I told you so
We all told you so, GOP.
Republicans are conservatives and classical liberals. Despite his strong security stance, real conservatives have been very sore with GW Bush for the past 6 years or so, given his government bloat. Conservatives do not like spending money willy-nilly and getting taxed to death. While Bush has been decent with taxes, he has certainly been wild with spending.
John McCain was never meant to be the Republican candidate. McCain is big government. Conservatives do not agree with him at all, and that disagreement was evident last night. Even if you disregard the one-issue voters, like the pro-life or pro-marriage people, and focus only on the bulk of conservatives, we really did not want McCain. Hundreds of thousands of Republican voters talked about “holding their nose” to vote McCain. Even the addition of an uber-conservative like Sarah Palin was not enough to make the base give a damn.
At CPAC, the annual conservative conference in Washington, John McCain actually had to bus supporters in to negate the booing he would have otherwise received. Like children we were admonished by David Keane, head of the American Conservative Union, to behave ourselves and be polite to Senator McCain. And to have been there when the last real conservative - Mitt Romney - dropped out of the race that same day, we knew it was over.
Most of us expected a Hillary presidency. Instead the world turned upside down, and the people chose a socialist anarchist with a dodgy past and hateful streak (yes, hateful: wife not proud of her country, preacher hates America - what other kind of mindset could he have?). Joe the Plumber will be collecting welfare of going off to live in the valley with John Galt.
Next time, when the base speaks, GOP, try listening. CPAC is where the money comes from. CPAC is where the action and the GOTV comes from. CPAC is where the conservative “community organizers” can be found. Flipping us the bird was a bad move. We have spoken.
“hateful streak (yes, hateful: wife not proud of her country, preacher hates America - what other kind of mindset could he have?)”
You know, it may be just me. I’m from Austria where rabid patriotism has some very negative connotations after WWII, but to me, somebody stating that she is “not proud of her country”, does not constitute a hateful streak. Denouncing somebody for his lack of unquestioning patriotism (or even better, for the lack of patriotism of a spouse), on the other hand, definitely does. It’s not only hateful, its dangerous, since it essentially tells people not to question authority, since if you do, you’re unpatriotic.
I mean, is it really so wrong to be able to look at your country and say “hey, I think you totally messed up. You could have done good, but you didn’t. I’m not proud.” If it is, does that by extension mean that your country is infallible, or are you only supposed to emotionally disregard the blunders it makes?
Also, inferring Obama’s character from the statements of a former preacher is kind of esoteric. Why not try to infer his character from something more direct, say, a book he wrote, or a speech he gave, or the way he organized his campaign. Or is that too easy?
Maybe you were just in rant mode, fully aware of my points. In that case, disregard what I said and happy ranting
Comment by leo — November 5, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Mitt Romney a real conservative? Are you kidding me?
Romney is as phony-baloney as they come.
The future of the GOP is Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin.
Comment by BillyHW — November 5, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
I sent an email out to my Dem friends and congratulated them on Obama’s victory last night. I could go into a funk and feel sorry for myself or sit around freaking out that the Noble America that I once loved is heading into quick decline and all is lost. But then, that kind of whining would make ME a liberal (even if it’s true). No thanks.
I agree, that the GOP is pretty lost right now, but we can hope that they remember what their priorities once were and we can take back the House and the Senate in two years.
Until then, I’ve done all I could do- I preached and was preached to, I fought with liberals and most importantly, I voted.
America got what she wanted. I have to respect that…
Comment by Emkkahn — November 5, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
We have a window of opportunity but it needs to be taken advantage of rapidly and with total focus. In two years we have a congressional election. Its time to get a bead on the worst of the lot and spend whatever it takes to oust the nutbag leftists in congress, the thieves and the liars. Where will we get the leadership to make this a reality?
Comment by MissouriRodger — November 6, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Leo, it’s not that Michelle Obama “is not” proud of her country. Rather, it is the logical implications of her statement that she felt proud of it “for the first time”. To say that, you also say that you have never been proud of it before, and, to say that, you say that there has never been anything to be proud of. It’s basic causality and the use of the contrapositive argument, something a lot of people do without realizing, or even understanding, it. There’s a considerable gulf between “unquestioning patriotism” and believing your country has never given you any reason to be proud of it. As for why Michelle’s feelings matter and should absolutely be relevant to Barrack’s, I’ll cover that in just a moment.
As for your comment on character, are you truly that naive? Do you really think that someone’s character can be accurately determined by taking that person’s word on it? Character has never been about what you say, because everyone lies, and anyone with a wit of sense understands that. Instead, character is defined by what you do, what you avoid doing, and with whom you surround yourself. In that respect, a man who spends twenty years listening to a hateful preacher can certainly be concluded to hold, at the very least, similar views. Marrying a woman who declares that there has never been anything in the united states of which to be proud until her husband campaigned for the presidential office can certainly be concluded to, at least in part, indicate sharing her disdain and contempt for her country. Choosing a rabidly anti-gun VP candidate can certainly bet taken to indicate your own tendencies in that regard. Keeping the company of unrepentant domestic terrorists, virulent racists, and avowed Marxists can certainly be taken as evidence that you support their ideologies. Again, the characters of people with whom you surround yourself are indicative of your own character.
“Well, what about his actions?” you may be asking. By all means: Speaking and voting against measures to protect fully born children. Accepting a job from and launching a political career in the house of an unrepentant domestic terrorist. Voting “Present” much of his political career and hard-left the rest of the time. Writing two memoirs before doing anything that hasn’t been done hundreds of times before. Ensuring that many, if not most, documents regarding your past remain sealed, out of the eyes of the people. Choosing to fight charges of ineligibility to hold office through legal tactics rather than just proving them unfounded. Need I go on?
Comment by Cortillaen — November 6, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Cortillaen, thanks for your answer. I won’t go into many points you bring up later in your post, since I plainly don’t know anything about them (It’s neither my country nor my president after all).
Regarding the “pride”-statement, I can now understand what you’re getting at, since I see that it does make a difference whether you NEVER felt pride in your country or whether you are not proud of your country at some point. My reaction was not to Michelle Obama’s initial statement (which I only looked up later) but to the blog post here. Accusing somebody of “not being proud” of one’s country is unquestioning patriotism, but I see now that this was probably not what the original poster wanted to say.
I’m still not convinced that this would indicate a hateful streak in Barack Obama. First of all, I would guess that what Michelle Obama wanted to express with her rather ill-formulated statement was not that she was NEVER proud of her country before, but that she just was not proud of late, but now she is. I am not disputing your logic here, but I think she did not intend to make a logical statement about the amount of pride at different points in her life, but an emotional statement. Going that extra step from “not proud” to “hateful”, and imbuing her husband with the same hatefulness via character-trait osmosis just is not a convincing argument for me. It sounds to me like somebody justifying his belief that Obama is hateful with spurious evidence. (which is acceptable for a rant, but not an argument).
I don’t know too much about Obama’s association with Reverend Wright. I tried to find some articles online, and it seems his wife was closely associated with him. So you may have a point there. But then again you may not, which is my problem with the original poster’s argument. From our distance, it just very hard to tell what influence their relationship had on Barack Obama, and I just don’t see how it is obvious that has earned him a hateful streak. People are not that simple, and situations are not that simple. We can make up a little story where Obama sits in church raptly listening to Wright’s hateful sermons, and we can make up a story where Obama meets up with Wright and tries to talk sense into him in numerous late-night discussions, growing ethically in the process. Both of them are possible, none convincing without further evidence.
Of course, I’m also not naive to think that Obama is exactly what he promises to be. But he at least promises to be something, which is already a lot in my eyes. He has opted to do a “good-guy” campaign in a political environment where low-blows are what is expected. He’s opted to go for inspiriational speeches instead of making up funny songs about bombing Iran. (talking about hateful streaks…)
Of course, you know way more about all this than I do, this is just from my overseas perspective. As I said before, I can’t comment on many of the points you bring up, although I’ll be sure to keep them in mind.
Just one thing that would interest me. How would you guys have felt about the possibility of a president Palin? I mean, as hard as I look, there’s just so many negative points about her that the remote possibility of her becoming president at some point would make me vote Obama even if I couldnt stand the guy. I’m not kidding when I say that I would definitely be afraid over here with her being the most powerful person on this planet.
Comment by leo — November 6, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
[...] “There is so much that America can look forward to under its new socialist overlords”; I told you so …. [...]
Pingback by Steynian 281 « Free Canuckistan! — November 7, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
This time I will be in CPAC too
Comment by winston — November 10, 2008 @ 1:02 am