Conservative columnist and former speech writer to Ronald Reagan, writig to Sarah Palin on Ronald Reagan.
The point is not “He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,” though that is true.
h/t to Andrew Sulivan
Quote Of The Day
Robert Mitchell Evans
Literary Saboteur
1) The thing that kills me about the elections and the economy is the voting seems to be based on the idea that Obama had much to do with it. This is ridiculous. His policies have not made a dent in the trend that was in place before he even ran for election. I have been watching businesses close (in spite of good products, fair prices, and a good business plan) pretty much since 9/11/2001. Some of the business loss has occured directly and indirectly because of events that day. Some have occured because of the crushing national debt created when we started the second (unjustified) front of war in Iraq, and some because of various colapses that have occured throughout the county (The bursting of the real estate bubble has had a gigantic impact in Florida. Just one example.) also globalization is taking its toll – we don’t make much here any more, and you can’t convince me that this is not about profit margin. I just bought sneakers this weekend for $100. They were made in Vietnam. Are you telling me we can’t make sneakers here for a $100 end price? Puh-leaze! This is profit margin, pure and simple!! At any rate, easiily 95% of our current economic woes are not, repeat NOT, caused by anything President Obama has done in the last two years. Given how bad it was, and where the trends were pointing, one would have to be insane to think it would be fixed by now. I am deeply afraid that exactly what I was afraid of will happen – Obama, being unfairly judged by not fixing his predecessor’s problems fast enough, will not be given the time he needs to truly govern.
2) Health care.Okay, do we really want the government running _one more thing_? Obviously not. The challenge here is we have reached the point where something MUST be done and the government has not choice but to step in. Private, insured health care is in a total shambles. I have watched my students, most of whom receive Medicaid, as their families are too poor to afford health care any other way, receive less and less care, both preventative and maintenance, until they have almost no health care at all, leading to bigger problems in the school. Perhaps it would be fair say that their parents should not have children they can’t care for BUT once the children are here, what can you do except try to support them as best you can. This year at my _public school_ job they adopted a policy familiar to those working at Walmart – they handed out a list and contact information about how to apply for Medicaid, for those who are paid too poorly to afford their portion of the school’s health insturance. – WTF? remember when working with the government you got the “good” health insurance? No more, people! This is a problem and it must be fixed! We have the most expensive – but the worst – health care in the developed world.
Some defense of Noonan. The fact is her expectations for Obama were pretty dumb and even more dumb for justifying changing sides. Any other American conservative who voted for Obama for the same reasons is a nincompoop too.
The point of the link isn’t that Rush won, the point is Obama and his crew are fools who don’t have a clue why they won the election, having misread the mandate, and demonstrating how they are stupidly stuck in permanent campaign mode and don’t know how to govern. Process is a big reason why Obama has lost his old magic with the moderate voter. The scales have fallen from the moderates eyes.
So your case that Peggy Noonan is a nincompoop is that she supported Obama over McCain? Doesn’t that make the majority of Americans Nincompoops? (And why not link directly to her case instead of a blog talking about her case?)
The second link is far from persuasive, attributing the 2010 results as ‘Rush Won’ is silly. You asked last night what drove the results at the ballot box. I told you I did not have the data — here it is
Exit poll — Most Important Issue Economy 62%, next Health care reform 19% illegal immigration 8%. I think the bad economy counted for the majority of the losses (45-50) seats and the rest of the seats are a combination of Obama’s economic policies (people seeing them as Wall Street bail-outs etc) and the Health Care reform.
When the xit pollers drilled down into Health Care reform they found 48% wanted it repealed, 16% said the law should remain unchanged, and 31 percent wanted it expanded. So 48% want it gone and 47 percent want it here or expanded. The American people are sharply divided on this issue with any side claiming a majority status.
That’s awfully rich, considering Noonan was so foolish when she favored Obama back in 2008. Who’s the nincompoop? Noonan meet mirror!
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2008/10/31/peggy-noonan-makes-a-case-for-barack-obama/
As opposed to the tiny crew of conservatives such as Noonan and Brooks who only saw in Obama what they wanted to see, most conservatives understood how bad Obama was. It was easy to see.
Here is a link to a story which brings back memories of the early days of the Obama administration, and shows how Obama and his people almost from the start demonstrated they had the wrong instincts for a successful presidency. The dumb war on Rush Limbaugh.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/03/the-winner-rush-limbaugh