During the 2008 presidential campaign–as he did in his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention which secured his celebrity, Barack Obama presented himself as a new kind of politician who could transcend political divisions and and bring together a badly polarized nation.

Since his inauguration, however, he has passed up many opportunities to do as he promised.  On that very day, he could have chastised those who booed his predecessor, saying something like, “While we may disagree with his policies, we should respect the office that he once occupied and that I now occupy.  And let us appreciate also the devotion he has shown to the country we all love.”  Or some such.

Three days later, he bypassed another chance to rise above the fray.

When he met with congressional leaders that Friday, “top House and Senate Republicans expressed concern to the president about the amount of spending in the package” (AKA the “stimulus”), echoing concerns (e.g,  in the third debate when he said, “we’ve been living beyond our means“) he made on the campaign trail, he snapped back, “I won.”  Had he said, “I see your point,” he would have showed that he intended to fulfill the promise of his campaign, proven himself to be a unifier, rhetorically at least.  And what if he had floated a compromise idea, offering to retain only the “stimulus” spending that would be dispersed in the following six months.

Then, he could add, while I think the whole package is necessary, let’s see if this helps.  If this doesn’t jump start the economy, then — and only then — we can consider another injection of federal cash.

This way, instead of signing on to a plan crafted in the back rooms of congressional Democrats, he would have shown himself as willing to respond to Republican concerns; he migh have forced a few Republicans to cross over and support the proposal.  Not just that, he would have had a ready-made excuse should we not see the promised decline in unemployment.  ”We didn’t spend enough,” he could have said.

But, he (and congressional Democrats) got everything they wanted.  Like his predecessor, Obama lost a chance to stand up to a spendthrift Congress.

Well, he’s still kowtowing to that Congress: (more…)

When Washington Democrats rushed to overhaul our nation’s health care system, they spent more time considering liberal ideology than real-world experience.  Instead of learning from the mistakes of government-run health care, particularly in states which have tried it, they just assumed good intentions would be enough to create a good system.

Well, before rushing to pass an unpopular bill, they should have look to the Massachusetts,s where in 2006, politicians “created near-universal coverage for residents, which was supposed to ease the traffic in hospital emergency rooms.”  Yet, instead of easing traffic in hospital emergency rooms, according to “a recent poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians,” nearly the opposite occurred:  ”nearly two-thirds of the state’s residents say emergency department wait times have either increased or remained the same.”

And it looks like what happened in Massachusetts may soon happen across the country:

People who build hospitals, however, say newly insured people will still go to emergency rooms for primary care because they don’t have a doctor.

“Everybody expected that one of the initial impacts of reform would be less pressure on emergency departments; it’s going to be exactly the opposite over the next four to eight years,” said Rich Dallam, a healthcare partner at the architectural firm NBBJ, which designs healthcare facilities.

“We don’t have the primary care infrastructure in place in America to cover the need. Our clients are looking at and preparing for more emergency department volume, not less,” he said.

Why is it that those determined to turn to the state for solution to our country’s problems refuse to learn from experience?

During the early days of the 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I was quietly rooting for Barack Obama.  I then knew little about the freshman Senator from Illinois, but had been impressed with his presence and his gift with (scripted) words.  Only as we started learning about his background did I start to reconsider my opinion of the candidate.

Not jut that, I had at that point, attributed Mrs. Clinton’s success to her choice in husband and always thought she got a free pass from the media.  While I had initially seen her as a hyper-partisan Democrat, I did acknowledge she had impressed many of her Republican colleagues in the Senate by her ability to reach across party lines.  But, at the outset of the 2008 campaign, I wondered if she had anything besides ambition, to borrow an expression from Shakespeare, to prick the sides of her intent.

That said, during the course of the 2008 campaign when the media turned on her and she kept fighting, I became impressed with her tenacity.  I had never previously thought that the expression “strong woman” could apply to the then-New York Senator.  Yet, when I watched her pressing in, even as the media wrote her off, I could not help but admire her determination and fortitude.

Now, to be sure, I don’t always agree with the Secretary of State, but when I see her name in a headline, I no longer assume I’ll be disagreeing with her.   So today,  when I read about her press conference with the new British Foreign Minister, I was not surprised to find myself on the same page as she on Iran:

Iran will continue to defy demands to prove its nuclear program is peaceful unless it is hit with a new round of U.N. sanctions, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

Speaking at a news conference with new British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Clinton said negotiators from Germany and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council were making progress every day on a draft sanctions resolution.

She said Iran’s intransigence on the nuclear issue is the strongest argument for a fourth round of sanctions. “We believe that the case is being made perhaps most effectively by the Iranians themselves,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton sounds as hawkish as she often did while serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Now, I do hope the sanctions she and her British counterpart are discussing have teeth.  But, at least someone in this Administration, rhetorically at least, understands that the problem with Iran is that nation’s belligerence and not our attitude toward it.

It’s unfortunate that despite all the media bellyaching about the supposed racial component of the Tea Parties based on a handful of signs and the prejudices of those writing about the grassroots movement for the nation’s major dailies or reporting on it for the major broadcast networks (as well as minor cable news networks) that they have all but ignored the gay presence there.

Indeed, despite my calling our presence “infiltration,” it seems that I am not the only gay person to have been made welcome at such rallies. Since I first posted on the matter, I keep receiving reports, like this comment of gay people made welcome at Tea Parties:

Dude. Infiltrated? I just showed up at our local rallies, EVERYBODY knows I’m gay – NOBODY cares. I get TONS more hate at the (gay) bar cos I don’t like ol’ Bammy….

Brian’s experiences parallel my own.  I find get more grief for being a gay conservative in gay circles than I do for being gay in conservative circles.  But, I’ve said this before.

So, why doesn’t the MSM address this narrative?

Today was one of those days when it seems your life is like a movie. Amidst all the little things I need do before I head out of town, I needed some work done on my car.

Yesterday, I had to take my car in for new tires and learned I needed new brakes (as I had thought I did back in October, but was told I didn’t). So today, after picking up my car, I gave myself just over 1 hour and 30 minutes to get from the dealership (they had the cheapest price on tires and could replace the brakes) to the LA County Registrar in Norwalk where I would vote early.

Mapquest said it would take 30 minutes. It took one hour and thirty minutes. I was literally turning into the building parking lot at 5:00 and was told that I could vote if I got into the building by 5.

Now, as I was driving to Norwalk, I am wondering why would they put such an important office in a distant corner of the county–just a few miles north of the Orange County line. Shouldn’t these offices be centrally located?

I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the better part of my time on the Golden State Freeway. And trying to keep my cool, was delighting in the irony of how frustrating this drive was, yet how much I was looking forward to driving cross country. Fortunately, they won’t have LA traffic in Utah, Nebraska or Iowa.

Anyway, back to my story, they allowed me into the building. Unable to find the stairs, I dashed into an open elevator, pushing the button frantically to make it move faster. I reached the 3rd floor (where the voting office is located), ran down the hall. The door was locked, so I knocked and knocked and knocked again. A nice woman came to the door. Mustering the best sad puppy face I could, I explained that I had been stuck on the freeway for nearly two hours and really wanted to vote in this primary election. (more…)