. . . that government does not create wealth nor does it foster medical innovation (or any kind of innovation for that matter) as readily and efficiently as does the private sector?

After reading a print-out of Claudia Rosett’s recent Forbes essay, “The Bear Scare,” I scribbled a note in the margin:

Sense of Obama’s reading of history as excluding American accomplishments . . . whole notion of reset button based on simplistic assumption that Bush’s entire policy was bad, [so he seeks] to define himself not so much as advancing American interests but [instead] as opposing his predecessor’s policies.

He has adopted that same rationale, at least rhetorically, on the economy as well, even though his domestic policy amounts to little more than an expansion of Bush’s, increased government spending.

And yet, even as Obama’s economic policy resembles that of his predecessor (albeit on steroids), he and his party’s minions are painting a picture of the “past eight years” (their favorite mantra) as a dark age akin to the Great Depression.  Note how Democratic spokespeople, in asking us to be patient about a recovery (which given the president’s promises in pushing the “stimulus” should already be underway) are telling us it took “eight years to get into this mess.”

It seems they’re banking on our short memories and the biased media coverage of the economy during the Bush years before the downturn.   That downturn only began in December 2007, nearly a full year after a Democratic Congress (which increased federal spending at a faster clip than did the prior spendthrift Republican Congress) came to power.

In short, given that the President and his team are better on offense than they are on defense, they seem intent on running against the “last eight years” just as Democrats spent nearly two generations running against Herbert Hoover.  Problem is that Hoover’s downturn began only a few months after he took office and while he served with a Republican Congress and that he responded with policies similar to those Obama (and the Democrats) are proposing today.  Those interventionist policies only prolonged the downturn.

The MSM, even biased against Bush, may let the Democrats get away with it, but if a poll which oversamples Democrats shows the President’ts numbers tumbling, it’s a sign Americans are judging the Administraiton by its record not the alleged excesses of the “last eight years.”

Maybe it’s the summer, maybe it’s the conversations I’ve been having of late, maybe it’s the time I’ve been spending helping out at Outfest, maybe it’s my renewed focus on my dissertation, but I expect to be doing a number of “Random Thoughts” type of post in the next few days. . . .

So, if y’all feel like it, use the space afforded by the comments here to offer your own random thoughts about whatever it is which strikes your fancy–and please do so without engaging in ad hominem. . .

Last night, ever eager to provide something for you, our loyal readers, to peruse as you begin your day, I organized an idea I’d been considering (and expounding on in conversations with friends) on why the President won’t be able to get away with Bush-bashing for much longer.  As long as he’s seen as the new guy, Americans wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt and will accept his whining as a justifiable expression of frustration at the difficulty of dealing with a new job.

We Americans, as Jennifer Rubin puts it, want our presidents “to succeed.”

Once I finished the post, I was eager to get it done so I could get to bed.  So, I came up with the best title I could, Blaming Bush (& GOP) won’t help Obama recover* lost popularity*, even if it wasn’t ideal and unlikely to attract much attention–even though I thought I might have had an interesting insight–that we cut a new President some slack up until Labor Day because by that time, we’ve come back from our summer recreation to find that the same president is there who had been there when we turned away from regular news-watching (on or about Memorial Day).

I find that like last night, many of my titles don’t perfectly fit the post to which they’re attached (and then sometimes our critics respond to the title and not the post).  Or don’t get at the essence of the idea I’m trying to express.  Other times, however, the title comes with the post idea and on occasion has preceded it.  More often than not, as last night, I’m just eager to find something that will work so I can get the post up and get on with my day (or move on to another post).

But, if I do find a clever way to “package” the idea, I increase the likelihood of links and thus attract more attention to the post.  Sometimes, it seems a good title more readily attracts notice than does a thoughtful post.  And yet the great irony is that often after putting a lot of time and thought into a post of which I’m particularly proud, I’m mentally drained and just eager to get it done so tack on a title that does the trick (as best it can).  So the title fails to attract the punch (I believe) the post does.

Maybe we’ve heard this all before, you know, when they talk about books and covers.

* (more…)

Watching CNN coverage of the Sotomayor hearings as I was doing cardio before and after my workout earlier today, I was treated to the amusing spectacle of David Gergen, trying very hard to look important as he attempted to offer the conventional liberal wisdom of the hour.  He seemed to think that if he smiled, he would look less sage, less important, so he has developed this dour disposition, always having a very serious expression when he speaks on camera.  Or perhaps this disposition was due to careful deliberation, wanting to appear wise while not saying anything which might offend those left-of-center people in the Beltway media establishment.

By contrast, his colleague, Jeffrey Toobin, whom I have dubbed “the obsequious legal court jester to the media elite,” smirked his way through his pontificating.  He too was posturing, his smug expression a sign of the importance he attaches to himself as he spouts the conventional wisdom, attacking Republicans and currying favor with those who host the cocktail parties he likes to attend and participate in the listservs to which he subscribes.  His arrogance is at once irritating and amusing, irritating that he clearly considers himself to be so much smarter than the rest of us, capable (as he sees it) of offering unique perspectives on the events of the day, but annoying because while he preens at being uncommonly incisive due to that superior intellect, he’s saying absolutely nothing original or offering anything particularly insightful.

Toobin seems to believe that by dressing up conventional wisdom with his presence and supposed sagacity, he is as Zeus speaking down to us mere mortals from the lofty heights of Olympus.

Wonder if CNN keeps him on because they like how he and his counterparts in the commentariat help their ratings, with the network remaining in third place of three major cable news outlets.

All weekend, we’d be hearing how upset Democrats were about a CIA program the Bush Administration kept secret from Congress.   With the high dudgeon typical of their criticism of Bush, they made it seem this was some program which violated the constitution, infringed on our civil liberties and just plain showed what horrible, no good very bad people was the former president and his evil lieutenant Darth Cheney.

Turns out the program was all about getting some guys who were indeed bad guys:

Government officials say the secret intelligence program canceled by CIA Director Leon Panetta in June was meant to find and kill or capture al-Qaida leaders at close range rather than target them with air strikes.

Guess the CIA didn’t leak this one to the New York Times because, well, it would be tough to this one against Bush, Cheney or their team, you know, showing them having a secret plan to get America’s enemies.

If the Democrats want to investigate this program, I say, “Bring it on!”  Let’s hold public hearings on this.  You know the kind of transparency their party’s presiential promised in his bid for the White House, but has been increasingly loath to fulfill once there.

It seems that hatred of George W. Bush has become such an article of faith among Democrats that they can’t let a day go by without criticizing the former President for all manner of ills, from wrecking the economy to violating the law in order to keep the American people safe (to name just two of their biggest critiques).

Sunday morning, while fixing my coffee and determined to continue a weekend largely away from politics, I made the silly mistake of turning on the news.  Some former DNC official was telling us that it took “eight years to get into this [economic] mess” and it’s going to take some time to get out of it.  For a moment, I wished I had been the Republican designated to challenge her.  I would have replied by asking her to specify just what policies in the past eight years (i.e., the Bush Administration) led to this downturn and to remind her that the downturn began in December 2007, nearly one full year after a Democratic Congress came to power.

If the unmentioned Republican President deserves blame for the downturn so too does that Democratic Congress.

And as this Democratic President’s poll numbers tumble, his Administration and congressional Democrats are considering investigating that Republican Administration’s policies and officials.

There is some method to the Administration’s madness.  Obama and his political team have always been better on offense than defense.

The longer he serves as President, however, the less people will accept his excuse that he “inherited” this problem from his predecessor.  He’s smart to try to push a lot of legislation — as well as the Sotomayor confirmation hearings — during the summer when people are less focused on the news than they are during the rest of the year.

But, as the summer wanes and people focus more on the news after Labor Day, they’ll see the same man who had been in office when, sometime prior to Memorial Day, they pretty much  tuned politics out to focus on family, relaxation and recreation. Obama will no longer be the new guy brought in to clean up the old guy’s mess. People won’t cut him as much slack as they might have in his first two seasons in office.

* (more…)

With the Administration have already saddled the nation with a near trillion dollar “stimulus” and offering increased government spending as far as the eye can see, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tells a joint House Agriculture and Financial Services hearing, “What the economy is going through is a very necessary and very health adjustment as families and the United States government goes back to living within their means“.

Doesn’t living within your means entail only spending the money you have coming in?   Guess that means budget cuts are coming.

Via Now! Hampshire, via Instapundit.

We all recall how in the wake of Prop 8′s passage last fall, angry gay activists, upset at the election returns, attacked Mormons for their support of the successful ballot proposition.

With the New York Times reporting today that the board of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is resisting efforts of its national organization “to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter in response to his support of same-sex marriage in California,” I wonder if those activists will treat the Los Angeles SCLC this summer they way they treated Mormons last fall:

During the battle last fall over Proposition 8, an amendment to the State Constitution that banned same-sex marriage, the chapter’s president, the Rev. Eric P. Lee, was more than a tangential figure for the opposition. He was front and center at an opposition group’s large rally at City Hall and marched in the blazing sun for 15 miles in Fresno. Many other local African-American pastors prepared mailings featuring church leaders in support of the proposition and linking their views to Barack Obama, then the Democratic nominee for president.

Mr. Lee “was very helpful to us,” said Rick Jacobs, head of the Courage Campaign, a left-leaning political action group in Los Angeles that fought the initiative . . . .

“The black church played a significant role in Proposition 8 passing,” Mr. Lee said. “The failure of the campaign was to presume that African-Americans would see this as a civil rights issue.”

(H/t Instapundit.)

*Title changed to reflect an error in this post when first drafted.  Thanks to reader Deuce Gregory for catching it.

Several years ago, when I was running with a recently boyfriended fellow member of the DC Front Runners, our heads turned for a better view of a rather fetching fellow who crossed our path.

“Hey,” I said to my running partner, “What are you doing?   You’ve got a boyfriend!”

“My hubby,” he replied, “doesn’t care where I get my appetite so long as I eat at home.”

And like us gay guys, straight men also check out the objects of their attraction (in their case members of the opposite sex) even when happily married.  (I’ve seen my straight married friends check out women at my gym.)  We’re men.  It happens.  We’re drawn to physically attractive people.  And so long as acknowledging that attraction doesn’t prevent those partnered among us from being faithful to their spouses, well, then so what?

And such was my response when I heard tell that the Presidents of the United States and France were caught ogling a rather fetching female.  I mean, what’s the fuss?  Neither called this attractive young woman his soul-mate or arranged clever means to pay for her “services.”  She just crossed their path and they, well, they just enjoyed the view (as would I suspect countless other men similarly “inclined”*).  (Okay, okay, if they did go out and pay for such a view, they would not be so innocent.)

Any anyway, Michelle watched the video and lo and behold found that the President

. . . wasn’t even paying attention to the young girl in the wine-colored dress. Obama was helping another young woman down the stairs and glancing down to grab her hand.

So, there’s really not any there there.  But, if there were, all it would be would be evidence that Barack Obama and Nicholas Sarkozy are just red-blooded heterosexual males.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

* (more…)

While President Obama and his team may be trying to undo the work of the president with the most successful economic record of the century just concluded, their rhetoric shows how much they recognize the appeal of that great man’s ideas.

Obama the candidate praised the Gipper during the campaign.  And like his Republican predecessor, the Democratic nominee called for a “net spending cut” and promising a tax cut for over 90% of Americans.  After his election, he held firm to his Reaganite record, vowing to go line by line through the federal budget, rooting out waste and inefficiency.

And it seems that whenever I hear Administration officials (or other Obama defenders) on FoxNews when pressed about the cost of his proposals and the tax cuts they will require, the spokespeople reply that, “Well, the president has already delivered on his promise to give a tax cut to 95% of Americans earning less than $200,000 a year” (or some such).

Yup, they’ve been reading the polls and know that small government ideas resonate with the American people, something Ronald Reagan recognized back in the 1960s–if not before.

When then are they acted at odds with their rhetoric and proposing an ever larger scope for an ever larger federal government, intruding increasingly into our lives, limiting our freedom and hamstringing our capacity to innovate and improve and limiting the abilty of private enterprise to expand, create jobs and increase opprotunity?

With the “stimulus” failing to work as advertised, Democrats having two primary ideas when it comes to economic difficulties, “borrow and spend,” are considering a second such package, despite a paucity of economists’ supporting such a proposal.

With “only 14 percent of the [package's] $787 billion has been spent so far,” however, some of its defenders claim it hasn’t had time to work.  If the President and congressional Democrats really believe that government spending will help lift the economy out of its doldrums, why then did they so calibrate the “stimulus” so that only a paltry percentage would be spent in the nearly five months since its passage?

I mean wasn’t the spending supposed to be “timely” (in addition to temporary and targeted)?  So, here’s a plan, instead of doling out just a quarter of the “stimulus” money this year and instead of passing another plan to increase the national debt, why don’t Democrats just recalibrate the legislation already in place–and release the balance of the money this year?

Congress has already appropriated the money.  If they believe spending is the key, well, then, just spend the money they’ve allocated.  Shouldn’t that then provide the economy the needed shot in the arm, spurring it back to health and obviating any need for future such stimuli?

Obama, like so many on the Left, is predisposed to see his country’s faults rather than its virtues,  its failures rather than its triumphs. In this he reminds me of some parents. They love their children, they just expect perfection from them. Therefore praise is never called for and criticism is constant.

JOHN STEELE GORDON

The death of the Republican Party and the dominance of the Democrats for the rest of time is now being challenged by the reality of our world.  Americans are saying, “um… maybe we got it wrong last year.”

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy. They’ve also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that voters trust the GOP more on economic issues 46% to 41%, showing little change from the six-point lead the party held last month. This is just the second time in over two years of polling the GOP has held the advantage on economic issues. The parties were close on the issue in May, with the Democrats holding a one-point lead.

Voters not affiliated with either party trust Republicans more to handle the economy by a 46% to 32% margin.

Just 39% now say President Obama is doing a good or an excellent job on the economy while 43% rate his performance as poor. Those are by far the weakest numbers yet for the president.

The president’s approval ratings also have fallen to new lows in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

This certainly proves that America has NOT become a ‘center-left’ nation at all.  And we are now seeing the actual results of this shift in the public.  Cap & Trade – stalled.  Healthcare Reform – stalled.  Second Stimulus – not a chance in Hell.

Pelosi – a lying failure.  Reid – incompetent failure.  Obama – don’t know where to begin with that one.

The only problem for the Republican Party is how to channel this Democrat-rejection into a positive vision going into 2010.  One idea: campaign on reversing the Porkulus legislation before it fully bankrupts the nation.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It has been a week since Sarah Palin announced her intention to resign as Governor of Alaska later this month.  As a Palin supporter, while somewhat sympathetic to her situation given the continuing assault from the media and their allies on the left, I am disappointed that this good woman decided not to tough it out and show her courage, her resilience under fire–as she did during last fall’s campaign.

While appreciating the many accomplishments of Sarah Palin (many more than the incumbent US President when he launched his first bid for national office), she was not my choice to be the GOP standard bearer in 2012.  I believe she should wait until 2020–after she had completed two terms as Governor — and perhaps had moved out to the Senate, defeating the Last Frontier’s accidental Democratic Senator Mark Begich.

On several occasions, I have compared Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan.  Like the Gipper, she has a natural stage presence and energizes conservatives.  Unlike her, however, when he made his successful bid for the White House, he had completed two full terms as Govenor of a state — and “served” for sixteen years as the de facto head of the conservativce movement.  Not just that, he had spent several years educating himself, studying conservative ideas and economic theory.

Yes, we conservatives all love her energy and appreciate how she, just by her very existence, enrages the heads of left-wingers to “explode,” but that is not enough to make her a successful presidential nominee or Commander-in-Chief.  She has the raw talent to lead this great nation, she’s just not there yet.  If she had stayed on as Governor, she could have better developed her talents, turning that potential into leadership on a daily basis.

She can still do that in other roles, as did the Gipper before he made his first bid for public office.  But, she won’t be ready in 2012, though she will surely be more ready than the man she would succeed should she win that year.  And his first six months in office have shown how we don’t want a chief executive who needs on the job training.

Sarah Palin has it within her to be as Ronald Reagan was both to the GOP and to the nation, galvanizing conservatives into an effective political force and restoring the nation’s greatness and economic health.  I fear, however, that the choice she made last week takes her one more step away from that goal.

But, elective office is not he only path to leadership.  She could yet take on the mantle of the Gipper.

RELATED:   Sarah Palin and the Right.

Despite the news media having already forgotten about the stolen election in Iran and the violent crackdown there, the Iranian people haven’t.  This video comes from Iran earlier today where thousands brave men and women confronted tear gas to protest peacefully.

To follow real-time updates from Iran, go to Twitter #iranelection

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Glenn linked a post on Politico, Independents begin to edge away from President Obama, that made hopeful for the future of my party.  As Obama sticks to his guns and continues to favor big-government solutions to a whole host of problems and pretend problems, independents who drifted away from the GOP during the Bush years because of his own big-government policies, may continue to return to the Republican fold.

Poll after poll indicates that Americans are wary of big government:

But a source of the shift [away from Obama] appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

No longer hamstrung by an ostensibly conservative Republican Administration adopting objectively non-conservative fiscal policies, the Republican Party can once again become a vehicle for small government.  Or so we hope.

It is now up to the elected Republican leadership to take heed to the latest polling data and the sentimentat the grassroots.  If the Republicans stand for freedom and smaller government, they can win back the disaffected independents we lost in recent years.

It’s a question of principle, something, on domestic issues at least, my party lost sight of in recent years.

Even my dog Shadow knows when the President’s poll numbers have hit the crapper.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends).

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy.

The Obamessiah has hit Planet Earth.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Not too long ago, at a gathering for gay and lesbian alumni of my alma mater, as we all criticized the leadership of the “No on 8″ campaign and offered suggestions to mount a better effort to overturn it, I was surprised and delighted to find that nearly everyone there (at least those who spoke up on the topic) agreed with my assessment that Geoff Kors, the head of “Equality California” should be kept as far from the operation as possible.  Others there, including those further to the left of the political center than I am to the right, thought Kors should step down from his leadership position immediately–if not sooner.

Their criticism of this head of a major gay organization reminded me (yet again) that many gay activists and just regular gay folks who follow gay politics have offered similar opinions of the man I recently dubbed hypocrite of the week, HRC’s Joe Solmonese.

As I pondered their criticism, I recalled a conversation I had about twelve years ago with a friend in Washington, DC.  He wondered then how quick all too many capital area gays were to smear anyone who criticized the DC-based gay leadership, as if such criticism were tantamount to treason.  One of us cited the hits Andrew Sullivan received in the gay media for taking on HRC and even Bill Clinton.

Gay people just weren’t supposed to attack our “leaders.”

For all the grief (much of it merited) Andrew gets today from those of us to the right of the political center, we need recall that he was a pioneer in challenging the gay orthodoxy, the first openly gay person with a significant presence in the media to challenge the gay orthodoxy.  Then, he was a lone voice, showing considerable courage, given the nasty responses, the name-calling he endured for speaking his mind.

His example made it easier for all of us to speak our minds.

So, today, when we see how commonplace it has become for gay people, of all political stripes, to criticize the heads of the various gay organizations, let’s not forget Andrew’s example.  In the 1990s, at great cost to him personally, Andrew spoke his mind.  And made us all realize that we don’t need follow in lockstep with the unelected “leadership” of the various gay organizations.  And that we are not betraying our community when we challenge their orthodoxy.

One of the reasons many Republicans and conservatives (and a good number of others) have warmed to the outgoing Governor of Alaska is that she has what many of our political leaders have lacked for the past twenty years, a natural charm and presence. She, like the Gipper, captures our attention merely by entering a room.

I was there at the Republican National Convention when she accepted our party’s nomination. As soon as rose to the podium, she commanded our attention; she captivated us. inspired us. We all left the convention, feeling we had witnessed something significant.

I wonder if it was her success in St. Paul which caused so many heads to explode on the left, making so many Democrats and their allies in the MSM so bound and determined to destroy this good woman. Was it that they, just as we did, also felt her power and were moved by her presence, yet, unlike us, found themselves threatened by her lifestyle and political views.  An attractive, happily married, strong and charismatic conservative woman seemd to upset their view of what a successful woman should be.

Palin’s critics obsession with this good woman indicates that they find her as compelling as do her strongest supporters. Perhaps, they choose to define her as a whack job to try to explain away her appeal.  They can’t accept that such a woman might move them.

Just a thought.