Ding Dong? - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Ding Dong?
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THE LADY FROM HOPE
Re: Robert Stacy McCain’s Hoarse Race:

Oh, ye of little faith!

So long as there is a microphone available or a courthouse open, Hillary will fight on: house by house, brick by brick, with half-truths and big lies, spin and dirty political tricks, with race cards and gender cards, with tears and with sneers, with knives and boiling oil, with rocks and sticks.

And in the process, she will lay bare what the Democratic Party really is. It would be a terrific opportunity for the Republican Party, if such a thing still existed.
Martin Owens
Sacramento, California

Senator Obama is quoted as follows: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK…”

So, I guess he has turned his attention from those who cling to religion or guns to those who cling to their cars, their thermostats, and their food. It’s clear he’s trying to bring us all together — so that with one united voice…we can reject him!
James M. Thunder
McLean, Virginia

JIMMY THE SECOND
Re: John Samples’ What’s So Great about the Great Society?:

Thanks for the enlightening “What’s So Great About the Great Society?” by John Samples. Obama may intend to be another Johnson, but he’s more likely to end up as another Jimmy Carter. The Feds’ monetary policies will likely create high inflation for the next four years and possibly stagflation. On foreign policy, Obama follows Carter every step. As a result, Iran is likely to make Obama appear as weak and appeasing as it did Carter. Obama is destined to be a black peanut farmer.
Roger D. McKinney
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Mr. Samples is certainly correct in his comments on “The Great Society.” But I believe Mr. Obama is more accurately compared to the illustrious Mr. Jimmy Carter.

If we review Mr. Obama’s comments about the environment and national security he sounds like Mr. Carter reincarnated.

Mr. Carter relied on peaceful dialogue to make the world love “a more reasoned America,” as the democrats now say. That reasoned dialogue resulted in communist influence taking root in Central America, where there are today, three governments of that ilk or at the least moving in that direction, all of whom hate the USA.

It resulted in the abject humiliation the U.S. in Iran, where our sovereign territory was invaded and our people captured by a renegade government. Mr. Carter’s response? None that anyone can recall. When finally, desperate to resurrect his political life and career, he finally authorized military action he botched that as well. Too little too late and our troops died to no avail. (see also, Harry Truman: Korea; Lyndon Baines Johnson: Vietnam; and Bill Clinton : Mogadishu, Somalia)

The Russians felt emboldened, by all this dithering and reasoned conversation, to advance their agenda of world control in Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan. This time Mr. Carter reacted forcefully! He refused to allow American athletes the opportunity to compete in the Moscow Olympics. By God!

Mr. Carter’s other shining legacy is domestic: The Department of Energy. It is a monstrous bureaucracy into the alimentary canal of which hundreds of millions of dollars have been pushed without a single energy bowel movement to show for it.

From close attention to Mr. Obama’s words, it seems he will reenact the Carter years, talk to our enemies, provide them with endless “If you do that one more time….” chances; create even more bureaucracy and throw in the socialist hijack of our medical system.

Our hope for the future must lie in Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that words don’t mean anything. I remember Neville Chamberlain, in 1939, waving his Hitler-signed paper and saying “we have peace in our time.”

You know, Maybe Reverend Wright is right and God has damned America.
Jay Molyneaux
North Carolina

It was nice to see John Samples highlighting one of the least reported aspects of LBJ’s call for a Great Society. Jonah Goldberg highlighted this very same tendency in what he termed Liberal Fascism. The idea that politics can have spiritual dimension first appeared in the Progressive Politics of the late 19th century. However, as late as the 1990s Hillary gave her “Politics of Meaning” speech. Obama continues this trend.

I would like however, to point out a big difference between LBJ and Obama. LBJ, for all of his flaws, paid his dues with 30 years of yeoman service to the Democratic Party. His was a New Deal Democrat who began his political career on the dusty plains of Depression era Texas as a congressional aid. He attended a teachers college and not Harvard Law. By the time he was nominated Vice President in 1960 he spent 30 years in politics, with over a decade of service in the U.S. Senate. By contrast, Obama is a first term senator, who spent only 8 years in the Illinois State House. Obama appeared to be on a fast track to the Presidency the minute he graduated from Harvard Law. He brings no significant accomplishments in public service other than his CV.

What gave LBJ such an advantage in getting his Great Society legislation through Congress was his complete understanding of how the wheels of power worked in the Beltway. He may have been a flawed politician, but he did believe in the power of big government to do good. LBJ lived through the Great Depression, the First World War, and the transformation of the America through a hyperactive centralized government. Obama has none of that. What he does offer America is himself, his charisma, and his scripted speeches. This isn’t 1965. America realizes there is no going back. And I think most Americans realize that even if we could go back, we haven’t the money to do so, and Barack Obama hasn’t the political skill to make it happen.
JP Koch
Indiana

DEAN’S GENIUS
Re: W. James Antle’s Not so Special:

It doesn’t seem that long ago that conservative web sites of all kinds were predicting that it was the Democrats that were going to become extinct (or least the minority for a long time coming). What a change! Is it time to start giving credit where it’s due? Maybe howlin’ Howard Dean was a jerk of a presidential candidate, but since he replaced terrible Terry McAuliffe, the Dem’s fortunes have skyrocketed.

I guess I would classify myself as a part of the Republican base, and I have completely refused to send one thin dime to the RNC or any of the Republican presidential candidates (although I probably would have had Fred Thompson been the presumptive nominee). It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why this is the case with me, but I guess it’s the squishy-natured, spineless, relativistic kind of Republicans we seem to have now (with a few good exceptions). As an evangelical, Reformed Christian, I am turned off by the corruption, greed, non-principled stand that many of our candidates and current office holders take. Mr. Davis in Mississippi for example, did raise taxes and have a nice Yukon purchased for his use by the taxpayers of that municipality. I’m turned off by just painting a Democrat rival as “tied to Obama” or whatever. It comes off as useless mudslinging and in many cases blatantly hypocritical (as opposed to my latent hypocrisy that work so hard to keep hidden from everyone).

Just a good old-fashioned Republican; pro-life, principled, conservative, strong, willing to stand up for what’s right despite the prevailing pop-cultural preferences, is what I vote for and support financially.

I suppose Rush Limbaugh is right about this one. If Republicans will run on conservative ideals, they win. Anything else is just too risky (obviously).
Morgan P. Yarbrough
Southwestern Tennessee

THAT LOUD KISSING SOUND
Re: The Prowler’s NARAL Pro-Choice Obama:

Yesterday on “Meet the Press” (I think, they run together sometimes) Mike Huckabee was groveling to the McCain campaign to the effect of, “I was always kind and generous to John McCain; I was the most complimentary during the primaries…” At the time I wondered this was all about. Your Prowler article explained that loud kissing sound coming from the television.
Judy Beumler
Louisville, Kentucky

COMPROMISING POSITIONS
Re: W. James Antle III’s California Dreamin’:

Much like John McCain’s “compromise” on global warming (reducing carbon emissions by 60%, versus Barack Obama’s goal of reducing it by 80% in the next few decades), “civil unions” and “domestic partnerships” were always steppingstones on the path to homosexual “marriage.” Politicians, take note: this is what compromise gets you.

However, this issue is more serious than the manufactured global warming crisis, as bad as that is: it strikes at the very heart of our civilization, and the long-held notion that has been proven again and again: children and societies are much better off when the latter sanctions and supports married mothers and fathers. Ask any honest sociologist, and they will tell you that married couples and their children are happier, healthier, and wealthier. Certainly, no family is perfect, but marriages are a major asset to every society. But whether it’s no-fault divorce laws, or narrow state Supreme Court majorities taking it upon themselves to re-write the rules of civilization, crippling this institution has devastating consequences.

Not to mention that homosexual “marriage” in California came about not by the will of the people, but through a slim majority of unelected judges who think they are philosopher-kings, rather than enforcers of laws that others, namely, our elected representatives, have written. As one of the dissenting California Justices wrote, the Court “does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.”

We would also do well to remember Abraham Lincoln. Regarding another horrendous Court decision, the Dred Scott case, he said, “If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decision of the Supreme Court…the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

How appropriate is that statement, given that this Court has violated the will of Californians. Just a few years back, 61.4% of voters in the Golden State voted for Proposition 22, and thus upheld marriage. (By the way, this happened in spite of some 800 pro-Proposition 22 signs being stolen during the course of that campaign — a crime that was never pursued by California’s then-Attorney General, who snidely titled Proposition 22 the “Limit on Marriage” act on the official ballot — all of which undoubtedly shrunk its support.)

But marriage is not something that needs to be affirmed at the ballot anyway — though some 15 states, if memory serves, did so in 2004, and by overwhelming margins. Neither is it to be left to the whims of judges, as when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court brazenly declared, “Government creates marriage.” (Does it also create motherhood?)

No, marriage is an institution as old as time itself, shared by cultures Christian and non-Christian. If you change it to include two men, two women, two siblings, or whatever, it’s no longer marriage. It’s like putting a mask on a cat, and calling it a duck. It simply does not work, and the numbers bear this out. In the Netherlands, which has had legalized homosexual “marriage” for over a decade, the average union between two men or two women is been 1.5 years. Meanwhile, some 75% of married couples (that is, one man and one woman) are faithful to their vows.

Of course, some might equate this statement of simple facts as bigotry. However, I would concur with Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and one of the most astute defenders of this institution today: “Most Americans understand that marriage is not bigotry. It is common sense. Because they are the unions that both make new life and connect those children to their own mother and father.”

So, what is to be done? At the grassroots level, there is a movement to put marriage into the California State Constitution. Governor Schwarzenegger is set to oppose it. As if we needed more evidence, this proves, once again, that Schwarzenegger’s election was a Faustian bargain for conservatives.

What will John McCain do? Will he show the courage he demonstrated in 2007, when he supported the surge in Iraq before supporting the surge in Iraq was cool? Or, will he take the stance of the Washington establishment, that this is merely a “divisive wedge issue?”

Doing the right thing will take courage — especially when it means opposing those who set the national narrative. Let’s hope that is the path that he takes.
Greg Hoadley
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

THE REST OF THE STORY
Re: Quin Hillyer’s The Worst Republican Senator:

Although Strom Thurmond recommended this guy, I’m sure he was too old to realize what he was doing. I sure hope Buddy Witherspoon beats him out of his seat. If Dizzy Lindsey gets back in (May God help us) and John McCain wins the Presidency, we are gonna be crawling up the rear with wetback Mexicans by the millions.

I once or twice wrote to Lindsey in 2007 but never got any answer. Now for some “odd” reason I am getting calls and E-mails from him. Do you think that this might be because it’s election year?

I’m paying him back. I’m not answering him!

I hear it’s been said that Lindsey is the best Representative that the Democrats have in Congress. But I will not really be surprised if the stupid majority of voters in this State put him back in. Since we are the last or near the last in education this just goes to prove the point that Forest Gump says, Stupid is as Stupid does.

Where oh where are the patriots of this State who not only advocated Secession but got up and did it?

I am wondering if we will have the courage to secede when this business of the North American Union is forced upon us. If they bring it up for a vote, here is one citizen who will “rebel yell” to “DO IT AGAIN!”
Darrell Wallace

ROUSHED TO JUDGMENT
Re: Mike Roush’s letter (under “Pork is Tasty”) in Reader Mail’s Not Quite Wright:

Over a considerable length of time, I have considered Mike Roush the next thing to a DailyKOS denizen, and wondered why the Spectator publishes so many of his letters, while rejecting so many respectful conservative ones. Well, today I must recant, temporarily. The estimable Mr. Roush opines that, and I paraphrase here, the pork problem is not the elected politicians, Republican or Democrat. No, he says that the problem is us: that we want, nay, that we demand, that these politicians “bring home the bacon.” Mr. Roush is absolutely, 100% right. The vast majority of Americans belong to the “I want it all, and I want it now” society. Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!

The same Spectator “Letters” section contains a few letters regarding the gay marriage ruling from the California Supreme Court. Folks are questioning why the California “Supremes” went against the will of the people. See the people passed a ballot question, or amendment, relating to the subject. Sure, but the voters also keep in office a governor that applauded the ruling. Oh, and are you going to tell me that the California legislative delegation to Washington, or the California state legislature is, on the whole, less radically left wing? How do they maintain their offices. Hint: it is from the voters. Look, can we talk? An overwhelming majority of the California populace, including the voting populace, rightly belong in the “fruits and nuts” category. I have relatives in Tracy, California that try to tell me how conservative they are. Posh and Piffle. If the majority of Californians wanted it different, it would be different. It used to be that Northern Californians were the nut cakes, L.A., except for the Hollywood types, were fairly normal, and Southern California was the conservative part of the state. That is relatively speaking of course. Now Northern California is even nuttier and the rest of the state is virtually Mexico North. Oh, and of course, California is far from the first of the American states to go this “gay marriage” route. Have you heard of Massachusetts? Have you heard of Vermont? Do you pay any attention to the politics of Maine?

As for the “green” groups and the determination of the politicians to pander to them, I have relatives that moved out of Portland, Oregon to McMinnville Oregon a few years ago. I am quite familiar with what the “green” voters out there did to the lumber industry in which my relative had a good job. Now in the autumn of their time here on earth, they are having to scuffle to keep it all together. The point is that the voters of Oregon did it to themselves. They have not learned from their mistakes. They are moving even further Left. My relatives, living and dead, used to blame it on the Californians moving to Oregon. It may have started that way, but they are breeding their own tree hugging, America haters by the train load now. And I don’t even want to get into the politics of the state of Washington, where it is a felony for a Republican to win an election in the western half of the state, particularly around Seattle.

You want to talk of the depressed and depressing state of affairs in Detroit and the whole of Michigan? Fine, who do you keep electing to office. I don’t see the Daly machine taking any hits of significance in Chicago and its environs. The majority of voters seem quite content. And don’t even talk about the Illinois Senators that keep getting elected time after time. Well, Obama is new, but his attitude and voting habits are not. Speaking of farm bills, how long has Harkin of Iowa been in office? I think that it is still the voters putting him there. I mean, we could go state after state, even among some fairly red states.

Face it, those of us that read and comment at websites like the Spectator simply are NOT the majority of the voting public. I have heard that the tachometers were removed from the caskets of all the American founding fathers. The RPMs were so high that they were constantly red lined. It is even rumored that John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey are having significant heartburn over the antics of their fellow party members, elected and unelected. So, on the theory that even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while, kudos to Mike Roush for telling it like it really is. We really have met the enemy, and he really, really is us. When the majority of voters change their demands, the elected politicians will change their agendas.
Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

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