In her column on the ninety-eighth anniversary of the Gipper’s birth, Peggy Noonan heralded the new-found serioiusness of the Republicans:  They hadn’t been this way in years!.  She cautioned them not to get overconfident, to return their focus and not to “revert to the triumphalism of the Bush era, when they often got giddy and thick-necked and spiked the ball.”

Perhaps, they had become so giddy and thick-necked because when then-President Bush won re-election in 2004, increasing Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, it was the first time in more than three-quarters of a century (since 1928) that Republicans retained control of the White House and both houses for two consecutive congresses.

in 2004, the then-senior Senators of Alaska and Virginia, Ted Stevens and John Warner, respectively, were the only incumbent Republicans in that chamber who had been alive the last time their party had so been returned to power.  And back in 1928, Stevens was not yet 5 and Warner, at 21 months, just learning to talk.

Simply put, Republicans didn’t know what it was like to keep a majority at the executive and legislative level.

Now, that they have lost both, let us hope that they have learned their lesson.  Should the GOP do well in ’10 and ’12, there will be numerous congressional Republicans who will know what it’s like to have held power and lost it, with others joining them who had observed this phenomenon from the sidelines.

In his latest blog post, Michael Barone touts polls showing Republicans doing well in a number of upcoming elections.  Perhaps, this is because as voters witness the Democrats’ extravagence, they’re beginning to believe the GOP has learned its lessons.   Or, at least hoping it has.

This week we’ve learned that Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow had proposed hearings on reinstituting the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” in order “to be bringing accountability to the airwaves.”

Basically, she and other supporters of this doctrine (which is anything but fair) favor it as a means to silence the one area of the media where conservatives dominate:  talk radio.

Tell you what.  I’ll go along with her proposal if she goes along with mine, apply this doctrine to university faculties too. Shouldn’t they have some accountability too?

Opponents of California’s Proposition 8 claim that in taking issue with those who favor the traditional definition of marriage, they’re standing against hate (or H8, as some put it).  And while, to be sure, there has been some mean-spirited rhetoric from supporters of the successful ballot initiative, the bulk of the hatred in this debate has come from those opposing the initiative.

In an article in yesterday’s Business section, even the New York Times acknowledged as much:

FOR the backers of Proposition 8, the state ballot measure to stop single-sex couples from marrying in California, victory has been soured by the ugly specter of intimidation.

Some donors to groups supporting the measure have received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance, and their businesses have been boycotted.

In her post linking the article, Michelle Malkin asks, “What took” the supposed paper of record “so damn long?”

I would offer that it upsets their narrative, that the ugly tactics of intimidation are supposed to come from social conservatives, in this case, those opposing gay marriage and not the supposedly progressive advocates of social change..

Now, I don’t hold all gay marriage advocates responsible for the mean-spirited tactics of the most extreme supporters. Indeed, I don’t even hold most protesters responsible, provided they did not carry hateful posters or shout mean-spirited epithets.

That said, it would be nice if they could distance themselves from such tactics by condemning them and pressing for a civil and serious discussion of the meaning of marriage and the imperative of the state recognition of same-sex marriages.

By standing against these angry and juvenile tactics, they would help show not only that they are serious about having that conversation, but also about the importance of extending the benefits and responsibilities of that ancient institution to same-sex couples.

Why are they so afraid to condemn the mean-spirited tactics and rhetoric?  Does it upset their narrative too?  Or, are do they approve of such tactics?

ADDENDUM: If you can provide links to any gay groups or blogs condemning these tactics and/or rhetoric, I will link them in this post.

As I was reading the epilogue to Joseph J. Ellis’s Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, I chanced on something that great man said in 1812 (in a letter to Benjamin Rush) which could well apply to the Democrats’ spendthrift “stimulus” and its impact on American politics.

“When a party grows Strong and feels its power, it becomes intoxicated, grows presumptuous and extravagant and breaks to pieces.”

The more people know about the “stimulus,” the more they will see the Democrats for what they are, using this “crisis” as an excuse to enact their agenda, expanding the size and scope federal government even when there is no popular support for their statist endeavors.

Of course that expression could be used to describe Republicans in 2005.  And look what happened the following year.

We need to become more like Milton Friedman in the clip below, defending capitalism coolly with confidence and humor. And not giving in to the assumptions of our intellectual adversaries.

(H/t Instapundit).

Remember how President Obama promised to make his Administration transparent?

He promised to publish all “non-emergency” legislation on the White House web-site for five days to allow the public time “to review and comment before the President signs it.” Wonder if he did that that with executive orders which dramatically reduce the number of contractors eligible to bid for federal contracts.

As Senators burn the midnight oil find ways to spend money we don’t have, shouldn’t the president request that they follow through on his promise of transparency?

Instead of rushing to get pass legislation of this magnitude, more expensive than the Iraq War (and Congress voted numerous times to fund the war), giving the public time to review and comment before their legislators vote on it.

At absolute minimum, wait until after the next congressional recess, giving Members of Congress and Senators have had a chance to return to their jurisdictions to solicit the input of their constituents before putting together a final package.

To promote such openness, Bruce and I have signed on to this letter, asking Senator Reid and President Obama to:

. . . publish the full legislative text of the compromise immediately, and furthermore, to delay any vote on the bill for at least five days following publication. The American public deserves time to read and understand the substance of this critical legislation, and to express their views to their Senators.

UPDATE: Claire Shipman nicely sums up the pro-”stimulus” argument:  “given that nobody knows the outcome, it seems as though the most important thing is speed here.“  Oh, and Shipman’s an ABC News correspondent, not a Democratic hack or Administration flack.

Looking into the $200 billion bailout of state governments contained in the “stimulus,” Fred Barnes “talked to state treasurers from Indiana, Nebraska, and Mississippi last week. They said their states don’t need the money.”

Hmm. . . three financially solvent states in this time of economic woe, where other jurisdictions have shortfalls which their respective executives are attributing not to their policies, but to the economy.  How then do these states manage not to need a federal bailout?

Maybe we should look at the policies of those states’ governors, all three of them Republicans.

We need action now.  Congressional Democrats have cobbled together a comprehensive plan.  I support this plan.  Unless you support it too, you favor doing nothing and so prolonging the recession.

As Fred Barnes puts it, “The more public support his bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering. ‘The failure to act, and act now,’ the president said last week, ‘will turn a crisis into a catastrophe.’”

Rich Lowry believes Obama’s central argument for the “stimulus, “I won,” “is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid ‘jolt’ to the economy.“  Rich also observes how the president’s campaign rhetoric which would suggest opposition to such as spendthrift package.

(H/t for the links to Jennifer Rubin’s daily compendium at Commentary Connections, Flotsam and Jetsam.)

In a comment to my post on the president’s divisive rhetoric, Kurt calls the Democrat’s retreat into “attack mode . . . a major tactical win for the Republicans:”

After all, many Republicans warned that Obama had no record of bipartisanship time and again during the election. And here he and his party’s leaders are whining that they’re not getting Republican support for their porkfest bill—this after he turned away Republican suggestions about the stimulus by saying “I won” during his first week in office.

He’s right. It was a tactical win for the GOP.

And it’s more than just that. It’s a defining moment of the Democrats’ arrogance. Note how when, even when Democrats are in the majority, their defenders blame Republicans for their setbacks. Did conservatives so blame Democrats when, four years ago, they thwarted many of Bush’s efforts at reform? (Yes, I realize that in writing this, after we realized the consequences to pass Republican legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we did fault Democrats for successful efforts to thwart those reforms.)

It’s as if Democrats believe their victory means they can govern without opposition, while Republican victory means that the GOP must be opposed. To wit, the president’s statement to elected Republicans (who also won their respective elections) that “I won.”  Imagine how Democrats would have reacted if his predecessor had said that.

Democrats act, in Jonah Goldberg’s words, as if their victory “settles the issue. Funny how that argument didn’t work for the last president when he tried to reform Social Security.”

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!. While you’re here, check my post on how Democrats believe their victory means that opposition to their policies must cease. And please help me find the best short summaries of the “stimulus.”

Once again, President Obama appears to be guilty of the sins of which his predecessor was accused, in many cases by those who would come to support the Democrat.

Commenting on the president’s praising the “patriotism” of Republicans backing a compromise “stimulus” package, John Hinderaker asks:

So, if the three Republicans who sided with the Democrats in the Senate are “patriotic,” what does that make the rest of the Senate Republicans, or the House Republicans who unanimously voted against the Democrats’ pork-fest? Unpatriotic? Isn’t that a natural inference?

In a similar vein, Tom Maguire wonders if the president is saying that “bill opponents are not patriotic? Or are less patriotic?” And he asks for “analogous examples” of such definitions of patriotism (as support for president’s proposals) “from the Bush era.”

For the record, I think he’ll be hard-pressed to find them in the statements of the former president.

Dan Cleary: Mind-Boggling Waste of Money We Don’t Have (Via Instapundit).

Please feel free to offer your own, including those you have found on other web-sites (with appropriate credit including links).

UPDATE: More pithy critiques below the jump: (more…)

. . . would be to, without fanfare, retire from Congress, move to Miami Beach and keep away from all microphones, refraining from making any further public comment.

Not content to limit the salaries of financial institution executives receiving federal bailout money, that self-important House Financial Services Committee Chairman with an incapacity to admit mistakes now seeks to extend those salary curbs. So, even if you don’t take federal money, if ol’ Barney had his way, the feds could dictate your salary:

Congress will consider legislation to extend some of the curbs on executive pay that now apply only to those banks receiving federal assistance, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.

. . . .

He said the compensation restrictions would apply to all financial institutions and might be extended to include all U.S. companies.

(H/t: The Corner via Instapundit).

Barney Frank, the most prominent openly gay person in American politics today, is becoming an embarrassment.  He favored rolling the dice with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, obstructing efforts to reform these two government-sponsored enterprises even as evidence of their financial woes became increasingly manifest.

Look, Mr. Frank, you’ve had more than a hand in the financial mess.  And you continue to promote schemes which would only serve to limit our freedom and hinder further economic growth.  You can’t admit your mistakes.

So, please, for the sake of America and for the sake of gay people, just leave.  We don’t want people to think that you speak for gay people;  you refuse to take responsiblity for your actions and attempt to further socialize our economy.

UPDATE:  As per comment #2, please note that I struck I word in the first full paragraph after the block quote.  Reader GUS, with inflammatory language expressing his outrage, ask if Barney said anything “about Jamie Gorelick making over $20 million from Fannie Mae.”  If he didn’t, it’s a sure sign of his hypocrisy.

Thanks to Dan for finding this at The Club for Growth’s website.   It pretty much sums it up.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Remember how so many critics of former President George W. Bush called the Texan “divisive”? One columnist contended that the Republican used “scare tactics” to “demean politics and voters.” They faulted him for deriding his opponents.

Now, I have a challenge for those who continue to berate Bush. Can you find anything in his speeches or other remarks, particularly in his first few weeks (even months) in office, when he derided his political opponents as much as his successor has in the past two days?

Did Bush ever accuse his ideological adversaries of “peddling ‘false theories…phony arguments and petty politics’“? Did he ever attack his opponents as his successor has?

Were Bush’s policy addresses in his first term, “devoid. . . of analysis,” reading like campaign speeches?

Remember how we heard ad nauseum over the past eight years that George W. Bush was playing the politics of fear?  His successor promised to change that as Charles Krauthammer reminds us declaring, in his inaugural address, that “we have chosen hope over fear.” Yet, barely three weeks into this term, he has abandoned that pledge when he needed “fear to pass a bill.”   And now, he’s using “scare-mongering rhetoric” to push his spendthrift “stimulus.”

It seems that the criticisms Bush-critics heaped upon the former president could be more readily used to describe his successor.

UPDATE: Wasn’t it just two weeks ago, an AP “reporter” heralded the new era: Obama breaks from Bush, avoids divisive stands?

Bumped.

I just called both my Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. And the reaction from their respective staffers reflects each woman’s political persona. As I spoke to Mrs. Feinstein’s aide, I could hear him typing, as if he were recording my thoughts to pass them on to a higher-up in hero office. He asked for my zip code.

By contrast, Mrs. Boxer’s aide kept trying to conclude the conversation before I could conclude my spiel, basically saying that she should vote “no” on the “stimulus” as it merely extends and expands George W. Bush’s fiscal policies, cutting taxes while increasing federal domestic spending.

When I praised Mrs. Feinstein for reserving the right to oppose the “stimulus,” I asked if that good woman had yet made up her mind to vote against it. He said, she hadn’t. Mrs. Boxer’s aide couldn’t tell me where her boss stood.

Just watch these remarks (h/t HotAir) to see how the White House reacts to her independence.

I disagree with her on tax cuts (see the second video on HotAir), but respect her independence in taking issue with her party leaders and daring criticize this budget boondoogle.

Senator Tom Coburn, who worked together with the president on legislation when the latter was in the Senate, offers perhaps the best criticism to date of the so-called stimulus:

As a nation, we got into this mess by spending and investing money that didn’t exist. We won’t get out of it by doing more of the same.

Yet this is precisely what this bill proposes we do. Less than 10% of the bill could be considered true stimulus, if one assumes tax credits and infrastructure spending will jolt the economy. The other 90% of the bill represents one of the most egregious acts of generational theft in our nation’s history, with taxpayer money going to special-interest earmarks, an ill-conceived bailout to states, and permanent spending increases that expand government’s reach in areas like health care and education.

He contested his former colleague’s contention that the “stimulus” meant change, holding it represents instead a return to the politics of the past:

Instead of delivering change, this bill celebrates the politics of the past. The bill represents both the mindless partisanship of recent decades, and the failed interventionist policies of the 1930′s. The Senate can, and must, do much better. As currently written, this bill represents the worst act of generational theft in our nation’s history.

If the president is repeatedly decrying the trillion dollar deficits of his predecessor (based on a budget, I might add, passed by a Democratic Congress), why is he trying so hard to increase them?

Yes, I agree we need do something to help “fix” the ailing economy.  But, when has such a vast increase in federal domestic largesse done that?

I just don’t get how someone can so decry deficits and then work to saddle our nation with unprecedented (for a single piece of legislation) amounts of debt.  It’s like a guy who admitting it’s a problem that he’s maxed out his credit cards deciding to go on a spending binge.

This seems a fitting way to remember the 40th President of the United States on the anniversary of his birth.

I didn’t think Obama would botch it so badly as to put his near 70-percent approval rating in peril so quickly.

What’s wrong with this picture, and why, seemingly, can’t David Axelrod see it? No wonder Republicans suddenly have a spring in their step and a zip in their speech.

Sorry always to bring things back to my (our) hero, Ronaldus Maximus, but the Gipper didn’t make the mistake of thinking a landslide election win meant he could declare “I won.”

To the contrary, the January 2001 report of the Initial Actions Project—the detailed blueprint for Reagan’s first year in office—says this: “The election was not a bestowal of political power, but a stewardship opportunity for us to reconsider and restructure the political agenda for the next two decades. The public has sanctioned the search for a new public philosophy to govern America.”

In other words, “we’re going to need to argue for our program.”  This was a practical necessity, since Democrats still controlled the House.

Barry the Arrogant needs to find some humility within the walls of the White House.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE from Dan: Bruce, thanks for alerting us to that wonderful remembrance of the Gipper. What a great way to celebrate his birthday this year at this time.

Is Obama trying to kill poor white people in Kentucky?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. Nearly 168,000 emergency meal kits sent to Kentucky in the wake of an ice storm had been recalled more than two weeks earlier because some contained peanut butter that could have been contaminated by salmonella, federal officials said Thursday.

An apparent communication breakdown among federal officials allowed the kits to be sent to Kentucky to help feed hundreds of thousands of people left without power at the height of last week’s storm.

If the liberals held Obama to the same standard (um, lies) as Bush in Katrina – then Obama is definitely trying to kill poor white people in Kentucky.

Regardless of the peanut butter development – this disaster is definitely Obama’s Frozen Katrina.

UPDATE from PatriotPartner (John):  “Quite a sticky situation that Barry has on his hands.”    Ba-dum-dum.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It seems my friend Rick Sincere was the first in the blogosphere to wish Americans a Happy Reagan Day on this, the ninety-eighth anniversary of the birth of the greatest American president of the second half of the twentieth century, the chief executive with the most successful economic policy of that entire century.

In a nice summary of Reagan’s reputation and political philosophy, Rick also references Reagan’s outspoken opposition to the Briggs Initiative. That pernicious proposal would have banned gays from teaching at California public schools. Indeed, the eponymous Senator Briggs attributed the Gipper’s opposition to the measure’s “ignominious defeat”. And the Gipper did this in 1978, at a time when, as Rick reminds us, such opposition “would not help him politically. He did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Indeed, such opposition could hurt him, it risked alienating the Gipper from the Christian Right, then an emerging “faction” of his party.

As we celebrate Reagan’s birthday during the Administration of the first of his successors trying to repudiate his ideas, it’s important that we remember what those ideas were.  He provided a nice summary in his 1964 speech on behalf of then-GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Those ideas would not just explain his support for that principled Arizonan, but also come to define his own basic political philosophy for his subsequent political career.

So, today, as we remember the Gipper on the anniversary of his birth, let us not just recall Ronald Reagan the man. Not just the successful president and charismatic leader. Let us also remember Ronald Reagan, man of ideas.

As we recall his ideas — and affirm them ourselves — we will be better equipped to debate the issues of the day. When others call our party’s attempt to block a spendthrift “stimulus” as obstructionist or rejectionist, tell them that in opposing this boondoggle, we are not merely rejecting a proposal which, we believe, will be harmful over the long term, we are affirming the vision of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Let us always remember the Gipper’s guiding idea: freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

And the less government intrudes on our freedom, the better off we are. And the stronger our economy is. And will be.

Speaking to staffers at the Department of Energy yesterday, President Obama pushed his “stimulus” plan and misrepresented the ideas of his critics:

They’re rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn’t have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough;

While President Bush may have premised his economic policy entirely on tax cuts, he never believed that such cuts alone could solve all our problems. And his successor would be hard-pressed to find any Republican who did. Save Congressman Ron Paul, no leading Republican believes government doesn’t have a role to play.

In elaborating on conservative ideas (without detailing any), the president really got in some strange territory given the legislation he’s been pushing:

Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed.  They’ve taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they’ve brought our economy to a halt.  And that’s precisely what the election we just had was all about.

Now, I agree that the notion that you can promote economic health by cutting taxes and increasing federal domestic outlays has been tested and failed.

If the president’s knowledge goes back beyond “”the last 10 years”, he would know that conservative economic policies do work.   In the 1980s, they helped lift us out of a severe recession. And we enjoyed prosperity throughout Clinton’s tenure because that Democrat never repudiated them.

But, if the policies he’s decrying led to trillion dollar deficits and brought our economy to a halt, why then is he proposing policies which will create ever larger deficits?  Does he really believe policies which expand the deficit even further will bring that halted economy back to life?

Um, Mr. President, that last election was about “change.” You should know you–and your supporters–repeated that word ad nauseum. For the past eight years, we’ve seen ever increasing levels of domestic spending. Are you saying it’s change to keep increasing such spending, only at a faster rate of increase?

Oh, and, um, did you campaign on a multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus?