"Just Give 2012 A Pass"
Good old Thomas Friedman is at it again.
In his latest column he chastises the Republican party for letting “itself become the captive of conflicting ideological bases: anti-abortion advocates, anti-immigration activists, social conservatives worried about the sanctity of marriage, libertarians who want to shrink government, and anti-tax advocates who want to drown government in a bathtub.”
If that’s his definition of captive, the Dems must be shackled, beaten, and caged by unions, pro-choicers, environmentalists, and anti-globalists?
Also, when did it become extreme to insist that people who cross our borders should do so legally? Or, that government focus on what it’s intended for—national defense, ensuring opportunity, and providing a reasonable social safety net? Also, is it outrageous to believe that some might be quite concerned about the vulnerability of the unborn? After all, aren’t Democrats supposedly advocates for society’s most defenseless?
Guess it’s hard to see the whole picture when your head only turns to the left.
Friedman adds that the current crop of GOP presidential candidates are ill-suited to address America’s three greatest challenges: globalization, huge debt and entitlement obligations, and climate change.
Apparently those are better left to a community organizer. Yeah…one with protectionist, big spending instincts.
He states that we just can’t handle these difficulties with such an "incoherent mix of hardened positions.” And here I thought it was the donkey that’s stubborn. Who knew it’s actually the elephant?
Hmmm. Think he’d include the following among those intractable ideological positions….
-Mitigating some of our energy independence issues by approving the Keystone pipeline, or allowing safe and responsible domestic drilling, or not making the approval of new nuclear facilities a near impossibility, or
-Dealing creatively with our education ills without allowing the teacher’s union to be a showstopper, or
-Attacking the root cause of many of our local, state, and national debt and deficit problems—public sector unions?
The world is not only flat…it’s pretty damn one-sided, too. At least to Tom Friedman and the New York Times.
Friedman goes on in his usual pontifical way to assert that the aforementioned challenges would be eminently addressable if only the folks on the right side of the aisle would be willing to compromise like their willing Democrat colleagues.
He must have been hibernating during the healthcare “debate.” I could be wrong, though. Perchance he’s privy to some Obama magnanimity of which the general public is unaware. It’s possible that Barry gave the Republicans a choice of font for all 2074 pages? Or perhaps he offered to bind the bill on the right, rather than left side?
Most comically, Friedman wonders, because the GOP is “struggling to agree on a presidential candidate,” whether they “shouldn’t just sit this election out—just give 2012 a pass.”
Tom and his media buddies do know about passes...
-Like the one they gave Obama during the 2008 campaign. Who needs a pesky vetting process?
-And the one he’s gotten the past few years. Accountability is for Republicans.
-And the one they’re giving him now. Why govern when you can campaign?
Instead, let's give America a pass.
Elect a Republican.
Categories: New York Times, Thomas Friedman, Media Bias
Perhaps the Republicans just have many more qualified candidates and thus are going to select the very best one! The liberals have lowered the bar on everything, and now they cannot do their own LIMBO anymore, thus the terrible administration we now have in the White House.
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You're dead right regarding lowering the bar. They're trying, with the media's assistance, to convince us that our anemic recovery (resulting from their policies) is to be expected--when in fact, history shows that the bigger the recession, the bigger the recovery. History also shows that the longest downturn since before WWII was 16 months. We're well into the fourth year of an unprecedentedly weak economy. Their biggest liberal limbo, however, is trying to get us to believe that an unemployment rate in the 8% range is reason to reelect Obama. Obviously, they think we're pretty stupid. We'd be somewhere between 4% and 6% right now if it weren't for the disastrous effects of Obamanomics.
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Liberals and progressives don't think the Republic party is stupid. In fact - I personally view them as dangerous - but be assured that is my view and not widely held view in Liberal circles.
The Democrats are taking the Republic party very seriously this season. This is election is a tipping point between moving the recovery forward and going back to the policies of the Bush Administration of borrowing money to finance a war that you keep "off-the-books" (Enron Style); Borrowing money to pay for a tax cut for the rich; borrowing money to pay for Medicare part B; And then issuing an un-funded Federal Mandate on "no child left behind" that has been an abject failure. You are damn right we are taking the Republic party seriously. - JT
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JT, Republicans will be dangerous. Dangerous to debt, deficits, and unemployment.
It's humorous when libs try to score political points about Republican overspending because when one inspects the record, in every single instance (with the exception of Defense) the Dems want/wanted substantially higher spending. The prescription drug benefit is the perfect example. Democrats kicked and screamed at the time that it needed to be two to three times bigger.
And, only a liberal would claim that a greater than 40% increase in federal spending on education, including a quadrupling of funding for reading programs would leave No Child Left Behind un/underfunded. Check the data my friend. Spending is not the issue. The U.S. is the world leader in per capita education investment, but is way down the ladder in performance. Hmm, could it possibly be because the Dems are lapdogs of the teacher's union who are preventing the innovative solutions necessary to reach our potential?
Yeah, you're right though...those profligate spending Republicans really ran up massive deficits. Yep, that $161 billion deficit in 2007 was so huge it was almost one tenth what Obama does every year.
Don't let the facts get in the way of some really great fiction.
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