Welcome to the gulag

A voter asks Barack Obama a question on a rope line and tells the candidate he doesn't like the answer he's hearing. John McCain picks up on his answer, and the voter -- now known universally as Joe the Plumber -- gets his 15 minutes of fame.

But wait. Now the vicious left with Obama's allies in the media are in overdrive to destroy the guy. Publishing his home address on the internet, poring over his business records, doing everything in their power to ruin him, his business and his life. Just because he asked a question of a political candidate. The KGB would be proud.

A businessman in a Washington, D.C. suburb dares to display his support for the McCain-Palin ticket and is instantly accused of disrespecting African-Americans because he is opposing Obama. He takes the sign down. Opposition will not be tolerated in the new America.

These are scary times, my friends. As usual, the voices of tolerance are the most intolerant, and they're emboldened because they know they're coming into power. These are the people who have imposed politically correct speech codes on campuses nationwide and periodically make a pass at restricting our constitutionally-guaranteed right of free speech, usually in the guise of hate crime laws. But they don't hesitate to viciously go after anyone they disagree with, posting anything online they can think of (just ask the Palin family) and circulating it as widely as they can. Then their friends in the used-to-be-respectable media pick it up as if it were gospel.

The internet gives distance and anonymity to many of these cowardly character assassins. In South Korea, these kind of postings have become such a problem that a number of recent high-profile suicides are attributed to it. Be prepared. Many of these people will stop at nothing to silence those who disagree with them.

 

Where's FDR?

Where's Reagan when you need him, talking about that bright shining city on a hill?

Where's FDR, telling the American people they have nothing to fear but fear itself?

Where's JFK, asking us what we can do for our own country?

Where's Teddy Roosevelt, commanding the nation and the world at his bully pulpit?

Instead, as we face what we're being told is perhaps the worst financial crisis in U.S. history, we have a parade of gloomy Gusses, from President Bush through John McCain to the various front men (and women) in the U.S. Congress. Not even Barack Obama has risen to rhetorical heights of any kind.

Come on, people, you are our leaders -- or want to be. So lead. Inspire us, motivate us, make us feel good again about being Americans. Instead of tagging on at the end of your remarks, as Bush did the other night, that we're great, we're Americans, blah, blah, blah, come out swinging. Bush didn't even end his address with "God bless America."

The 24/7 media fans the flames to higher and higher intensity, throwing around words like "crisis" and "Great Depression" like so many leaves in the wind. Just as every whispering breeze is now another Hurricane Katrina, now every bounced check is a "financial meltdown." We are certainly faced with a very serious economic situation right now, but I, for one, would like to see a little more reasoned discussion and a little less rush to daylight.

Where is America's leader at this time of crisis? Stand up, Mr. President (or Mr. Wanna-Be President), and tell it to us straight: "Look, ladies and gentlemen, we're in a helluva financial mess, and now we have to clean it up. There'll be plenty of time later to point the finger, but let's get going. Americans have met plenty of challenges like this head-on, and we've always won. We'll win again. You can count on it -- because we're Americans. That's why people flock to this country from all over the world 'cause in America you're the master of your own fate. So now we need to work out a plan that we can all live with -- not too much government, but more than some of you will like. But a lot less than many of you want, too. Keep your faith in your bank, and pay your bills. We WILL prevail. God bless you and your families, and remain confident that God will continue to bless the United States of America."

I'm not sure if any of our major candidates could deliver that speech with a straight face. Too bad. I wonder what President Palin would say.

It's all about me

Other than perhaps the day in 1963 when he famously declared himself a jelly doughnut ("Ich bin ein Berliner"), President John F. Kennedy's most remembered quotation came in his inaugural address of Jan. 20, 1961, when he urged his fellow Americans: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

It was the kind of uplifting challenge that symbolized the opening of the anything-is-possible 1960s and rightfully has been in the history books and on the lips of many Americans ever since. Baby Boomers even like to believe we've practiced what he preached.

Now a new Camelot is at hand. Comparisons between JFK and Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama have been rife for months. Expect them to increase. Just today a photo caption in the New York Times describes Mrs. Obama's dress as having "a Camelot reference."

Mr. Obama's charisma and his sunny prescription of hope in a fairly dismal time are viewed through the lens of the aging Left and their don't-know-any-better younger allies as a reincarnation of the youthful Kennedy bringing an end to the dark ages of the Eisenhower presidency. Students of history realize, of course, that it was the triumph of style over substance, but that's another story.

What a difference 47 years make though. Now Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, will spend the next five months turning Mr. Kennedy's deathless quotation upside down, offering every kind of government prescription possible and then some. In the age of no-responsibility, the new mantra is, "Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do for you."

Doesn't ring quite as true, does it? Oh well, don't worry: No one's going to drop that line in a campaign speech this summer or fall.

 

A party that stands for nothing

Official Republican shock at the loss this week of one of the party's safest House seats is amusing at best. Are these political professionals so removed from reality that they don't realize the Republican imprimatur is the kiss of death across the country? Maybe they need to talk to a few more people beyond the Beltway that aren't on their payrolls.

This was in Mississippi, too, which actually has one of the most effective Republican leaders around in Gov. Haley Barbour. His handling of the aftermath of Katrina versus that of officialdom in Louisiana is a lesson in good governance.

We're not even talking about the desert that George W. Bush has made of the conservative movement. It's painful to watch so-called conservative leaders clinging to the last vestiges of the Bush presidency and perhaps even more so witnessing their growing allegiance to John McCain's candidacy. When that nomination is settled in Minneapolis-St. Paul this summer, it will effectively mark the end of the Reagan Revolution once and for all.

Mr. McCain is now courting liberals and independents with a distinctly soft-left message, so his nomination also will further blur the distinctions between Republicans and Democrats. With the two parties then virtually identical in their positions, except perhaps for the GOP's continued endorsement of the Iraq war, the contest will boil down to which one has the most attractive candidate, and that's Barack Obama hands-down.

Peggy Noonan puts it beautifully in today's Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party's fortunes from the president's. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn't be left with a ruined "brand," as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

Sad but true.

Cut out the middleman

The modern American political "debate" is a predictable affair. Telegraphed questions, pre-planned answers, practiced one-liners and occasionally a glimpse of something that matters. These days the quick answer is to blame the moderator(s). Remember the Des Moines Register editor who never asked the Republican contenders about illegal immigration just days before the Iowa caucuses, even though polls showed it consistently as one of the most important issues to voters.

But it isn't just the moderators: They're bit players really.  It's the process of politics as practiced today -- scripted most of the way. 

No Lincoln-Douglas debates; no Clay, Calhoun and Webster bashing out the slavery issue in real time on the floor of the Senate.

Something historic may be at hand, with the report that Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are considering  "holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer." You mean, one-on-one -- talking about what they think is important rather than just responding? The ability to challenge or at least politely question each other?

Call me naive, but this idea offers real possibilities. Now let's see if the candidates (and, more importantly, their handlers) follow through on it. May the best man win.

 

Enough Katrina already

Is it me, or do other people agree that we have done enough to help New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina? This is one natural disaster that just won't go away. How many more unaccounted billions of taxpayer dollars need to flow into the city before it's enough? The answer is as elusive as a cure for AIDS.

Now Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, in his continuing pander tour to traditional Democratic constituencies, is getting in the act. According to the senator from Arizona, the Bush administration blew it, and he'll make sure it never happens again. Talk about piling on. Is Katrina the political gift that keeps on giving, or what?

I still want an explanation for all those school buses sitting in water instead of transporting people to safety.

Conservatives aren't likely to jump the reservation over Mr. McCain's comments. But how about some people from New Orleans standing up to tell us about all the exciting things THEY are doing rather than more talk about more government? Enough is enough.