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| Home Front: Politix |
| Trunks Day of Reckoning |
| 2009-02-26 |
| After Tuesday night, no one should doubt Barack Obama's ambition. His silent dismissal of the efforts of his immediate predecessors - he mentioned none of them - is only one indication of the extent to which he intends to be a new president breaking new ground in a new era. George W. Bush defined his presidency by his response to the terror attacks. Anybody remeber a theme prior to 9-11? Not me. Obama didn't discuss Sept. 11. And by relegating foreign policy to the status of a virtual afterthought, Obama indicated that he doesn't think his presidency will rise or fall by the success or failure of his diplomatic or military endeavors. Bill Clinton told Congress in 1996 that the era of big government was over. Obama withdrew that concession to conservatives and conservatism. George H.W. Bush worried in 1989 that we have more will than wallet. Obama has no such worries. Obama's speech reminds of Ronald Reagan's in 1981 in its intention to reshape the American political landscape. But of course Obama wishes to undo the Reagan agenda. "For decades," he claimed, we haven't addressed the challenges of energy, health care and education. We have lived through "an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity." Difficult decisions were put off. But now "that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here." The phrase "day of reckoning" may seem a little ominous coming from a candidate of hope and change. But it's appropriate, because it's certainly a day of reckoning for conservatives and Republicans. For Obama's aim is not merely to "revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity." Obama outlined much of this new foundation in the most unabashedly liberal and big-government speech a president has delivered to Congress since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Obama intends to use his big three issues - energy, health care and education - to transform the role of the federal government as fundamentally as did the New Deal and the Great Society. Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively? Perhaps - if they can find reasons to obstruct and delay. They should do their best not to permit Obama to rush his agenda through this year. They can't allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965. Slow down the policy train. Insist on a real and lengthy debate. Conservatives can't win politically right now. But they can raise doubts, they can point out other issues that we can't ignore (especially in national security and foreign policy), they can pick other fights - and they can try in any way possible to break Obama's momentum. Only if this happens will conservatives be able to get a hearing for their (compelling, in my view) arguments against big-government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering - and for their preferred alternatives. Right now, Obama is in the driver's seat - a newly elected and popular president with comfortable Democratic congressional majorities and an adulatory mainstream news media. Still, Republicans do have advantages over their forebears in 1965 and 1933. There are more Republicans in Congress today, so they should be able to resist more effectively. There is much more of a record of liberal failures to look back on now than when the New Deal and the Great Society were being rushed through. Conservatism is more sophisticated than it was back then. So there is no reason to despair. Still, conservatives and Republicans shouldn't minimize their tasks. Long term, they need fresh thinking in a host of areas of domestic policy, thinking that builds on previous conservative achievements but that deals with the new economic and social realities. In the short term, Republicans need to show a tactical agility and political toughness far greater than their predecessors did in the 1960s and the 1930s. "Else they will fall," to quote the great conservative Edmund Burke, "an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle," reduced to the unpleasant role of bystanders or the unattractive status of complainers, as Barack Obama makes history. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #7 No, DMFD. Our choices are between the war party and the surrender party. I don't know who I would've voted for the first time FDR was elected, but the second and third times I would definitely have voted for the warmonger. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-02-26 23:24 |
| #6 Our choices seem to be limited to the party of "borrow and spend" and the party of "BORROW, TAX AND SPEND". I prefer the GOP, I guess ... |
| Posted by: DMFD 2009-02-26 22:23 |
| #5 Both my Sens are lib-pinkos. My rep McCotter is pretty good but I was upset when he voted for the auto bailout - being from MI I knew 99% he would - that's his constituency even though being an absentee MI voter and having plenty of fam in the big-3 I still thought the auto industry needed to sink or swim on it's own. I'll vote for anyone whose fiscally conservative, genuinely understands & supports the U.S. const as it was written, (therefore is pro-gun) & pro-mil - those are my personal pet rocks. |
| Posted by: Whineper Prince aka Broadhead6 2009-02-26 21:35 |
| #4 I'm not much of a republican either, but I will support them because they are right now the only group standing in the way of socialism. So save your money and give it up later in taxes to the machine. Both Senators and 3 of 4 reps. from my state are republicans and have voted correctly (no)in my view on all the insanity. They need my support. |
| Posted by: bman 2009-02-26 14:46 |
| #3 Sorry, but the GOP is going the way of the Whigs. Observe the pundit and inside the beltway self-anointed crowd feeding frenzy to "define" the party now that they're out of power. The aforementioned group hates Palin, Jindal and Joe the Plumber, and if they can't be "the deciders," they'll kill the GOP for not putting them in charge. Rank and file conservatives like me are well and truly fucked. At least the money I'm not sending the GOP will put a tiny dent in the huge tax increases we will all soon suffer because the GOP has no soul... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2009-02-26 13:28 |
| #2 No Child Left Behind was not something I would ever call an "achievement", though its co-sponsor, Ted Kennedy might. I lump it more with the Medicare Drug Benefit Bush gave us. Aside from judges and the war on terror, there was little to like about Bush. Tax cuts were nice, but offset more than tenfold by runaway spending and Bush's unwillingness to veto anything. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2009-02-26 12:49 |
| #1 Prior to 9/11, Bush's priorities were education (No Child Left Behind) and tax cuts. Both of which he achieved. |
| Posted by: Spot 2009-02-26 10:27 |