarette advertising in-between but today, few "normal" folks watch it and for good reason: There isn't a lot to enjoy. That said, I like some of the programming on PBS such as when they had the opera singer Baskov on. And even then, it was filled with nagging breaks to contribute.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:49PM

But you don't understand that a lot of people in the middle class who have a bit of a cushion think we SHOULD be paying $4.00 for a gallon of gas; my brother-in-law is one who thinks we should be spending $5.00 - and he's not even a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. If they can afford it, they think high prices assuage our exploitation of third world countries or offset the sin of our “addiction to oil.”

My former best friend from high school is a music professor at a once-conservative Midwest university. He WANTS to be taxed more because he believes that Obamacare is "fair" and will solve the problem of healthcare for the poor. Of course the unintended consequences never occur to him – it’s an easy equation for him: throw money at a problem and he gets a pat on the back and can go on with his life.

There are many people in this country who are using what are essentially discretionary dollars to purchase absolution from guilt. I work with these people.

What NPR does that is so insidious is that it creates a cultural coccoon - it gives you some politics, some music, some high-toned art (there's no shortage of people who believe they are "edified" if they just listen to one Miles Davis song per day), some humor, some pop culture - and it coos in its listeners' ears that THEY'RE refined. They know the right wine to pick. The book to read. The comedian to laugh at. The song to play. The politician to endorse.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 2:09PM

Ironically, as I said, these NPR snobs and lovers of high priced gasoline are a dying breed. If you haven't seen Zardoz yet, go rent it from netflix. It's about an aging futuristic community that welcomes death.

NPR is so dead. Sure, sometimes I have seen a few programs on I liked (I love the lack of ads for some of the parades and national shows, but the rest of the time as I said it's full of begging for money that I'd rather have 10 obnoxious car ads on at full volume instead.)

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:49PM

(continued)

The fact is, there is no support for killing off public television among the middle class and upper middle class; they honestly believe that it is bringing "quality:" programming to poor kids. Never mind that it is the well-off educated class who watch it, or that PBS and NPR are highly successful businesses even without subsidies.

When the dollar is utterly debased and the financial cushion disappears for people whose lives have thus far been relatively undisturbed, THEN they'll throw Big Bird over the side.

But until then, you simply cannot overestimate how much money a liberal's ego is worth to him or her.

Al Adab| 10.19.12 @ 5:28PM

Grz:
As RR said, "It's not that liberals are ignorant, they just know so much that isn't true."

Many do in fact believe people should be taxed more for others benefit. Why not just pick a poor person and pay their bills privately? Oh well.

They do believe gas prices should be high; forces conservation. They do believe that central planners are preferable to free mmrkets. All the other issues stem from these flawed premises. There exists a great chasm in the philosophy of government. Nonetheless, the nation was founded and proved very successful on the belief that limited government and free markets provide the most liberty (which was the priority) and the best opportunity for the most people. Not every result will be equal but the opportunity should be there for all.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 8:33PM

At least with the former USSR, there was what my wife referred to as "constant deficit" but at least when available, the stuff was cheap. A loaf of bread for a nickel. Or a vacation for "free". With leftism, you get the worst of all worlds: big corporations with crony capitalists in bed with Soros and Buffett, $4 gasoline, expensive medical insurance and long waits at the airport security lines.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 3:05PM

There's a Contest Today.

The only problem is, you're gonna have to go back to Yesterday, and Go Looking At Tunisia.

There's Prizes.

Immortal 600| 10.19.12 @ 1:12PM

I agree, Polish Knight. One problem. You talk too much sense. Liberals can't understand that.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 9:33AM

(continued)

And I'm sure you have no problem with the "incrasiing spending" side of your little equation; your objection is that the rich aren't paying their "fair share." Even though, if you get your 70% marginal rate, in three years THAT won't be considered a "fair share," and then you'll insist that 75% is a "fair share." then 80%. Then 90%. "Fair Share" is perhaps your most insidious lie of all. Let me guess: you think YOU are paying your fair share now, don't you? It's extorting other people's money that you think makes you a big man.

But I digress. You are probably right that Obamacare will not be repealed uner Romney, sadly - his failing, like Bush's, is that he will emulate Democrats in spending - but when Obamacare fails miserably - and every centrally-planned health care does so, spreading not wealth but misery (and I remind you that Lenin realized that the way to control a populace is by controlling their health care) you still won't understand.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 10:17AM

I confront leftists over their ideology in which they claim to be "helping" me but all I see are them coming after me in the form of reverse discrimination or higher taxes on the middle class. They respond that "[you're] brainwashed by foxnews." Then later, they reveal that I'm "privileged" due to race or middle class status and that I really have it coming but unfortunately, much like with Candy's lies in the debate, I don't get a chance to call them out that I don't need foxnews to "brainwash" me to observe their own words.

The left is much like Orwell's 1984 where they rely upon a society being in continual misery and "war" (political conflicts even if not actual combat) to blame the failures of their policies on and to justify the elites riding around in private jets. All they care about is power in all shapes and forms and unlike the creators of the fictional Matrix, they prefer one where humanity is in misery and pain because power is about the ability to oppress others. They LIKE people paying $5 a gallon for gasoline or sugar prices doubling. They like seeing people living in poverty while being told that they're being "helped." They view ripping off, cheating, and tricking the populace as a demonstration of their power and superiority. I hate to overdial the rhetoric here, but they're like rapists and axe murderers. They enjoy inflicting misery and requiring their victims to like it.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 11:59AM

Bingo. Well said, Polish Knight.

The trolls come over here to participate in their "two minutes of hate." But in reality it's more like a lifetime of hate.

Liberals love to pretend they care, that they are more highly-evolved than the rest of us, that they can eliminate greed - if only they put guns to enough people's heads. And, in thier own jihad against sanity, hatred is A-ok - as long as you hate the right people. Look at the vitriol and death threats directed at Romney after the debate - look at the calls for Bush's assassination. Look at the Occupy movement.

And yet they pretend it is the Tea Party conservatives - not one of whom has been proven to engage in bigotry or violence - to whom they ascribe abject hatred! It is laughable, and a 100% distortion of reality.

The truth is, liberalism is nihilism plain and simple. The tragedy of compassion is that it transmogrifies instantaneously under the purview of government into greed, corruption, graft, bribery, hatred, envy and the spreading of misery.

And that's only the fraction of liberals who actually think they're driven by compassion - let's not forget the myriad crooks, pawns and vandals who are only too happy to see America come apart at the seams.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 1:14PM

That's what I said elsewhere here. Most of the Democrat electorate now are folks that give the proletariat a bad name: Welfare mothers, lazy government employees, teachers doing a lousy job teaching but for the highest compensation in the developed world (if they were privately employed, the left would be arguing that we should make education public to "keep up" with socialist Europe!)

Looking back at the writings of Dicken's, a lot of the poor were not likable people: They were unapologetic criminals who would rob each other and not think twice about it. But the "working class" had a form of nobility and Marxists latched onto it and sadly, the Republicans missed that opportunity. Now the left has jettisoned us and tries to pull my heartstrings by repeating "middle class" over and over again or "outsourcing." But what has Obama done, really, about outsourcing? No doubt the ethnic special interest groups making money from outsourcing and H1B's are NOT quaking in their boots and besides, privately employed people tend to vote Republican so F' em in their view.

Appleby| 10.20.12 @ 8:53AM

Do you remember a sneak-attack show called "Max Headroom" that was taken off the air because the Proles couldn't understand it? Do you remember that in their world there were Screens everywhere...and one of the programs that was constantly showing was called "Lumpy's Proletariat"? My Mensa friends and I used to laugh ourselves breathless at that show -- and so did my nephews when I had explained a few things to them -- but the Lumpenproles didn't get it so it went away. If you get a chance, have a look at a few episodes and see how many of the references make you laugh out loud the way the current spooling of dirty words with laugh tracks can never do.

PolishKnight| 10.20.12 @ 9:52PM

Appleby, was Lumpy's Proletariat similar to the "I'll buy that for a dollar" show on Robocop?

Ironically, the left now seems obsessed with trying to fool the bourgeois or as they like to chant "the middle class" while they despise the proletariat and regard them as invisible losers who bag their groceries (into cloth bags) and fix their plumbing and vote Republican (they want to replace them with undocumented labor, of course. Enjoy those paper thin Chinese sulfur drywall and plastic PVC cancer chemical plumbing, elites!)

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 1:18PM

One of my all time favorite films, The Big Lebowski, was on and I love the line from the German would be kidnapper: "It's not fair! My girlfriend cut off her toe! She thought we would be rich!" and John Goodman's character replies: "Aren't you a nihilist! Who cares about fairness?"

They cry a river all the time about anything their opponents or victims do while simultaneously they have no enforced standards on themselves. They can break their own rules, or any rules, and it doesn't matter because they're great and others are not. That's the mark of a sociopath. When I try to debate with them, I see that "light" go on. I'm no longer a human being in their eyes. I tried to appeal to their humanity and it was like a dog whimpering at an animal shelter to a well paid vet about to put it to sleep.

Keep in mind: They may come around here because like locusts, they can't hang around their own electorate. They despise inner city democrats more than any supposed racist tea partiers.

Al Adab| 10.19.12 @ 5:30PM

BTW Grz and PK:
Have a great weekend, vote early and often.

PolishKnight| 10.20.12 @ 8:32PM

My wife already voted (for Romney) last week via absentee (she's working as election officer and the leftists really hate her being there.)

swimdog| 10.19.12 @ 11:04AM

"When a liberal has a choice between fantasy and reality, he will choose fantasy every time. There's no reason to think that will change anytime soon." The "guy with the economics PhD" is smiling Teddy...still.

Tom Kyba| 10.19.12 @ 1:03PM

Would you like a Kleenex to wipe up that snot?

Butch| 10.19.12 @ 4:33PM

Allow me a point of contention, Ted R. You are correct that Republicans have tried to cut taxes, which has never failed to increase revenues to the government. But the other half of your equation, increasing spending, has been much more the responsibility of Democrats than Republicans, Bush II's spending in response to 9/11 excepted, and even much of the responsibility for the Bush era spending was the result of Democrats, 07-08.

SCPOret| 10.20.12 @ 10:39AM

The Dumbocrat agenda is difficult to enact because it has been tried so many times and has failed every time.
Please Ted tell me one country that has spent its way out of debt. Oh can't find one!
OK name a city that has spent its way out of debt. Oh can't find one!
OK last chance - name a family that has spent it's way out of debt.

SCPOret| 10.20.12 @ 11:50AM

"The Democrat agenda is difficult to enact" that's because it's been tried and found wanting. Its been tried and it doesn't work.
Show me the Country that has spent it's way out of debt. Can't find one?
Ok I'll cut you some slack, show me a city that has spent its way out of debt. Ok that's tough too!
I'll give you one more shot. Show me the family that has spent its way out of debt.
Until you can show me any entity that has shown that they can spend their way out of debt then you won't be able to sell the Maoist bull that Obama and his minions are trying to sell.

R Martin| 10.19.12 @ 8:34AM

Appleby, you regularly criticize the 1960s and the “kids” of that decade, but those ten years were not homogeneous. It was the latter half of the decade when the Viet Nam war became ugly and conflict racked society that you should focus on.

The first half was filled with fun (dare I mention Camelot) and, most important, the pinnacle and (sadly) the end of really cool cars. As a petrol head you should appreciate this. Here is just a partial list of some of the iron which made the hearts of some of those kids beat faster: Shelby Cobra, Mustang GT 350, Ford GT-40, Ferrari GTO, Jaguar E-type, Aston Martin DB 5, and the wonderful racing cars T-70 Lola, Chaparral, McLaren, Maserati Birdcage and, of course, those gorgeous Formula One cars like Jim Clark’s Lotus 25—no wings, no advertising and those little stinger tailpipes out the back. I go to the Goodwood Revival each year just to relive this period of my youth.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 9:30AM

It absolutely was The Decade of The Muscle Car.

Having said that, might I just add: Fortune Cookie sometime say - To understand the Contest of Today? One must sometimes look to the Past. Specifically to Yesterday, and go Looking At Tunisia.

That is all.

Ken (Old Texican)| 10.19.12 @ 7:57AM

Obama has been the "best" slick willie (liar)...plus he is black. What more could a good liberal, communist) hope for?

Joellen| 10.19.12 @ 8:00AM

Liberals are angry and frustrated because their plan is not working, not because of Obama. They are angry because a group of Americans, whether it was the Tea Party, or just ordinary Americans stood up and said "this is not my America" and are fighting to take it back. The liberals are angry and frustrated because they thought four years ago it was going to be a cake walk this Nov 6th and its not. That's really why they are angry.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 9:32AM

I'm looking at a Column from Yesterday, entitled - Looking At Tunisia.

Did you know that they have Contests in Tunisia?

It's true.

You should check it out.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 9:22AM

Liberals will never realize that it is not Obama, but liberalism that is problem: They believe they are present at the birth of a new world order, whereby greed and envy are eliminated from the human spectrum of emotion.

And they honestly believe they can achieve this selflessness by putting a gun to the heads of the people who refuse to get with the program (i.e., conservatives and capitalists).

They ignore the fact that their "compassion" is either terminal naivete or else greed masquerading as caring about their fellow man. They ignore the empirical results of 100 years of lberal policies.

The reason is they think they have overcome the laws of human nature - they rise above the limitations that have plagued mankind from the time we banded together in societies. They might as well declare the law of gravity null and void.

No, there will be young people today who will live on into their 90s talking about how Barack Obama was the last, best hope of a truly beneficent society, but it was blown by evil, greedy Republicans. And they will never, ever see the irony in the fact that they dodged their own taxes, eagerly sought "merit" raises at their workplaces and, if they didn't work, how they cravenly sought every government handout they could get their own greedy hands on.

Obama may be a tumor (and he is), but it is liberalism that is the cancer - the cancer of buying hook, line and sinker into a false reality.

Kind of like how they view Christians.

Al Adab| 10.19.12 @ 9:36AM

Grz:
Should the GOP prevail, should the DEMs lose, we will be subjected to four years of intolerance, ridicule and daily opposition to any policy or personality trait of Romney. Remember the selected President Bush? Remember dissent is the highest form of patriotism? Remember the street corner protests of whatever? All that and more will be the future. The Dems will never admit that liberalism, statism is the problem. To them the only problem is an ignorant, unenlightened population to stupid to recognize and follow their betters.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:11PM

Agreed. Just as a troll proved yesterday (I forget which one - does it matter? They're all of one mind), they refuse to understand the things that economics, for one, hase proven - such as that minimum wage is actually destructive.

And just try making them understand the unintended consequences of things like rent control and the green energy boondoggle. You might as well try to prove to a child that Santa Claus can't possibly exist, because magical thinking is the fuel in the liberal engine.

And the ironies, paradoxes and hypocrisies they simply paper over never give them pause. For example, when it comes to war, they think this:

If we can just gather up all the evil conservatives who believe violence is ever the solution and then slaughter each and every one of them, the problem of violence on this planet will be solved once and for all.

And try getting them to explain how a caring, selfless world can be achieved by putting a gun to people's heads and forcing them to work for other people's benefit.

They are perfectly willing to condemn the world to chaos, misery, greed, corruption, wanton licentiousness, envy and hatred in the name of their own moral vanity.

It is this hubris that ironically proves that liberals will never soar above the human folly they so desparately want to escape.

Skippy| 10.19.12 @ 5:18PM

Let 'em come.
Ridicule is the new currency of the Right.
We should apply it liberally(!)and daily.
Old pals who need therapy 'cuz Bambo lost?
Laugh at their discomfort. Out loud. While at their homes.
Idiot outraged "women in black"standing silently on streetcorners every Friday from noon-2?
Do silly comedy routines in front of them from noon-2 on Fridays.
Occupiers on the street in front of your store?
Hose off the sidewalk and their dreadlocks while they stand there chanting.
No need to shoot them unless they swing the protest sign at you.
And, most important, embrace the "racist" epithet as the highest form of compliment.
They become powerless as soon as we no longer take anything they say seriously.
And, it's fun!

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 9:51AM

Grzmlyk, from the beginning Marxism was revealed as a cynical ploy for party hacks to gain and retain power and ultimately oppress the working people. A friend of mine claims that Karl Marx repented later realizing what he had done. In any case, see below, the vast majority of Obama supporters are simply entitlement recipients. That's why they went nuts about the 47% quote. Because it's true. Most of them don't care about the environment, helping people, etc. It's a sham. They simply want to win elections so their "stupid" opponents lose and they can be winners. It's like soccer hooligans throwing beer bottles at the other team. They want to win, period, even if they undermine what they claim to believe in. So yeah, it's a kind of religion where they enter because they want to be loved and cared for but in the end they're bugging people at the airport trying to sell them flowers. (showing my age there!)

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 10:28AM

Sorry, WE'RE the ones in the Reality-Based community. You guys gave over on that one.

And the problem is Obama. Man, you guys dodged a bullet. If he had been a liberal, he could have used the first months of his term to play wedge-politics and drive a stake through the heart of conservatism. He could have made the bankers squeal with strong new regulatory controls (he basically did the opposite) and he could have made the MORAL case for his health care plan - B*-slapping you types for the greedy troglodytes you all are. As it was, you squealed anyway, but you will never appreciate how lucky you were.

As it turns out, the real Obama is a moderate Republican c. 1988. It's absolutely a disappointment. He's better than Romney, but not by much. That's part of the reason why you don't see the Dems panicking.

Oh - and good point about the Christians. It sure is a cancer, to live in a republic but yearn for a monarchy.

Truth to Power| 10.19.12 @ 11:28AM

Ted R is reality based alright. He gets the most liberal cat in the Senate as President. The big O turns the reigns of power to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid because he has never ran anything and why start. They spend two years doing whatever they please. Essentially they copy every stupid scheme from the failed states of Europe including a pathetically weak foreign policy with the same results. After two years they try to get Republicans to raise taxes for them. The first exposure to reality happens. We will not raise taxes for their corrupt schemes. We endure another two years of no real plan for anything. The big O proposes budgets and nobody in his Party will even support them. He is a total clown and his so-called Party are nothing more than a bunch parasites of various varieties. It is time for a change.

Tom Kyba| 10.19.12 @ 1:04PM

Nope, you're still wrong and still snotty.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:13PM

Are you deliberately a self parody, or do you believe this claptrap?

What do you do for a living, Ted? Only answer if you can be honest for a couple of seconds.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.19.12 @ 1:21PM

I've always figured he was Ted Rall, the leftist editorial cartoonist, because they generally spew the same talking points.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:30PM

Liberals are all part of the same monolithic organism: one central body, one mind, if you will, with many discrete components - but, like a flock of birds or a herd of cattle, they are in utter unison.

Individuality is the enemy of liberalism.

Butch| 10.19.12 @ 5:28PM

Joe Sobran called them "The Hive." Good analogy.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 1:28PM

Hate to break this to you, but liberalism is nothing but a religion, complete with its saints and sacraments.

And I don't know what you mean by yearning for a monarchy. I do know that liberals all desire a dictatorship - that's your whole raison d'etre: To force other people to live the way YOU think they should live. And you'll do it, by god, as soon as you get rid of that pesky thing called a representative republic.

I can tell you one thing: you know nothing about economics, history or politics; your posts betray a True Faith that only ignorance can sustain; and I'm sure you are determined to live out your days hunkered down in your little coccoon of pretend moral superiority.

Remind me again, teddy, old boy, old pal, how your insisting that one group of people you don't know give its money to another group of people you don't know confers virtue on YOU.

Or are you, as I suspect, a beneficiary of taxpayer loot?

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 2:12PM

I wonder... if most liberals really don't want to win. Obama won and they had their party and celebrated The One Changing things for the better. How did that work out?

They just like to yammer on and blame republicans for all the problems in the world and preach about how smart they are and how the world sucks because everyone who disagrees with them are stupid. They're like "Da Bears" fans who love to watch the game and cheer on their team. Leftism is a religion, but it's a juvenile one.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 2:37PM

I have to tell you, I'm originally from Chicago, and I'm a Bears fan. So I know from lost causes. Actually, they look pretty good this year, although I'm not convinced they'll go all the way (and, unfortunately, Urlacher is on the downside now).

Now the hapless Cubs are another story altogether. Haven't won a World Series since 1908, which was Nancy Pelosi's junior year in college.

Anyway, I often wonder if we shouldn't just give libs their way - let Paul Krugman run the economy unopposed, for example, and then maybe he'd learn after the inevitable hyperinflation that would ensue that Keynesianism only works in fairy tales.

But they never, ever will learn. In the world today, seeing isn't believing - believing is seeing.

And, as you say, liberalism is foursquare a religion above all else. You're not going to pry these people away from their Messiah any sooner than the Pope will abjure Jesus Christ.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 2:52PM

Actually, I was a bit relieved when Obama won over McCain. I voted for McCain, I'm ashamed to say, because my wife cried and begged me to. I was going to write in "Hillary Clinton" as a joke. Obama has been a glorious train wreck. And of course, Obama is doing what leftists ALWAYS do: blame Republicans. Blame GW (for the past) and blame evil, "reactionaries" (a term most of them don't use or understand anymore) for not "getting it" and causing the problem. In Animal farm, it was boxer and snowball that caused all the problems on the farm. In 1984, it was constant war that provided the rationalization for the misery the elite foisted upon the hapless citizens.

What really harms the left, if I may be unPC, is that Obama is the first black president and a failure whether he wins reelection or not. Their whole diversity paradigm has been that if only white guys were replaced with more diverse, non-white people, then we'd have Sweden in no time. Doesn't make any sense, but that was their paradigm. Now where do they go from here?

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 3:34PM

Glorious train wreck? I'm not so sure. I think that, just as Reagan nudged us rightward, Obama has shoved us permanently leftward (and a president Romney will not do much to alter the trajectory).

I know very, very many people - ostensibly intelligent, educated people - who think Obama's done as good a job as one could expect being thwarted by the Bush legacy and evil Republicans in the Congress (they conveniently forget, as everyone on the left does, that Obama had control of both houses for two years).

One great difference between the U.S. circa 2012 and the Soviet Union circa 1950 is that Pravda and TASS were news agencies forced to promulgate propaganda at gunpoint.

In the US today, the media are willing cheerleaders for the Marxist agenda. Even Jimmy Carter is remembered by far too many as our most moral president or some such crap. And of course the execrable Bill Clinton is revered.

Obama's record will be similarly whitewashed (pun intended). In 100 years, the student comrades will be taught that Obama was the first True Marxist Visionary whose transitional presidency was thwarted by the last vestiges of Evil Capitalism, which was finally defeated thanks to the ruthless efforts of Comrade Longoria.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 8:44PM

I think that the Bush's have done more to push us leftward than Obama because their so-called moderate policies helped provide political cover for the left. Obama's economy is anemic and the left secretly knows it.

The challenge moving forward is that if Romney tries to be a "nice guy" like GHB or a "maverick" like McCain, the left will cut him down. He's got to cut spending, taxes, AND drill for oil and gas. If not, we've got Greece on our hands and nobody to bail us out. And perhaps that's a good thing as I said.

Unlike the former USSR, we do have a choice. We can move away from here. I can get Polish or Ukrainian citizenship. Sorry if I leave you behind. Or perhaps as I said, the Republicans will start having to understand basic politics and take care of their base electorate rather than trying to flatter a few feminists to show up for the polls. "A binder full of women." What BS, pardon me. I respect where he was going with that, but what about an effort to help fathers get access to their children? Or to get construction workers jobs in the new "stimulus" bill as Robert Reich tries to lock them out?

Sorry if I seem like I have an "exit strategy", but look at it this way: If you and I and other right wingers who raise our kids to help around the neighborhood rather than buy skittles and "fruit punch" in a rainstorm then the left might have to live in downtown Detroit and the paradise they created.

dnha14| 10.19.12 @ 9:29AM

They will blame Bush and Bush Sr and Regan and Ford and Nixon and Eisenhower and...

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 9:46AM

Something to keep in mind: there are very few actual "liberals" or even leftists in the Democrat party anymore. That's right. Hear me out: the vast majority of Democrats who vote for Obama are doing so for purely non-ideological reasons. They want entitlements due to race or gender. Or they're government workers. Or they're on welfare. The economy can go into the hole and half the world can explode, but they care ONLY about their entitlements. Despite the leftist portrayal of rich people such as Romney out greedily thinking only for themselves, the fact is that the average Democrat voter is nothing more than a grifter.

The average leftist or marxist lives in a smug fantasyland spent mostly in terror that they will be exposed as wrong. Consider that they regard their opponents as stupid monsters. In their universe, there's cool people (them) and sub-human jerks. So naturally, if they weren't cool all along that makes all the horrid stuff they've been saying and doing to their opponents all on them. And their egos can't handle it. In the meantime, the only way they can win elections is via entitlement seekers above that they don't want to live around (most are limosine liberals). So while their party survives, their ideology dies and perhaps at some subconscious level, they realize this. And so they lash out. It's ironic (and inevitable) that they have more in common with their conservative neighbors than they do with the inner city Obama voter.

Renaissance Nerd | 10.19.12 @ 10:46AM

I'll only disagree with you to state that the Democratic Party has ALWAYS been chiefly concerned with winning, with payola, etc. It's always been a vote buying syndicate that uses high-flown rhetoric as cover. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the Republic. Much ink has been spilled on the horrible Alien & Sedition Acts, but something I asked at the age of 16 needs repeating: why did the Federalists consider those law necessary? Was it just a grab for additional power? As it turns out, it's because the Democratic Republicans were paying immigrants just arrived to vote for them, which vote-buying scheme remains in place among the Dems to this day. They published the addresses of tax collectors and encouraged people to tar-and-feather the hapless civil servants, and some few were even shot. The Democratic Party is, and has always been, at heart a criminal conspiracy to increase the wealth and power of their elites. They've made terrible mistakes--like the Civil War--that set them back decidedly, but they regathered their power quickly via the KKK. They are expert at manipulation, and use whatever rhetoric is current to trick the gullible and persuade the foolish, and all the easier when they have largesse to 'redistribute' as well.

There are many dupes among the Democrats, who sweat hard to keep their double-think working, but the core of the party know the score, and care only about what will make them richer and more powerful.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:07AM

At one time, the Democrat party (and the marxists) made a pretense of caring about middle and working class privately employed people. They have now shoved them under the bus. The Republicans have a gold mine of votes there they can steal (the dupes that remain in the Democrat party or don't vote out of disgust) and the left will be exposed for the race/welfare class hustlers they are.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 10:26AM

There will be two outcomes.
The first is a strange turn of events, given polling, that the teleprompter somehow wins re-election. the outcome of that will be obvious. The end of a free Republic and more flexibility to do whatever the hell he wants. I think I do not have to describe in detail..you all get it.

The second, if he loses, has already started and clues to it are in the liberal central Florida newspaper which recently presented a laundry list of denials about the fraud and an admittance that he was not up to the job. This is all you will ever get from them as they will never admit their true agenda nor the truth. This is the essential and core strategy of the American Left, deny their true agenda, their true objectives, their actions, and the realities of what they promote. So, expect vigorous denial that the fraud was and is a socialist, that they ruthlessly and unfairly attacked patriotic Americans, that they badgered, insulted, lied to, manipulated, and attacked not only conservatives but the public at large via a corrupt media and and administration of corruption like never seen before in the history of the United States. The historical revisionist will be out in full force both in academia and in the media. It is all quite predictable as we have seen it all before. the question is, will we allow it, tolerate this, and essentially do nothing to correct it and will we remind people of the nightmare they put the nation through...

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 10:36AM

Simon, there is "hope" (and simultaneously, despair for the left).

Transforming the USA into Detroit is possible, but even if Obama wins and they go for the jugular with mass amnesty for illegals, the right has one card left up it's sleeve:

Take on populist issues with their base that they've been avoiding so far. These include:

1) Civil rights in the workplace and education for white males. Sure, many Obama supporters want racial entitlements via denying white males civil rights, but many don't as well. This will get out the vote for the Republican base. In addition, as entitlements dry out for the left, that undermines their core.

2) Anti-feminism. Let's stop dancing around the issue. Women earn less than men because most still want traditionalism at home. It's not our fault that they want to leave their job early and then don't earn as much. Voters who want families and to raise children in two parent families will see the Republicans as the ticket to get out and vote for.

When that happens, the left will be exposed as not really caring about Marxist redistribution and simply a race/gender scapegoating party. Then things get interesting.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 10:43AM

Very good points, PK...this kind of preparation and foresight is exactly what we need. The next step is to develop a counter strategy.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 10:52AM

One hopes that we don't need to communicate the obvious. My cat can be pretty stupid sometimes, but when she gets hungry she figures out where the food bowl is. Ironically, if the left pulls the trigger and achieves their demographic goal and paints the right into a corner, then either the right is going to figure it out or simply become irrelevant.

News flash folks: Constitution worshiping, gay marriage, and banning abortion won't "win" elections. I hate to say the right will need to "pander" to their base, but they should at least _address_ their base with issues that help the bottom line. In addition, the right should consider stealing some issues from the left: Discourage outsourcing, H1B visas, and "undocumented" immigration (yes, that's right. The moment Obama grants amnesty to illegals, they no longer going to work for Republican elites for sub-par wages and will go on welfare and then they'll need more "undocumented" labor.)

Sometimes, crunch time brings out the best in people or it doesn't but at least you get answers.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 10:31AM

Of course expect the usual, 'you conservatives are so paranoid' and 'what's the deal with your obsessions about the sixties' like the troll above.
Deny, obfuscate, lie, distract, project..the tools of the trade for the America Left. At least, with the Europeans, they admit who and what they are...

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 10:41AM

Al Adab, is spot on. The next strategy for them, if the fraud loses, will be to attack Romney and conservatism on literally everything and create and an avalanche of misinformation, lies, distortions, and division. There will be some s0-called conservatives and well meaning ones that will unwittingly help in this effort.
Our job is to first expose the enemy and destroy their agenda and secondly, to make our elected officials keep their word and promises.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 10:55AM

They've been doing that for years, heck, since I was born. I refer to that era as "The Archie Bunker" era when the left went from being a populist movement of the middle and working class and secretly chucking them overboard in favor of elitist government bureaucrats and welfare recipients. Ok, for a "secret" it was pretty obvious (even in our face) but the media engaged in a delightful Orwellian doublespeak for the past 50 years.

Speaking of that: F*** Newsweek. I couldn't even read that trash in the Dentist's office and trying to distract myself from the pain I was facing, I would have read ANYTHING decent. I found myself reading women's magazines because they were more informative.

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 11:41AM

Ha - as if YOU'RE not going to attack Romney on virtually everything! He's already setting you up for the dupes you are. Welcome to the third Bush term.

Of course, Obama wins, there's the same result. The conservative movement is going to tear the GOP apart at the seams... and you guys are the tip of the spear.

Prediction: watch for an Obama loss of the popular vote, and victory in the electoral college. Ah, the sweet, sweet irony...

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 12:23PM

At this point, the American public would welcome a Bush term as bad and as good as it was...your fraud was such a disaster and a traitor that anything would be better, even Jimmy Carter, as nuts as that was.. Yes, we are proud to be the part of the spear, as a new and better party would emerge that will kick your silly ass, comrade. You really do not want that to happen.
Yeah, a hollow victory as the nation will continue to be divided and no mandate for your fraud.
Ok, enough feeding of the trolls for today.

Al Adab| 10.19.12 @ 1:20PM

Ted might be well served to remember that several states, Mass among them, decided to deliver their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide. Talk about irony, what if Mass has to vote for the GOP candidate instead of the Dem who polls well in that state?

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 1:22PM

I love Romney's joke: "Obama's new employment numbers make us ask: Are you better off than you were 4 weeks ago?"

I agree that some may say it was rude for him to score political points against his opponent in what is supposed to be a friendly dinner. By the same token, I have no doubt that the left has torn into republican candidates at the dinner without apology in years past. See above. They only cry about fairness when they perceive, inaccurately or truthful, that they are on the losing end. They don't care diddly or even pretend to not notice when they're acting badly.

Anyways, another "Bush" term won't fix this mess. For good or ill, the left has a point that Bush helped stage Obama for all this by approving bailouts and increasing spending. It's almost as if Obama was set up to fail like giving your opponent you know whose on a diet lots of candy. Obama has made a big mess and a Bush president can't clean it up. If Romney fails, he is out of here. I won't show up for him.

spike59| 10.22.12 @ 6:59AM

'Anyways, another "Bush" term won't fix this mess.'
==============================
the Left is still trotting out THAT old chestnut?????

Mitt's right-we're witnessing 'the incredible shrinking campaign'

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 10:47AM

By the way, the author is dead wrong, they will and never will enter enter or reenter reality. This is the precise flaw in our thinking as conservatives that we damn better dispense with if we ever have a chance to defeat this disease of American domestic socialism and anti-Americanism.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 11:04AM

I'm reminded of movies about families kidnapping their kids from cults and trying to deprogram them. Even after locking them up in the basement and using every fact available and putting the minds of several people against them, it's tough going. People fall in LOVE with their cherished ideologies and communities and will slash their own wrists to stay or even drink the cool aid. With the left, they believe that they're making their opponents drink cool aid (or some other victim) while pretending to be "caring" so that makes it all the more alluring.

I find it disturbs them significantly when I point out that they're not only not fooling me, but winding up drinking their own cool aid in the long run. They wind up paying more for housing to live in suburban limosine liberal neighborhoods. I can never get them to agree with me, but I leave them disturbed which is the best we can do.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 11:03AM

Obama, is a small, narcissistic, clever but dull, childish man who was nothing but a middle finger from the American hard core LEFT. EVEN BILL CLINTON KNEW THIS GUY WAS A FRAUD AND SAID SO FROM THE START.
Come on. Barack Hussein Obama.
This guy was the culmination of everything and a crossroad of everything they stand for...
Raised by a communist, mentor by a communist, taught by communist, spiritually advised by a Marxist preacher....let us not forget the Muslim schooling, the internationalist and anti-colonial upbringing as well as the Saul Alinsky training and radical black power movement identity.
This is the truth. It is not conjecture, nor is is innuendo as they love to claim it is..
The damage they created in the last 4 years will take us a decade to correct. His presidency was actually a success and he knows it, they know it. Mission accomplished.

If there is one thing that I wish for all conservatives is they come to realize fully just what has happened and most of all stop fighting each other, but rather get down to the work that is hand to repair the damage that has been done.

So, get out there and vote and be sure to take someone with you. This is only the first step and one of the most important.

TLP| 10.19.12 @ 3:08PM

There's a Contest Today.

The only problem is, you're gonna have to go back to Yesterday, and Go Looking At Tunisia.

There's Prizes.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 11:20AM

What we need is a concrete and practical strategies that go beyond our traditional expectations and actions that we have sought through elections and government. We have started some of it already.

It is quite simple. Take back our education system or create a new one. Develop and utilized the new communication technologies. Create a conservative GOOGLE and a Yahoo mail and search engine program created by conservatives. Create another television network besides FOX bringing together the hundreds of talented conservatives. Patriotic and solid conservative investment companies. Breitbart academies.
Breitbart is OUR Saul Alinsky, can you see this?

This is not going to be won in the voting booth.
And lastly establishing a fund to get Grzmlyk to move out of Vermont and into a red state for his mental health, sanity, and demeanor whereby he can make better friendships with like minded and supportive people.

Ted R.| 10.19.12 @ 11:44AM

Ah right. Self-segregation, then partition. I'm looking forward with my other Blues to forming the United States of Canada. The Red states can go the way of their natural counterparts, dysfunctional Latin American countries...

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 12:13PM

You are the perfect example of self delusion. it really is astounding. Why do you just move to Canada? No? Thought so.

The projection and hypocrisy is really amazing.
It is like trying to debate an eight year old who repeats everything back to you that you say to them and plays school yard rhetorical games.
Do you have anything of substance and maturity of thought at this late date of your demise?

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 1:27PM

Hahaha! What a laugh! It's the left that's trying to turn the USA into a dysfunctional Latin American countries in every possibly way in terms of demographics, corruption, crony capitalism and pseudo marxism (Mexico has national healthcare. Howz that working out?)

And Old Europe isn't that far behind with their Greek welfare states collapsing and Islamicization of France, England, and even Germany. Hilarious.

It amazes me that working class whites in Pennsylvania or even New York bother voting for this claptrap since they're repeatedly exploited by their Democrat masters. Nepotism runs rampant in PA. A friend of mine had to bribe a teaching administrator $10,000 in order to get a part-time teaching job. NJ voters seem to love Tony Soprano beating them up and taking their paychecks.

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:40PM

Sort of separate but equal (theoroetically) government? I am thinking not an original concept.

RichTex| 10.19.12 @ 11:42AM

I don’t want to sound as if I’m looking into the egg bin and counting chickens, but Obama’s going to have a lot of time on his hands after he leaves office next January. That’s when someone needs to plant a suggestion in his head. He could try to pull a Grover Cleveland and run again in 2016. He’s got such an overpowering ego that he would believe that he could actually do it. But in doing so, he would completely wreck havoc with the Democrat Party. How could anyone in that party oppose the First Black President, the Smartest Man Ever in History, and the Liberal Savior of the World?

Now, I suspect that President Romney is going to have a rough first year or so as he and the Republican Congress work to repair the problems that Obama has created. And the media certainly won’t let him claim that it’s all Obama’s fault, as close to the truth as that will be. But, by the mid-terms in 2014 and certainly by the time of his re-election bid, it will be clear that the country is back on the right track. That and with Obama again his opponent, the Democrats will be facing utter disaster at the polls.

Grzmlyk| 10.19.12 @ 4:14PM

Boy, RichTex, I hope you are right.

But I don't think Romney's going to put us on the right track; I think we're too far over the cliff in any case, and Romney's not going to have either the desire or the political capital to do anything but genuflect before Leviathan - maybe trim its nails and cut its hair, but he won't lop off any of its myriad ugly, ravenous heads.

Romney will propose some modest cuts - or at least cuts to the increases - in entitlement programs and the citizens will promptly riot as they are in Greece and Spain. He's simply not going to be able to do what needs to be done in order to save this country.

So I think we will continue to spiral out of control, the dollar will continue to be debauched and, by 2014, the Dems will roar back into power.

As for Obama, he'll be done with politics. First off, the Dem party treats its losers like toxic waste - it doesn't give them a second bite at the apple. Second, he'll be tapped to head the UN or the IMF or the WHO or some other bullshit planetary organization. He'll live like a king for the rest of his life, be the subject of numerous hagiographies and probably canonized in the Church of Gaia about 20 years hence.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 12:16PM

If the fraud loses this election, do not worry he is finished, lecture tours, books that do not sell, and appearances every once in a while on Jon Stewart.

PolishKnight| 10.19.12 @ 2:14PM

I would tune in for that show! Jon Stewart's gig is to cozy up to politicians he likes and brag about how smart they are and laugh at how stupid republicans are. hahaha!

But if Obama loses... won't that be an uncomfortable reminder to Stewart that his whole agenda lost? Al Gore only redeemed himself with the crybaby claim that his election was "stolen" and a nobel peace prize (which they seem to hand out in crackerjack boxes nowadays) for saying the sky is falling. But Obama would simply be a loser. Period.

Simon Templar| 10.19.12 @ 1:16PM

Something funny and on the mark for all of you patriots to enjoy and lighten your hearts..
check it out..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

Stan Redmond| 10.19.12 @ 3:29PM

--------"Liberals are angry and frustrated with themselves because they bought into the fantasy of Barack Obama."

Let's face it. Obama is president because he's black. He was the great messiah to deliver us from the age of darkness in to a new land of milk and honey of pure liberalism AND simultaniuously assuage our white guilt.

JD| 10.19.12 @ 8:11PM

Leftism is never wrong. If bad things happen, it is because the Right got in there somehow. Always remember this!

This is most evident in Leftists' explanations for past socialist and communist state outcomes. They say their systems were hijacked by totalitarians. They could never allow that totalitarianism is inevitable under their ideals.

Stan Redmond| 10.20.12 @ 6:00PM

One only has to look at Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran. It's always the evil imperialist American's fault. ALWAYS.

Buck Ofama| 10.19.12 @ 8:31PM

When Ovomit, aka O'Icarus, is voted out in Nov 2012, the whining slobbering sycophants will blame the only possible cause: W.

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:38PM

It is and was all Bush's fault. True enough.

Nixonfan| 10.19.12 @ 10:35PM

Obama, unlike Clinton or Nixon, has no gut-level political instincts. Like Bush 41, he disdains politics, which is a defect in a politician who has to seek votes to get reelected. His political team is third-rate, which is why Clinton called him an amateur. I do think he is smart from an IQ perspective, but not from a political one. This is his first real election campaign against a real candidate, and he is way over his head--politically. He should have kidnapped Carville on Day One, but of course Lady MacBeth in the East Wing wouldn't have allowed it.

truthtelleruno| 10.20.12 @ 7:09AM

What really kills the demos is knowing that when Romney gets elected, what a stark contrast his economy will be to what obama has put us thru.

THIS election may be the last chance America has to return to what we once were, as opposed to a debter nation with people relying solely on gubmint.

guybee| 10.20.12 @ 10:13AM

Eastwood is the little boy who pointed at the emperor and shouted - He is naked as the day that he was born. Notice the waters parted and the scales fell from the eyes of the adorning public after his Empty Chair comments.

America owes Eastwood a huge debt of gratitude for awakening the fearful discontents and giving them a voice.

bison cookie| 10.20.12 @ 1:13PM

OBAMA TAUGHT “DESTROY MIDDLE CLASS”. Do you want to see Obama teaching his students the principles of Saul Alinsky? Barack Obama is desperate to make people believe that he really cares about “the middle class.” After four years, his actions speak louder than words. Some 85% of the middle class say they are worse off today than they were ten years ago. According to the Wall Street Journal, from the time Obama … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2012/10/o.....dle-class/

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:37PM

It's looney tune stuff like this that should worry every rational American.

spike59| 10.22.12 @ 7:03AM

i'm inclined to dismiss a lot of that as 'tinfoil hat' stuff; but tell me this: what, if anything, would ObaMao do differently if his INTENT was to ruin the country????

Oldefarte| 10.20.12 @ 2:12PM

Those who now control this country are no hoax, no fantasy, no dilusion; but in fact are a fanatical reality.....as exemplified by the following:

http://youtu.be/DbHtwNex4Lk

Ron Ackenberry| 10.20.12 @ 8:36PM

Obama had a lock on re-election, until the first debate. Then the wheels fell off. The reason was Obama was a no show, literally and figuratively. His mannerisms were weak, his performance was weak. No question about it.

A Republican win would simply mean prejudice, fear and demagoguery are still high motivators at the poll.

In short Regressives would win regression.

I still think he will squeak out a win, if Ohio holds, but as for "liberalsim" having anything to do with it, whatever that might be, I say, "balderdash".

spike59| 10.22.12 @ 6:56AM

A Republican win would simply mean incompetence, statism, and crony capitalism are still big losers at the polls.
==========================
There, fixed it for ya

Ted R.| 10.21.12 @ 4:33AM

The folks here are dinosaurs, but if Romney ekes out a win they'll have a new lease on life. The economy is coming back, recovery should be in high gear in 18 months or so, and all credit will go yo Romney - not unlike the 90's boom went to Clinton's ledger and not Bush's.

JP| 10.21.12 @ 10:20AM

Ted,
If the economy hasn't recovered in 40 months, what makes you think it will recover in 18 months? Did you look at the earnings report Friday? Investors sure did and their was a fire sale on Wall St. The revised Q2 GDP numbers showed the GDP rose only 1.3%, down from 2% Q2. At that rate the economy will be in recession in Jan 2013. And unlike 2008, the Fed's cupboard is bare. Across the nation, real estate prices continue to fall, and now that earnings are getting slammed there is a real danger of a deflationary recession.

JP| 10.21.12 @ 10:15AM

If Mitt wins in November the GOP will most probably maintain control of the House. But the Dems will still control the Senate. The GOP nationally will have wasted a fantastic chance to win substantial gains in the Senate. And Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer will do everything in their power to thwart Mitt and the GOP at every turn.

To re-take the Senate all the Republicans will have to do is pick up a net of 4 seats. This was doable as 23 Dem seats are up for grabs. Instead, the GOP Senate will be lucky to keep their 46 seats.

So, we will be back to 2001 when Tom Daschle played a viscious rear guard action against Bush. The Dems may in fact lose the WH in 2 weeks. But, if they keep control of the Senate they will be energized again. In my own home state it looks like Richard Mourdock (Republican) will defeat a weak Dem (Joe Donnelly) -but only by a thin margin. Mourdock, who defeated Lugar in the primaries, went soft against Donnelly and allowed Donnelly to re-invent himself as a "conservative". But, then a CPAC PAC began running ads reminding Hoosers that Donnelly's voting record is close to Pelosi's. What is it about Republicans? In state after state, the GOP either picked a "moderate" or a conservative who doesn't know how to campaign. The GOP could have picked up 10-12 Senate seats. How disappointing.

gene| 10.22.12 @ 9:51AM

This Election will not be like the Reagan/Carter Landslide.

It will make that Election look like a squeaker. It may even exceed Nixon's Landslide against McGovern. I hope so. Liberals will be unable to argue with a Lanslide Mandat rather than a close Election. And Obama is the "Smartest Man in the Room" ; When he is alone in the bathroom gazing at himself in the mirror.

Right Wing Meltdown | 11.21.12 @ 7:57PM

I am looking for Ron Ross' follow-up to this where recognizes the error of his way. Reading these comments I can only laugh at how blindsided you are must feel. You could not have been more wrong and it is wonderful. Enjoy your secession, losers.

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