Try as he might to cut the size of the federal government, Ronald Reagan only succeeded in containing its growth (and curtailing its regulatory power).  And giving the resourcefulness of Americans and the resilience of the entrepreneurial sector, that containment was enough to foster explosive growth and extraordinary job creation.

No president, Republican or Democrat, since has even attempted to cut government as did the Gipper.  And although a spirited Republican congressional caucus helped prevent Bill Clinton from expanding government as he would have liked, they did not succeed in cutting federal spending.

Despite the increase in the amount of federal spending in recent years, some Democrats (as well as liberal pundits and left-leaning academics) still believe that the experiment in smaller government has failed.  Yesterday, with one simple question and one chart, Jim Geraghty pointed out that that experiment hasn’t even been tried (at least not in the US:

Sen. Chuck Schumer, says that America has “tried the theory” that the country can prosper by shrinking government.

When was that, exactly?

Do wonder if any reporter has ever asked the Empire State’s senior Senator to back up his claim.  Indeed, wonder if any reporter has asked any Democrat making that claim to support his argument by referencing actual federal spending.

From one of the revolving lists of headlines this morning on AOL (“news” content provided by the Huffington Post):

You’d think stories about a federal government program selling guns to Mexican druglords (without informing the Mexican government or putting tracking devices on the firearms) would be just a tad more newsworthy than a Republican presidential candidate’s eating habits.

But, then again, maybe these folks are following the lead of the New York Times which, in reporting on Mr. Romney’s hair, seemed to be following the lead of magazines covering celebrities and the entertainment industry.

Seems we at GayPatriot are not the only ones taking notice.  Bruce shared this tweet with me:

Barracuda Brigade reported:

On Tuesday, the former House Speaker spoke to St. Louis radio host and Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch about this saying, “It’s a little sad to see a paper the quality of the Washington Post stoop to…the National Enquirer approach to life” adding they “would rather worry about rumors about conservatives than facts about the President”

The Republican candidate was referring to the tweet we mentioned here. Can you imagine what the president’s poll numbers would look like if our friends in the MSM subjected him (and his team) to the same time of scrutiny to which they subject Republicans on a regular basis?

As I’m returning today from my Thanksgiving vacation, I have not had time to write an original post celebrating Winston Churchill, so will repost the piece I wrote two years ago to make the occasion as I revised it last year.

Today marks the 136th anniversary of the birth of the greatest man of the century concluded just about a decade ago. On November 30, 1874, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill, his mother the former Jennie Jerome, the second daughter of the American financier Leonard Jerome. His very parentage thus embodied the special relationship between the United States and United Kingdom.

Indeed, it was Churchill himself who coined the term to describe the relations between the two powerful Anglophone democracies.

Like a red head born almost exactly 134 years after him, Churchill was two months premature. (The combination of those two characteristics must be a sign of greatness!) Like that young Californian, the great Briton had trouble sitting still, traveling to Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa to fight for his country (and sometimes dubious causes) before his 30th birthday. He would write about his experiences; his books would earn him fame and fortune.

First elected to parliament in 1900 as a Tory, he broke with his party over tariffs, preferring free trade and the Liberals. He would rejoin the Conservative Party in 1925, staying with the Tories, through his two terms as Prime Minister and until the end of his life. Noting that Churchill “stood for Parliament under six labels,” one of his biographers, Paul Johnson wrote that “He was not a party man. . . . His loyalty belonged to the national interest, and his own.”

And Churchill saw the British national interest clearly linked to that of the United States and Western democracies.

While forever associated with the two great wars of the last century, the man himself may well have enjoyed the thrill of battle, but he was well aware of the horrors of war and did his utmost to prevent it. A warmonger he clearly was not, though he did understand that war was sometimes necessary to prevent even worse evils. (more…)