> That doesn't mean it's not 100 percent accurate.
Pfeh: On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." - Wolfgang Pauli
There's so many things wrong with this analysis it's not funny.
a) There was this thing "The Contract With America". Remember it? The GOP FAILED TO HONOR IT.
THAT, more than anything, is what disgusted GOP voters.
The GOP ***GOT*** the kind of majority in Congress that would allow them to pass ANY bill they claimed to support --- Fix Social Security Dismantle BS Government programs (like, oh, "Wool and Mohair price supports") Shrink the beauracracy.
Now: DID THEY DO ANY OF THIS?
NO, they DID NOT. They whined, they dithered, they BSed.
b) They didn't leave office when they said they would. Remember "voluntary term limits"?
"Oh, I was naive -- Now I see how seniority works in Congress".
Yeah, right -- BITE ME you lying sack of equine fecal matter. You lose, insert coin. >:-(
The response is simple: "Guess what, YOU CAN CHANGE THAT, TOO."
The GOP is having problems because they did NOT do what they said they would, and did just about everything exactly the same way as the Dems did. 2006 was a wake up call, not the trumpet of DOOM. It was voters giving them their Past Due notice. If the GOP wants to be taken seriously, they need to figure this out, that they stopped doing ANYTHING that got them electeed and acted just like the PoS Dems have always done: "Hey, I'm in, now f*** off!!!"
c) It does not help that they push Family Values and have self-destructive morons like Mark Foley in the party -- but part of it is to go on the ATTACK, not to wimp out like the pussies that they've shown themselves to be in the face of Dem threats of filibuster, etc.
Make it very visible that Foley is not representative of the GOP. Toss the SoB out. Force him to resign. Show that you are just as displeased with him as any rational person would be -- and make sure that people don't forget William Jefferson and his "cold hard cash" while you are at it.
As far as Craig, I haven't followed what has happened since then, but I did take the time to read the initial police report, and that arrest would have been easy to shred, just by openly publicizing it. Judging from that report, even talking to him after the interaction in an accusative way would have been itself criminal abuse of police power. But this would take balls, and that feeds into :
d) SHOW SOME COJONES, dammit. When the Dems threaten to filibuster, then OVERRIDE IT. Go on the offensive -- show how things WORK -- yeah, it's more difficult than the smear job the Dems do with their media lackeys, but it's quite doable. Amazingly, the US Citizenry are NOT drooling morons. They can smell a con job when they are shown the details.
When the media lackeys endlessly carp about the "death totals", CARP BACK and paint them for the yellow, chickensh** jackasses that they are. Show how the same whiny attitude, in 1942, would have had Japan and Germany in charge of the world right now. Why do I have to resort to blogs to know how the ENTIRE DEATH TOLL for this war does not add up to ONE BAD DAY in every major war this nation's been involved in? You certainly never hear that on any media outlet. WHY? The GOP has conservative point-makers, why don't THEY harp on obvious things like that?
It's not a tough sell -- the Dem/Libtards are inarguably the most cowardly, spineless group of swine on the planet next to the French.
Then there's THIS CRAP: > There is something honorable about loyalty. But taken too far, it can start to look downright loony to voters. President Bush is as unpopular as Richard Nixon was in the days before his resignation. Cut him loose — quick, says Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.). “We can go our own way with our own programs, and even disassociate ourselves from President Bush,”
Yeah, abandon the guy who we ALL KNOW is essentially CORRECT, and throw him to the wolves.
Way to show you have those Cojones, you morons!
Mark my words -- 20 years from now, people are going to look back on Bush the same way they did with Reagan... "He was right, dammit".
Yeah, he's screwed up, there's no question about that. The screwups are in the implementation, not in the basic principles. Note that, if you "throw him out", do NOT think you are going to be able to maintain those principles. Any effort to retain the basic ideas or purposes is out, right along with him.
*Idiots*!
*Clotheads*!!
*Morons*!!!
A year ago, "Hillary had a lock on the presidency" -- now she's not only not the front runner, she's got less chance than the GOP nominee. "Conventional wisdom" has usually got less to do with wisdom than it does with direct, line-of-sight, totally uncreative thinking.
Guess what? The universe EATS uncreative thinkers for breakfast. At the same time these brilliant espousers of the "conventional wisdom" were touting Hillary's lock on the presidency, she was getting 42% in a poll of people who said "No Way No How" would they EVER vote for her as PotUS.
Yes, more than half the people polled said that under NO CIRCUMSTANCE would they ever vote for her. And this was a Washington Post poll!
You don't overcome that kind of resistance. YOU DON'T. The GOP could have put up a convicted pedophile and probably gotten him elected PotUS over her.
... but, hey, "She's got a lock on it!!"
OW!!! (Excuse me, it hurts when my eyes roll that far back in my head).
===================
The GOP needs to do TWO THINGS before it can have any success -- and that is:
1) GET BACK ITS BALLS.
2) Figure out why it got elected in the first place, apologize profusely for completely forgetting those goals, and reaffirm its dedication to same. ... and follow through with alactrity, this time, there will be no patience.
While I agree that the Republicans have some significant short-term issues, this article doesn't seem to take the Democratic presence into account. In short, Republicans don't exist in a vacuum and I think the landscape will change radically under either a McCain or Obama presidency.
I have some agreement with the article, but more with OBH. I didn't have the expectations for Republican majorities that he apparently did, because the Republican majority was never a conservative majority, even in lip-service. The last few votes of the Republican house were always the Chafees, the Specters, the Collinses and Snows. I was not enraged that the Contract with America only made it to the table and not to the statute books - my anger was that after a few defeats they threw in the towel. To have hung on and gotten even poor partial victories would have been something. But the GOP went native in Washington - though some few have hung tough and I admire them for it.
As for Bush, he got enough things right, even under adverse conditions, that it goes against my sense of honor to kick him, even for victory. However one of the things I have most admired about Bush I now suspect he got wrong. He has been as fundamentally decent a man as his father, and far more decent than his critics. He has tried to persuade, reach out, and not put down the hammer on Democratic opponents and recalcitrant Republicans. Yes, I know the his reputation is otherwise among the left, but it is their own narcissism that prevents them from recognizing this.
I now wonder if he should have been as unilateral and punitive as they accuse him of being. They couldn't possibly have hated him any more than they do now. The kindness and generosity seem to have been wasted on them. I like to hope that we will be better off in the long run for it, but I don't see it from here.
1) The Contract With America fell short exactly where Bush43 did: as OBH implies, fiscal responsibility (subsidies, Social Security, big government). Apart from family values--addressed below--I view most of the other points OBH raised as minor. And I strongly disagree on term limits: as a sometimes lobbyist, term limits merely would shift still more authority to pressure group experts.
2) I remain torn on how far family values implemented by government should extend--the tension between conservatism and libertarianism. I normally duck the issue by defending the authority of the legislature as against that of courts eager to substitute their own elitist judgment (see, e.g., the California Supreme Court). But there's no doubt that the effect of this approach is to open Republicans to the charge of hypocrisy when one of us sins. The Democrats, having no values, are immune from such attacks (compare Gerry Studds with Mark Foley).
3) Apart from #1, I agree with AVI that Bush43 got most things right. Especially, as OBH also notes, the War on Terror, which is priority one.
4) I'm not sure I understand I_J's point--today's Dems seem little more than a negation of Bush. What's there to take into account? And what's the connection with I_J's predicted radical change come January 20th?
Poorly expressed on my part-I think the radical change comes if my prediction of major gains by the Dems comes true. In such a case, the Democrats act like, well, themselves, and the Republicans become the beneficiaries of unforced errors by the Democrats.
6 comments:
> That doesn't mean it's not 100 percent accurate.
Pfeh:
On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
- Wolfgang Pauli
There's so many things wrong with this analysis it's not funny.
a) There was this thing "The Contract With America". Remember it? The GOP FAILED TO HONOR IT.
THAT, more than anything, is what disgusted GOP voters.
The GOP ***GOT*** the kind of majority in Congress that would allow them to pass ANY bill they claimed to support ---
Fix Social Security
Dismantle BS Government programs (like, oh, "Wool and Mohair price supports")
Shrink the beauracracy.
Now: DID THEY DO ANY OF THIS?
NO, they DID NOT. They whined, they dithered, they BSed.
b) They didn't leave office when they said they would. Remember "voluntary term limits"?
"Oh, I was naive -- Now I see how seniority works in Congress".
Yeah, right -- BITE ME you lying sack of equine fecal matter. You lose, insert coin.
>:-(
The response is simple:
"Guess what, YOU CAN CHANGE THAT, TOO."
The GOP is having problems because they did NOT do what they said they would, and did just about everything exactly the same way as the Dems did. 2006 was a wake up call, not the trumpet of DOOM. It was voters giving them their Past Due notice. If the GOP wants to be taken seriously, they need to figure this out, that they stopped doing ANYTHING that got them electeed and acted just like the PoS Dems have always done: "Hey, I'm in, now f*** off!!!"
c) It does not help that they push Family Values and have self-destructive morons like Mark Foley in the party -- but part of it is to go on the ATTACK, not to wimp out like the pussies that they've shown themselves to be in the face of Dem threats of filibuster, etc.
Make it very visible that Foley is not representative of the GOP. Toss the SoB out. Force him to resign. Show that you are just as displeased with him as any rational person would be -- and make sure that people don't forget William Jefferson and his "cold hard cash" while you are at it.
As far as Craig, I haven't followed what has happened since then, but I did take the time to read the initial police report, and that arrest would have been easy to shred, just by openly publicizing it. Judging from that report, even talking to him after the interaction in an accusative way would have been itself criminal abuse of police power. But this would take balls, and that feeds into :
d) SHOW SOME COJONES, dammit. When the Dems threaten to filibuster, then OVERRIDE IT. Go on the offensive -- show how things WORK -- yeah, it's more difficult than the smear job the Dems do with their media lackeys, but it's quite doable. Amazingly, the US Citizenry are NOT drooling morons. They can smell a con job when they are shown the details.
When the media lackeys endlessly carp about the "death totals", CARP BACK and paint them for the yellow, chickensh** jackasses that they are. Show how the same whiny attitude, in 1942, would have had Japan and Germany in charge of the world right now. Why do I have to resort to blogs to know how the ENTIRE DEATH TOLL for this war does not add up to ONE BAD DAY in every major war this nation's been involved in? You certainly never hear that on any media outlet. WHY? The GOP has conservative point-makers, why don't THEY harp on obvious things like that?
It's not a tough sell -- the Dem/Libtards are inarguably the most cowardly, spineless group of swine on the planet next to the French.
Then there's THIS CRAP:
> There is something honorable about loyalty. But taken too far, it can start to look downright loony to voters. President Bush is as unpopular as Richard Nixon was in the days before his resignation. Cut him loose — quick, says Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.). “We can go our own way with our own programs, and even disassociate ourselves from President Bush,”
Yeah, abandon the guy who we ALL KNOW is essentially CORRECT, and throw him to the wolves.
Way to show you have those Cojones, you morons!
Mark my words -- 20 years from now, people are going to look back on Bush the same way they did with Reagan... "He was right, dammit".
Yeah, he's screwed up, there's no question about that. The screwups are in the implementation, not in the basic principles. Note that, if you "throw him out", do NOT think you are going to be able to maintain those principles. Any effort to retain the basic ideas or purposes is out, right along with him.
*Idiots*!
*Clotheads*!!
*Morons*!!!
A year ago, "Hillary had a lock on the presidency" -- now she's not only not the front runner, she's got less chance than the GOP nominee. "Conventional wisdom" has usually got less to do with wisdom than it does with direct, line-of-sight, totally uncreative thinking.
Guess what? The universe EATS uncreative thinkers for breakfast. At the same time these brilliant espousers of the "conventional wisdom" were touting Hillary's lock on the presidency, she was getting 42% in a poll of people who said "No Way No How" would they EVER vote for her as PotUS.
Yes, more than half the people polled said that under NO CIRCUMSTANCE would they ever vote for her. And this was a Washington Post poll!
You don't overcome that kind of resistance. YOU DON'T. The GOP could have put up a convicted pedophile and probably gotten him elected PotUS over her.
... but, hey, "She's got a lock on it!!"
OW!!! (Excuse me, it hurts when my eyes roll that far back in my head).
===================
The GOP needs to do TWO THINGS before it can have any success -- and that is:
1) GET BACK ITS BALLS.
2) Figure out why it got elected in the first place, apologize profusely for completely forgetting those goals, and reaffirm its dedication to same. ... and follow through with alactrity, this time, there will be no patience.
/rant off
>:-/
.
> Yes, more than half the people polled
Correction, "almost half". I hate these tiny little boxes.
Sorry.
While I agree that the Republicans have some significant short-term issues, this article doesn't seem to take the Democratic presence into account. In short, Republicans don't exist in a vacuum and I think the landscape will change radically under either a McCain or Obama presidency.
I have some agreement with the article, but more with OBH. I didn't have the expectations for Republican majorities that he apparently did, because the Republican majority was never a conservative majority, even in lip-service. The last few votes of the Republican house were always the Chafees, the Specters, the Collinses and Snows. I was not enraged that the Contract with America only made it to the table and not to the statute books - my anger was that after a few defeats they threw in the towel. To have hung on and gotten even poor partial victories would have been something. But the GOP went native in Washington - though some few have hung tough and I admire them for it.
As for Bush, he got enough things right, even under adverse conditions, that it goes against my sense of honor to kick him, even for victory. However one of the things I have most admired about Bush I now suspect he got wrong. He has been as fundamentally decent a man as his father, and far more decent than his critics. He has tried to persuade, reach out, and not put down the hammer on Democratic opponents and recalcitrant Republicans. Yes, I know the his reputation is otherwise among the left, but it is their own narcissism that prevents them from recognizing this.
I now wonder if he should have been as unilateral and punitive as they accuse him of being. They couldn't possibly have hated him any more than they do now. The kindness and generosity seem to have been wasted on them. I like to hope that we will be better off in the long run for it, but I don't see it from here.
I agree with some, but not all, of each comment:
1) The Contract With America fell short exactly where Bush43 did: as OBH implies, fiscal responsibility (subsidies, Social Security, big government). Apart from family values--addressed below--I view most of the other points OBH raised as minor. And I strongly disagree on term limits: as a sometimes lobbyist, term limits merely would shift still more authority to pressure group experts.
2) I remain torn on how far family values implemented by government should extend--the tension between conservatism and libertarianism. I normally duck the issue by defending the authority of the legislature as against that of courts eager to substitute their own elitist judgment (see, e.g., the California Supreme Court). But there's no doubt that the effect of this approach is to open Republicans to the charge of hypocrisy when one of us sins. The Democrats, having no values, are immune from such attacks (compare Gerry Studds with Mark Foley).
3) Apart from #1, I agree with AVI that Bush43 got most things right. Especially, as OBH also notes, the War on Terror, which is priority one.
4) I'm not sure I understand I_J's point--today's Dems seem little more than a negation of Bush. What's there to take into account? And what's the connection with I_J's predicted radical change come January 20th?
Poorly expressed on my part-I think the radical change comes if my prediction of major gains by the Dems comes true. In such a case, the Democrats act like, well, themselves, and the Republicans become the beneficiaries of unforced errors by the Democrats.
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