Showing posts with label Wall Street Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wall Street Journal. Show all posts

Friday, November 5, 2010

Peg Votes for Style, Not Substance

Freedom Fighter dissects Peggy Noonan's latest column. Peggy's piece in the Wall Street Journal started out well enough. In fact, the part featuring an excerpt from Obama's fictional post-midterm memoir (in which BO refers to himself in the third person) was quite clever:
"Obama was frustrated. He honestly didn't understand what the country was doing. It was as if they had compulsive hand-washing disorder. In '08 they washed off Bush. Now they're washing off Obama. There he is, swirling down the drain! It's all too dramatic, too polar. The morning after the election it occurred to him: maybe he should take strong action. Maybe he should fire America! They did well in 2008, but since then they've been slipping...
So Peg made some good points, but then she went into "Karl Rove mode" with her tea party comments. Like many of her friends in the Snobby Clique Class, Peg is more worried about style than substance, and more worried about The Clique's image than the nation's well being.

Peg preaches to the Tea Party:

"Electable means mature, accomplished, stable—and able to persuade."

I suppose, for example, that Joe Miller's biggest obstacle in Alaska is that Joe is unpersuasive and he has achieved nothing. Or maybe the race in Alaska is still not settled because of a petulant member of the Snobby Clique Class and a few of her closest friends. I won't name any names, but people like Lisa Murkowski and her buddy Orrin Hatch come to mind.

Here's a list of Tea Party candidates who did not win their elections in 2010, apparently because they didn't go to the Peggy Noonan School of Messaging. Click on the links to assess their communication skills:
On second thought, having heard these candidates speak, maybe their only problem in this election was that they were under-demeciated by the Ruling Class.

Peg knows exactly what the Tea party needs to do in 2012:

"...in the future the tea party is going to have to ask itself: Is this candidate electable?"

OMG! Why didn't any of the millions of Tea Party activists think of that in 2010? That's such a smart idea!

Let's not forget that you go to war with the army you have. I'm sure the overwhelming majority of tea party activists would LOVE to run a Ronald Reagan or a Jack Kemp or a Margaret Thatcher in every local, state and federal election, but we can't sit around waiting for perfect candidates. We have urgent work to do.

Discussion: Memeorandum
Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Monday, May 18, 2009

Tyranny in America — Updated

Where's the outrage? Why do 56% of voters say they approve of Obama's performance so far? Obama is making up the rules as he goes along:


Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live under tyranny? Now you know. We are no longer a nation governed by the rule of law. We now have the rule of Obama. America isn't bothered by this. Get ready for despotism.

Update: I understand any hesitance to use the word "tyranny". Inflammatory language strains credibility if not used appropriately and sparingly; but in this case, I believe tyranny is the appropriate word.

Tyranny... "oppressive power; especially oppressive power exerted by government"

Going by that definition I'd say we're there. It's a soft tyranny to be sure, but it's getting more serious every day. We now have a president who has no respect for the Constitution, contracts, or the rule of law. He has publicly stated his preference for redistributing the fruits of your labor.

What would be the most appropriate way to describe Obama's approach? Obama calls it "ruthless pragmatism." Is ruthless pragmatism any kinder or gentler than tyranny?


More


The Founders put the contracts clause in the Constitution for a reason.
The government's threats and bare-knuckle tactics set an ominous precedent...

Money Well Spent
Every favor from the government comes with strings attached.

Plagiarism At The NY Times
Maureen Dowd Steals From Blogger

Notes Toward a Theory of Obama: Ruthless Pragmatism
By Slate editor in chief Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy