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Obama's Balloon Hits the Dirt
Townhall.com ^ | February 10, 2010 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 02/10/2010 3:55:11 AM PST by Kaslin

It was only a year ago that liberal elites in Washington were shoveling dirt on conservatism. James Carville was writing boastful books about 40 years of Democrat dominance, boasting in his typical way that he could call "time of death" on the Republican Party. Liberals believed their hype that Barack Obama would be that black FDR they pictured on the cover of Time magazine.

Now newspaper headlines read otherwise: "Where did the hope for Obama go?" The hot-air balloon has crashed to Earth, and you can tell conservatism is back with a swagger. You can tell because the media's daily output has gone from breathless valentines for Obama to angry denunciations of Tea Party protesters.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews was apoplectic about this conservative uprising. "What's going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going" where "if you're not far-right, you're not right enough." It didn't seem to matter to Matthews that millions of people were executed in those communist Cambodian "re-education camps." His desire to demonize far outstripped any desire to treat conservatism with respect.

Outside of Matthews' rubber room, the irony here is that conservatism alone has not stopped the Obama juggernaut. Democrats had the power in sheer numbers to ram through a socialist agenda. They quickly pushed through a massive "stimulus" bill costing more than $800 billion. The TARP program doubled that bill. Obama basically took over GM and Chrysler. And the media still screamed when anyone called this "socialist."

But the momentum really shifted at year's end. The Climategate revelations of politicized science ruined Obama's appearance at the Copenhagen global-warming summit. Then when all attention returned to health care, Obama placed all his political marbles there and lost again. Even Democrats started realizing Team Obama was not ready for primetime.

As often happens in Washington, the Democratic majority turned out to be not entirely doctrinaire. There were enough moderate Democrats on one side and die-hard leftist nationalizers on the other to frustrate any health care "solution" from emerging to final passage. One could taunt liberals with a series of film clips of how they promised to have a bill on the president's desk by August, by Thanksgiving, by Christmas, and so on.

This reality is causing media liberals to try and explain away victories like Scott Brown's earth-shaking win of the "Ted Kennedy seat" in Massachusetts. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham was spreading Obama strategist David Axelrod's spin that the president's attempts to herd the Democrat cats to achieve major liberal victories like health "reform" had "the effect of making us look tolerant of, if not complicit in, the system we came to change."

In other words, the voters have not rejected big-government liberalism. They have only rejected the less-than-idealistic negotiating tactics that lead to big-government liberalism. They're still in denial.

But Meacham was quick to assert that conservative protesters are probably not all that idealistic and consistent, either. "An angry tea-partying farmer is probably in favor of agricultural subsidies, and it is safe to say that many of the older conventioneers in Nashville do not think of Medicare as 'socialized medicine' or of Social Security as 'big government.'"

Even if that liberal needling were true -- that conservatives are perpetually insincere -- what's under discussion in Washington is not the established government apparatus, but an entirely new one. Even if you're satisfied with the old entitlements, it doesn't mean you can't object to additional ones.

Now that liberals are losing, they want to go to the midterm elections claiming that 10-percent unemployment and massive deficits as far as the eye can see are a bipartisan product -- not the result of liberal dominance in Washington. Meacham is twisting history, demanding that the tea-party protesters realize that the "ethos of the Founding is also about give-and-take, compromise, and ultimate unity of purpose."

Is that what the British found at the Boston Tea Party? Compromise?

Meacham also praised Obama's call for civility at the National Prayer Breakfast, as if civility is what the liberal media offer to conservatives every day. Just watch MSNBC if you believe that. I don't think Meacham can claim "civility" inspired his decision to put Sarah Palin in running shorts on his magazine's cover with the words "She's Bad News For The GOP, And For Everybody Else, Too."

But what is liberal civility? At the prayer breakfast, Obama praised preachers who were working for amnesty for illegal immigrants and evangelists who were fighting the menace of global warming. "Stretching out of our dogmas, our prescribed roles along the political spectrum, that can help us regain a sense of civility."

Conservatism is back, with a swagger. It is no time for a "stretching out of our dogmas." It is time to fight harder to make James Carville's boasts look sillier and sillier.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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1 posted on 02/10/2010 3:55:11 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

When your critics are silenced by a complicit media, you can afford to live in glass houses for the time being.


2 posted on 02/10/2010 3:57:18 AM PST by x_plus_one (Even the Russian online newspaper Pravda featured a column about "the man with no visible past.")
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To: Kaslin
Team Obama was not ready for primetime.

Primetime ?
Team 0bama wasn't even ready for the sixth grade.
3 posted on 02/10/2010 3:59:39 AM PST by ComputerGuy (Genuine Combat Corpsman)
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To: Kaslin

Jon Meacham is a panty-waist lefty liar.


4 posted on 02/10/2010 3:59:49 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion,,,,,,the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Kaslin

5 posted on 02/10/2010 4:02:42 AM PST by paulycy (Demand Constitutionality. (Hi Mom.))
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To: Kaslin

“you can tell conservatism is back “

Monday a Democrat called Rush and said he’s fed up with the whole Democrat government and listens to Rush and thinks like him. A Democrat!


6 posted on 02/10/2010 4:03:06 AM PST by RoadTest (The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. Ps. 119:130)
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To: Kaslin

Again the lefts DEMAND for fairness and rule adherence on the right, while mocking and proclaiming those same rules do not apply to them on the left.


7 posted on 02/10/2010 4:03:59 AM PST by Walkingfeather
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To: Kaslin

“Is that what the British found at the Boston Tea Party? Compromise?”

Let us remember that, during American Independence and the Revolution, approximately 30% of the populace wanted a free, independent America, 30% didn’t care one way or the other, and 30% were Monarchists that wanted America to be enslaved to foreign rule.

We must keep fighting with the understanding that probably 30% of Americans still want America to be enslaved to foreign rule. The only difference is that their King has become Global Socialism/Communism.


8 posted on 02/10/2010 4:04:17 AM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: Kaslin
Carville writes a book predicting 40 years of liberal dominance and liberalism gets squashed in eleven months.

Sweet.

9 posted on 02/10/2010 4:11:51 AM PST by wayoverontheright
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To: Kaslin

When Palin takes over as Prez... she needs to ban carville and his wife that sleeps with evil!

LLS


10 posted on 02/10/2010 4:21:09 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (hussama will never be my president... NEVER!)
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To: Kaslin

America realizes when Marxism is pointing them straight in the face.


11 posted on 02/10/2010 4:22:30 AM PST by JohnLongIsland ( schmuckie schucks)
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To: Kaslin

Balloon Boy is an apt description of O. The media was the promoter of the scam and the American people bought into the story.....but the scam has been exposed.


12 posted on 02/10/2010 4:25:06 AM PST by Carley (Are you better off now than one year ago? HELL NO!!!!!)
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To: Kaslin

Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgP2UoO3a14


13 posted on 02/10/2010 4:41:45 AM PST by Jack Hydrazine
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To: Kaslin

You elect a racist moron and this is what happens.

He didnt even know his preacher was teahcing racism.
How stupid is that?

He didnt know his friend Bill Ayres was a terrorist.
How stupid is that?

The fear of a black uprising if his true credentials appear is the only thing keeping him in office.


14 posted on 02/10/2010 4:50:01 AM PST by Venturer
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To: STARWISE; pt17; Sparky1776; GOPsterinMA; nutmeg; Madame Dufarge; onyx; penelopesire; ...
Democrats' Arrogance and Sneers At Townhalls Precipitated Their Downfall

"It was only a year ago that DC liberal elites were shoveling dirt on conservatism. James Carville was writing boastful books about 40 years of Democrat dominance, boasting that he could call "time of death" on the Republican Party. Liberals believed their own hype that Obama would be the black FDR. Obama's hot-air balloon has crashed to Earth........."

Conservatism is back with a swagger.


15 posted on 02/10/2010 7:01:11 AM PST by Liz (A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat nearby.)
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To: Liz

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2447804/posts


16 posted on 02/10/2010 7:06:11 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (Support our troops, and vote out the RINO's!)
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To: Liz; STARWISE; hoosiermama; SE Mom; maggief; stephenjohnbanker; Sparky1776; GOPsterinMA; jhw61; ...
TEA PARTIES NATION WIDE!


17 posted on 02/10/2010 7:27:42 AM PST by onyx (BE A MONTHLY DONOR - I AM)
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To: Kaslin
Obama basically took over GM and Chrysler. And the media still screamed when anyone called this "socialist."

Well, maybe that was because it wasn't as much socialist as it was FASCIST.

18 posted on 02/10/2010 7:29:52 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
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To: Liz

One thing you can generally count on is liberals breathing their own exhaust. It’s what they do best.


19 posted on 02/10/2010 7:35:37 AM PST by pt17
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To: onyx

Obama: “That damned pickup truck!”


20 posted on 02/10/2010 7:36:41 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (Support our troops, and vote out the RINO's!)
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