WaPo – “Free the GOP from Social Fundamentalists”

In the never-ending war between Progressive Liberalism and Social Conservatism it would seem the left has launched another volley against the right. Obviously feeling emboldened in the presence of their marxist savior they feel it is time to try, once again, to assimilate the GOP in to their fold by convincing the Republican party to cut away its largest base: Social Conservatives.

This isn’t a new tactic and the Left has been trying to find any way that they can to rid themselves of the constant conservative thorn in their side. So, now that The One has been elected to take the highest office they feel now is as good a time as any to start their all out attack upon the conservative crowd by convincing the rest of the GOP that they don’t need them. The only problem with that is that the Social Conservative base actually makes up the largest portion of the Republican party. Without Social Conservatives the rest of the GOP would basically just be, well, Democrat-Lite.

And that’s precisely what they want.

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party’s social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

So, by following the conventional wisdom of the last two elections McCain was wrong to try and persuade the social conservative crowd to support him? I wonder just how greatly McCain would have lost if he didn’t have what few Social conservatives actually went and pulled the lever for him.

In the wake of the Democrats’ landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn’t support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don’t find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Really? The most leftist, liberal state in the entire country just went out and voted to ban same-sex marriage and your actually going to sit there and actually claim that “Social Conservatism/Fundamentalism” was what caused the GOP to lose the Election? The passing of Proposition 8 is proof enough that most people in this country have a tendancy to lean towards the social aspect of conservatism when they are making a social decision. However, as those glorious exit polls (which you shove in everyones faces) will also show you, this election was not decided by people voting on their conscience or their beliefs in social fundamentalism.

The Economy decided this election. FISCAL Conservatism, supposedly one of the staple platforms of the GOP, was no where to be seen in the last eight years and the American people watched as their economy rose to one of its highest levels and then completely crashed to a halt in a matter of weeks. We have seen the largest percentage of government expansion EVER in the last eight years, and the GOP basically went on an all-out shopping spree in pork projects. The GOP began sealing their own fate when they abandoned the principles of fiscal and economic conservatism and took the people of America for granted. So, when the economy began to falter who was the people going to blame? The Democrats?

Well, it would have been easy to blame the democrats had it not been for the fact that the GOP  seemed to absolutely refuse to address any of the problems that had actually caused the economic crisis. The truth of what caused the economic crisis, as exit polls show was the most important deciding factor on the election, is out there and if anyone is willing to search for it or, oh, I dont know, ****ing REPORT IT they’ll find that the real blame can be traced back to the Clinton Administration, the retooling of the Community Reinvestment Act, Barney Frank, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson (who were both Fannie Mae CEO’s during the time when FMae was cooking the books), Rahm Emanuel (Who was a board member at Freddie Mac when THEY were cooking the books), Chris “Countrywide” Dodd, and finally Barack Obama.

However, the Media refused to reveal any of that and continuously supported Barack Obama and the only stories they would run about the economic crisis were ones where the Democrats were, erroneously, trying to place all of the blame upon the Republican party. Also, it didn’t really help much that the GOP never tried to clear their name nor did they ever try to speak out against the accusation of blame.

The “Social Fundamentalist” section of the Republican Party, however, DID try to bring tons of issues to light to try and get McCain to fight back against Senator Obama. However, at every turn the “Moderates” told the GOP base to shut up and go away. When Palin was brought on board the GOP base was energized and began to find interest in the election once again, but whenever somebody tried to bring up the long list of dirty scams that the Democrat party was involved with, well, McCain would just brush it aside and act as if was never brought up.

Lets look at all of the issues that many of the Social Fundamentalists/Conservatives tried to bring to light and was largely ignored by their own candidate:

• ACORN Voting Scandals and Obama’s extensive association with ACORN
• Obama’s association with William Ayers
• Obama’s association with radical Pastor Jeremiah Wright
• Obama’s association with Rasheed Khalidi
• Obama’s experience or his drastically lacking thereof.
• Obama’s Socialist or Marxist views on Radicalism and Redistribution of Wealth (It took a plumber to finally get that moving)
• The fact that Obama never explained how he was going to give 95% of Americans a tax break when 45% of Americans don’t even pay taxes.
• McCain never confronted Obama on the fact that the Senator was the second largest receiever of campaign funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just behind Chris Dodd.
• McCain never addressed the fradulant donation system that the Obama Campaign was using (and was proved to be using) to accept all those millions of dollars

Whenever we Social Conservatives tried to bring any of this to light the McCain campaign would ignore it and just go on as business as usual.

McCain didn’t lose because of the Social Fundamentalists, oh no, he lost because he ran a disasterous campaign and because he refused to address ANY of the issues that should have disqualified Senator Obama from ever becoming President. However, despite the cries from the Republican base (The fundamentalists as you call them) McCain ignored them and just continued on without them.

So, how can one possibly argue that the Social Conservatives/Fundamentalists cost McCain the election when the social cons were being ignored? The truth is they cant without sounding like a bunch of raging idiots.

UPDATE: HotAir now has something up about this piece. Morrissey is right: “Growth Through Dismemberment does not Work”.

Failed News Anchor Katie Couric Advises Gov. Palin to “Learn About Governing”

No, I’m not making this up.

During an interview with Glamour Magazine this is what Couric had to say about Gov. Palin:

I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing. But I’m not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything.

Then, uh, why give any sort of advice that you, yourself, recognize that your not qualified to give? That statement right there is pretty much exactly how those College Football coaches must feel when they go on those radio shows and get tons of ridiculous questions from callers, who have no coaching experience whatsoever, grilling them on why said callers team completely sucked that night.

Your right Katie. Your not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything.

Ever.

“The Paradigm Shift”

The term “Paradigm Shift” is a phrase that many have heard but few rarely understand. The term actually originates from a man named Thomas Kuhn to describe the differentiating changes within the ruling theory of science. In a nutshell it has basically been referred to as a “scientific revelation” and until it found mainstream popularity within the marketing realms as a type of jargen used within marketing circles it had only had any real relevance in the Scientific community.

Now, the reason why I bring this up is because the term “Paradigm Shift” has been so overused that it has fallen in to the realm of irrelevancy, and it is this level of irrelevance that I find so many conservative commenters and bloggers achieving lately. In fact, the very term “Conservatism” has been so overused by so many people in the political realm for so many years that the actual meaning has somehow been lost on those who claim to subcribe to the true ideal of it. During the election many self-proclaimed “Conservative” writers and bloggers would continuously push themselves on the scene to decry many fellow Republicans or Conservatives for being too conservative or for supporting a running mate candidate who held far more conservative beliefs than the actual presidential nominee.

Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan, for example, had been held up in the past as being “conservative” writers in the past and were pretty well respected by those who knew them. However, in the late stages of the Election, both of them were making headlines, but instead of making waves in the media by questioning how supremely leftist Senator Obama is or questioning his associations with some pretty nefarious individuals they were, instead, screaming their heads off about how Palin was a bad pick for the Republican ticket. Two supposed conservatives were repeatedly bashing the most conservative side of the Republican ticket and fairly nastily so.

What seemed to be the problem? Palin was pro-energy, pro-life, favored limited government, was a great supporter to the military, supported lower taxes, had a history of reform in the Alaskan government, actually HAD executive experience as a governer, and was just a generally decent woman all-around. Yet, Parker and Noonan lashed out against her by claiming that she was dragging the ticket down and Parker even called for Palin to drop out of the ticket to “save her country”.

Why?

Well, the only conclusion I can seem to come to is that both Noonan and Parker are of the “Cocktail Conservative” crowd. A group of people who claim to subscribe to the ideals of conservatism over a glass of wine during dinner, but in actual daily practice will only admit to such ideals if means that they will remain politically relevant.

If there is one certainty that can be said about the Republican party: It is we eat our own.

Still, I question the intentions of these so-called conservatives and why they, bright minds who supposedly uphold the positive theme of conservatism who were so quick to lower the hammer upon someone who was far more conservative than the front-runner. A front-frunner, I should add, who has a long reputation for constantly being at odds with the more conservative sides of his own party. John McCain gained the stigma of being labeled a RINO (Republican In Name Only) during the primaries and it stayed with him throughout the campaign. Are these writers, his supporters, also cut from the same cloth? It would appear so.

While some “conservatives” were busy trashing one of their own others were freaking the hell out. Now, to be fair to Ace (whom I respect greatly), he is a libertarian conservative, and he has spent nearly 99.9% of his time supporting the conservative agenda on his own. He’s been a far greater bastion of conservative truth than the two pseudo-cons I mentioned above. However, even the threat of financial collapse was too much for him to bolster down and stand up to government expansion. He, and many others, were adamant that the bailout was the only thing that could save our economy. A strange idea considering our economy is based upon limited, if any, government intervention.

It’s called a free-market for a reason.

Even the Senate republicans were jumping on the bandwagon to support the bailout program. However, as a last bastion of hope, the House Republicans were standing up to the bailout and were crying out in large numbers against it. They defeated it once, but even they fell to the pressure to get the bailout passed. However, it must be pointed out that the pressure was not coming from PEOPLE, but it was coming from these very same pseudo-conservatives and the democrats who served in the chairs next to them. The citizens hated the idea from the start, but the supporters of the largest expansion of government in history were going to pass it anyways.

And they did.

Where did it get us? The supporters of the bailout looked down upon those who opposed it and called their cries of “creeping socialism” nothing but irrational fears and phobia. Though, not even two months later, it would seem that many of those bailout supporters will have to eat their words.  They wont though, and who could blame them? They invested too much of their faith in to the convincing words that everything was going to be “ok” if they could just pass that bill. Now, instead of a “bailout” we are seeing a “buyout” and the government is buying up stocks in private banks. How is government owning stakes in private businesses capitalism (a sister ideal of conservatism) again? Well, it isn’t, but it is a definate scary path towards the fears of creeping socialism that many of the bailout opposers were forseeing. If the Republicans in the Senate and House had only practiced what they preached (conservartism) then the bailout would never have been necessary. However, as the crisis grew bigger you found out who was serious about their ideals and who just liked to claim membership to the club.

And what of the Republican Conservatives after the election? More “Conservatives” are seemingly lining up to say that the Republican party is doomed to a permanent minority while others are even going far enough to defend the strange plans that our new President-Elect has in store for us. Many on the left have been quick to claim that this past election season was the death of Conservatism and the Right-Wingers, but was it really? The very same people who supported McCain (and hated Palin) were the ones who were front and center in this campaign, and if it was their man who lost (a man who had considered leaving the republican party after the 2000 election) then would it not be more appropriate to say that it was the moderates who hold the keys to failure?

If anyone was paying attention at all they could easily see that true conservatism wasn’t even at the party. At least not until Palin was introduced and then as soon as she was brought on to the scene the pseudo-conservatives tried to be rid of her and claim she was far too right-wing to help the campaign. So, those of us who subscribe (and practice) the ideals of real conservatism we have a question to ask ourselves.

“Do we continue to let those who do not truly belong write the narrative and speak for us?”

I, for one, don’t plan on it. I have found that these self-proclaimed conservatives* have hidden behind an ideaology that they never really intended on adhereing to and have used that veil so often that they have become their own “Paradigm Shift”…..

Increasingly irrelevant and meaningless.

[*I would like to point out that I am not lumping Ace from AoSHQ in to that group. I do not question his conservative ideals, but only find fault with his willingness to accept a bogus bailout plan that most people found to be an appalling piece of legislation.]

Obama’s Compulsory Civil Defense Service – Rahm Emanuel Audio clip

Ever since it was mentioned a lot of people have been talking about this enigmatic program being referred to as a Civil Defense Service. While I will take the advice of others not to hurry and rush out screaming the H-word at first wind of this, but I will go far enough to say that this is really, really creepy. We have survived for 240 years without a compulsory civil defense force, so I really do not understand the need to build a civilian paramilitary to handle whatever this new force is supposed to handle. The reporter in the video is trying really hard to get Emanuel to answer the questions about the Barracks or Uniforms, but Emanuel just laughs at him as if the concerns of this reporter are somehow amusing.

Another thing that bothers me is the video clip from Obama at the end. He claims that this new Civil Security Force should be “Just as powerful. Just as strong. Just as well-funded.”, and I wonder just how far and how much training this new force would have to go through to be just as powerful and strong as our Armed Forces. Will this new Civilian defense service be armed? Will they patrol the streets as a type of secondary police force to keep the peace? What exactly will their purpose be?

Another thing that bothers me about this is the sheer hypocrisy of the idea. For years the left has complained and cried foul against the Bush Administration for “fear-mongering” and using the threat of terrorism to scare people in to supporting the War in Iraq. However, in the clip you can hear Rahm Emanuel using the same tactic of cohersion that the left has accused the right of trying. Aside from Emanuel’s own “fear-mongering” to try and convince the reporter that the mandatory civil defense service is necessary we, the people, have been given no other reason why this draft service is being created.

I also question Obama’s claims that this new force will be just as well-funded as the U.S. Armed Forces. Where will he get the money to arm his new civilian defense force? I believe we all know the answer to that.

This just screams bad idea, but you people voted for the guy. People wanted Hope and Change and it seems they’ll get it whether they like it or not.

Obama’s Chief of Staff on Freddie Mac Board while scandal was brewing.

Hope and Change you can be appalled with.

Wow, I guess all that talk of bringing change and new politics to Washington was just a bunch of smoke and mirrors. So, as Obama’s first appointee he declares that Rahm “Go F**K Yourself” Emanuel will be his Chief of Staff, and the good news of what an upstanding person Emanuel is has already begun to just poor in.

President-elect Barack Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot “red flags,” according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.

So, in the light of one of the biggest housing scandals that this country has ever seen, Obama goes and chooses a man literally knee-deep in the scandal as his Chief of Staff. We already know that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was very largely to blame (among other things) for the Housing crisis, so for Obama to appoint a board member of Freddie Mac who was involved with the company during its scandalous times should really throw up a red flag on just how corrupt this new Administration is going to be.

Hope and Change people. Hope and Change.

The Palin Factor: Playing the Blame Game

So, the elections over and we now have President-Elect Barack Obama heading to the white house in 2009. While the majority of the news media is covering this “historical election” there is a smaller portion that is obsessively focused on the McCain team. Trying to act as if McCain’s loss is some type of political enigma that needs to be deciphered political pundits, from both the left and the right, are lighting up the newscasts with “reasons why McCain lost”.

Or, well, I should say reason.

It would seem that the McCain staff has decided to place all of the blame on Sarah. Which, I have to be honest, is the most retarded thing that I have ever heard. However, because the mainstream media has loved being as much of a hinderence to Governer Palin as they possibly could, they’ve decided to dig up as much dirty laundry about Palin they can find now that the election is over with.

Why? Because Governer Palin could actually be a very powerful GOP candidate in 2012.

The nefarious McCain advisers and staffers will gleefully comply because they have suffered from unexpected jealousy ever since Governer Palin was announced to be running as McCain’s VP pick. Let’s run down the list of “grievences” that the McCain staff had woth Palin:

As late as Tuesday night, a McCain adviser said, Ms. Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before Mr. McCain’s concession speech, even though vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night. But Ms. Palin met up with Mr. McCain with text in hand. She was told no by Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, and Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s top strategist.

I felt it was extremely odd that Palin didn’t even address the crowd. Considering that Palin was the most powerful figure on the ticket it almost seemed out of place not to have her give some type of final words, but I suppose since everyone was supposed to be focusing on John McCain that they didn’t want to draw any attention away from him in his final speech. However, considering how “gracious” his speech was I felt that what people needed to hear was something from Palin. The crowd didn’t want to take the high road. They wanted to hear promise and hope for the future.

McCain gave them praises for a Socialist.

Anyhow, moving back to the Palin blame game:

On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Ms. Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said.

I find it pretty shallow to try and find fault in Governer Palin for buying $150,000 in clothing for her public appearances when Barack Obama was being given custom-fitted suits for each appearance and he had a greek f**king temple built for him at his nomination. It’s pretty freaking idiotic to point fingers at your OWN CANDIDATES when the opposing sides doing far far worse in terms of excessive spending for personal accomidations.

So, what’s the point of all of this back-biting? Jealousy is the only thing I can think of. That and the McCain staffers trying to remain politically relevent after their guy lost. I suppose that Schmidt and Salter figure they can try and continue their political lives if they throw Palin, a VP pick that was largely criticized by the beltway pseudo-conservatives, out and try and smear her name.

Fox News was claiming that Palin was “throwing tantrums” and “going rogue” by certain anonymous McCain staffers. Well, I would have thrown a tantrum too if I had to deal with the amount of stupidity that seemed to just flow from the McCain campaign in the last few weeks.

Did McCain address the economic issue by appropriately placing the blame of the economic housing crisis at the feet of certain democrats like Barney Frank and Barack Obama? Did he even try to bring to light that the Community Reinvestment Act and the corruption within Fannie Mae under Franklin Raines was also highly to blame?

Nope.

When the Reverend Wright issue appeared did McCain use Obama’s radical association as an example of Obama’s poor judgement in characters?

Nope.

When it was being investigated that Obama possibly had very radical and socialist views on how America should be governed did McCain try and use that information to possibly help his campaign?

Not really. It took Joe the Plumber asking a simple question to finally light a fire under the McCain campaign to address Obama’s “Redistribution of Wealth” ideals.

When the information that Obama was possibly friends with William Ayers, co-creator of the Weather Underground, started to arise did McCain try and use that as another means of showing that, perhaps, Obama tends to have pretty nefarious and radical associations?

Nope.

Did McCain properly address the ACORN issue?

Nope.

Did the McCain campaign even attempt to address ANYTHING appropriately that could have energized his base to stand behind him and win him the election?

NOPE.

The only, and I really mean this, ONLY good decision that the McCain campaign made during this election season was, in my opinion, one simple thing: He asked Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

That’s it.

Speaking as someone who had no intention of voting for McCain in the general election after it was revealed that he had won the Republican nomination (I was not happy that he was chosen as the nominee) I can honestly say that the only thing that got me exicted again about this election was Governer Sarah Palin. So, speaking as someone who had no intention to support McCain I find it absolutely appalling that the McCain campaign would practically turn on the one thing that even kept him in the race as long as he was able to.

I don’t know what 2012 will bring, but I can only hope that I’ll be able to put a “Palin 2012″ sign in my yard. If the rest of the cocktail conservatives (Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, Buckley, etc etc etc.) don’t like it then get out of the party.