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The Spectacle Blog
Yesterday I wrote a post paying tribute to the legendary speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, who penned many of President Kennedy’s greatest (and often deeply conservative) lines.
Of course, another great (even if more hackneyed) speechwriter, Bob Shrum, famously declared (for JFK’s brother, Senator Ted Kennedy) that “the (left-wing) dream shall never die.”
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
I was reminded of this Shrum-Kennedy declaration this morning after reading Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne’s latest brief for the “progressive” Left: Because it seems that, for our leftist friends, no matter how badly reality bites, the dream shall never die. Facts simply will not dissuade them from their deeply felt need to “spread the wealth around” (with other people’s money, of course).
Indeed, “Obama was not wrong to fight for health care, to stimulate the economy when it was in deep peril, or to push for financial reform,” Dionne argues.
But by failing to defend these achievements, the president and his allies opened the way for partisan critics, who shifted the conversation to airy language about “big government” and “bailouts.” One result: Only a third of Tuesday’s electorate, exit polls indicated, thought the stimulus had made the economy better.
Now, we can argue about whether the so-called stimulus has “made the economy better,” but what’s the point? The reality is that the economy is in the tank and at serious risk of slipping back into another (double-dip) recession.
Unemployment is at a near-record high and shows no signs of abating anytime soon. For millions of Americans, Obama’s “economic recovery program” is a cruel joke, a hoax played upon them by sophisticated left-wing apologists like Dionne.
I’m reminded of Groucho Marx’s famous quip: “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Dionne thinks Obama and the Dems have a communication problem and a constitution problem. He thinks the White House has been insufficiently bold and aggressive and inept at communicating the Left’s grand deeds and accomplishments (sic).
It never seems to have occurred to Dionne that the Left’s dog food won’t sell. It doesn’t taste good and it’s neither appetizing nor nutritious. And, until Obama and the Dems come to terms with this reality — this political and economic reality — they are destined to suffer at the polls.
That may not be so bad, of course. The problem is that, in the meantime, they can inflict — and are inflicting, unfortunately — a lot of damage on the American economy and the American people.
For these reasons, Obama and the Dems might want to heed the lessons of President Kennedy, who successfully cut tax rates (not just taxes, but tax rates, an important economic distinction this) to spur economic growth. One of the first things that the new Congress must consider, after all, is whether to extend the Bush tax cuts, and for all Americans, not just the politically chosen few.
This should be an obvious no-brainer. Businesses and consumers desperately need cash and capital to invest. And, equally important, they require a more certain and predictable tax, legal and regulatory environment.
As it is, though, businesses and consumers are understandably sitting on the sidelines, uncertain of what Congress and the White House might do to them next. Indeed, the rightly fear the next legislative blow to their rectus abdominis muscle and accompanying knee to their groin.
This era of punishing businesses and consumers, and holding them hostage in a state of suspended economic uncertainty, must end.
In short, Obama and the Dems don’t have a communication or courage problem; they have a real-world economic problem! And no amount of gamesmanship and communication smoke and mirrors will change this. For them, reality bites.
View all comments (12) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/03/ej-dionne-and-the-left-just-do
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George S| 11.3.10 @ 3:46PM
Exactly right. Those Democrats had not done a good enough job articulating the wondrous benefits of ObamaCare. Instead of telling people how health care will improve (AND be cheaper at the same time!) by sending your health care dollars to Washington instead of to your doctor or insurance company, they chose to call their opponents bitches and 'hos, thus depriving the voter the much needed facts to appreciate the bill. Why all they had to do was point to Britain's law that required patients to be seen within four hours of arriving at the hospital, only to wait in ambulances for two days until a four hour window opened. But instead they used car analogies and Slurpees to define their achievements. Why, oh why, couldn't they just sit us down and tell us the grand benefits of Britain and Canada and how great is the care people get over there (*cough* when they come to the U.S.)?
And then, of course, were those informative town halls where congressmen threw punches and shoved people. Maybe they wanted to show us how terrible our health care system was by showing how expensive it was to remove your tooth from a congressman's knuckle (or to pump the stomach of an SEIU goon to get a finger out of his stomach).
All they had to do is put all this in their ads, but they didn't. After all, it's not that they're telling the leader of their party to shove his endorsement...
Yeah, no one saw THIS election result coming.
JohnR22| 11.3.10 @ 7:27PM
Yes, for people like Dionne, their Leftists ideology is like a secular religion. They can NEVER admit that they're wrong on the fundamentals...it would be like getting a fundamentalist christian to deny the resurrection. No matter what happens, Dionne & Co. will always have a spate of rationalizations and excuses. Dionne's motto should be "the lie will never die".
Bob F. Young| 11.3.10 @ 7:38PM
The most important thing that has happened lately is that this type of article appears in the public domain. I am old! A short time ago, I felt I had to speak out about the socialists taking control of our government, and worried about who was to fight them in the future. You would have never seen this type of information published by the print or TV media ten or twenty years ago. Hitler had Herr Goebels, and the democrats had ABC, CBS and NBC. I can now go to my grave knowing that there is an abundance of conservative (constitutionalists) taking up the spear of human freedom. Keep it up!
larryg| 11.4.10 @ 1:35AM
Amen to Mr. Young's comment! Sneer all you like at 'social media', but it's our last vestige of free expression of thought. Never before could so many exercise their right of free speech and free association with such efficiency and effect.
EJM| 11.3.10 @ 9:00PM
Here's what the democratic socialists will never understand: It is we the people of this country who pay the bills and revere the Constitution who will never give up.
What happened yesterday was only the first flush. If Obama and his fellow travellers cannot learn from a thumping, and there is no indication that they can, then they are destined to have it administered a second time in 2012.
Reggy| 11.4.10 @ 8:08AM
Amen. Judging by the WH comments yesterday, the reason that the American people are angry, is that the obama hasn't moved quickly enough or widely enough to ram through even more "change".....Note to the WH and "president" obama.....your "medecine" is KILLING the patient!....stop administering it!
BD57| 11.3.10 @ 10:18PM
Dionne is a perfect example of the "old saying" I made up: "No one is ever the villain in their own story."
Dionne's never going to admit there might be a problem maybe with his own ideas; if you don't agree, it can only be because he hasn't explained it well enough.
Barbara| 11.4.10 @ 2:10AM
"New Deal labor and industrial policies (NDLR Keynesian policies) did not lift the economy out of the Great Depresssion as President Roosevelt had hoped. The subsequent abandonment of these policies coincided wirh the strong economic recovery of the 1940s." Harold L. Cole and Lee Ohanian, "New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy 112 (August 2004): 813
Wide-eyed Rothbardian or von Hayakian radicals? No, UCLA economists who VERY unwillingly had to reach their conclusion based on facts!
The great unwashed voters faced the facts Tuesday and voted accordingly - much to the chagrin of the politically chic.
Yosemeti Sam| 11.4.10 @ 8:44AM
Can you picture the Leftoid Salons where emoting now will be at fever pitch?
LOL.
Jack Davis| 11.4.10 @ 10:42AM
Marvelous piece!
Mark Bailey| 11.4.10 @ 1:35PM
It used to be said that conservatives thought liberals were people with bad ideas and liberals thought conservatives were bad people. I believe it is time to acknowledge that liberals are not people with bad ideas, they are BAD PEOPLE!
JohnLeeHooker| 11.4.10 @ 2:37PM
Or, paraphrasing: Damn the voters, full speed ahead!