October 21, 2010

New Column: What Should a Republican Majority Do?

Many are preoccupied speculating about the magnitude of the impending Republican electoral victory, but I don't think it's putting the cart before the horse to caution that we also ought to be concerned -- now -- about what Republicans will do if they do recapture control.

The Republicans' power will obviously be limited, even if they emerge with majorities in both chambers, because Obama will remain in charge of the coequal executive branch. So how should the GOP proceed?

The reflexive Beltway response is that it ought to compromise with Obama to produce legislation. But there are a number of problems with that premise.

Contrary to his self-portrayal as post-partisan, Obama is a dogmatic ideologue who is so determined to "fundamentally change" America that he will remain on point, even if it means relegating himself to one term. He might pretend to move to the center, but his life's mission, from which he will not be deterred, is to move America way leftward.

But assume, for argument's sake, that Obama will approach the new Republican majorities in an authentic spirit of compromise. What then?

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 04:50 PM | Printer Friendly

October 18, 2010

New Column: Obama Can't Be Wrong, so We Must Be Crazy

Memo to those who believe Obama is going to move to the center following his upcoming electoral smack-down: Dream on! Many of you also told us he wouldn't be that liberal in the first instance. Is that egg on your face sticky yet?

I'm not denying that Obama might pretend to move to the center on some issues. As an accomplished Alinskyite, he'll do what he has to do to move the socialist football forward. But if he feints to the center, it will not be real. He will not deviate from his relentless quest to advance his leftist agenda. And you wouldn't, either, if you had his warped mindset, God forbid!

This guy isn't just arrogant; he's an elitist, contemptuous of the unwashed who don't have the mental clarity to see issues the way he does. It would never occur to him to actually readjust his policies.

The more we've seen him off prompter the more we've learned about his heartfelt beliefs. His notorious "bitter clingers" moment wasn't a verbal slip; it was Obama being candid. He didn't just say (in effect) that "some people out there in fly-over country don't share our values but mean well." He implied there's something wrong with them (us) psychologically, spiritually and even morally for clinging to their Bibles, their guns and their antipathy toward people who aren't like them. That is, they're simple-minded, aggressive bigots.

When Obama runs into opposition on his agenda, it never occurs to him that he could be wrong. That's why every time his policies are rebuffed, he reacts the same way: "They don't understand my plan. It's too complicated. I haven't given enough speeches on the subject or spoken to people about their core values. I want the people to take another look at my plan."

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 05:51 PM | Printer Friendly

October 14, 2010

The Sophistry of Coons' Professed Loyalty to the Constitution

It is interesting and disappointing that so many politicians treat "faith" -- at least the Christian faith -- as a poison pill they cannot touch, much less swallow. Republicans often run from it because of PC intimidation, and Democrats because it's in their DNA to do so.

There was a revealing exchange touching on this subject in the Delaware U.S. Senate debate between Christine O'Donnell and Chris Coons. O'Donnell said, "But regardless of my personal faith, when I go down to Washington, D.C., it is the Constitution that I will defend and it is by the Constitution that I will make all of my decisions, and that will be the standard-bearer for every piece of legislation that I will vote on."

I don't want to be hard on O'Donnell, whom I admire and support, but I think she articulated her position inartfully here, probably because of unnecessary defensiveness about the potential role of her Christian faith in her governance.

I suspect what she meant was that though she stands by her faith unapologetically, she would not permit it to trump the Constitution if there were a conflict between the two (a needless concern). I am convinced she did not mean that her worldview would not guide her legislative preferences.

The Constitution establishes parameters within which Congress can legislate and forbids it to legislate on matters over which it has neither enumerated powers nor powers arising from the "necessary and proper" clause. I assume O'Donnell meant that she would honor those constitutional guidelines but wasn't speaking to what would guide her policy advocacy within those parameters.

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 04:38 PM | Printer Friendly

October 11, 2010

An Interesting Parallel

In preparation for a Bible study tomorrow I was reading Hebrews 3 and a passage struck me as paralleling something I'd just read in Professor Lennox's article on Stephen Hawking's theory that the laws of physics, rather than the will of God, explain how life came into being -- as articulated in his book, The Grand Design. In the article, Lennox wrote,

"What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own - but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Whittle as its agent. Similarly, the laws of physics could never have actually built the universe. Some agency must have been involved."

Now look at Hebrews 3:1-6 (NIV): Jesus Greater Than Moses

1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

Is it just me, or is the a cool, serendipitous find?

Posted by David Limbaugh at 11:30 PM | Printer Friendly

Obama's Chamber Smear Is Business As Usual

The most noteworthy aspect of President Barack Obama's slander of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for allegedly "stealing our democracy" by laundering foreign corporate donations is that such disgraceful behavior is par for the course for this self-described post-partisan president.

It is a mistake to believe that he was making a mistake. The baseless charge was calculated and part of the Alinskyite strategy he and his thuggish team have used in virtually every political battle. That's all they know.

They pick, isolate and demonize targets instead of debating the merits of their policy agenda items. We saw this approach on cap and trade, the stimulus bill, Obamacare and the financial reform bill, and now they're using it for the upcoming elections.

They throw out damaging allegations knowing they're untrue and doggedly pursue them even when their hand is called. In the case of the chamber smear, CBS' Bob Schieffer challenged Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod to substantiate the administration's claim. He said, "Mr. Axelrod ... do you have any evidence that it's anything other than peanuts?"

Axelrod, displaying the signature arrogance of the administration, didn't even bother to offer anything concrete. He said, "Well, do you have any evidence that it's not, Bob?"

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 05:30 PM | Printer Friendly

October 07, 2010

Of Course Obama Hasn't Yielded to Americans' Will

Just in case anyone mistakenly believes Obama has heard (or gives a rip about) the loud voice of the American people rejecting his socialism, appeasement, unconstitutional abuses of power and unpresidential combativeness and divisiveness, let me share a few tidbits.

--After House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a damning critique of Obama's economic policies, the administration's economic philosopher Joe Biden issued a rebuttal, assuring us it was their predecessor who got us into this mess. That's novel.

--Obama renewed his war on Fox News, saying it is a "destructive" force in American society, while the White House lauded MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow as providing "an invaluable service" to America.

--Rep. Paul Ryan reports that Obama's latest "fiscal year ends in fiscal failure." Congress broke for recess, "prioritizing election over stopping looming tax hikes." It failed to complete any of the 12 annual appropriations bills, pass a budget resolution and stop the tax increases.

--The White House produced a bizarre tax video series, with the first one claiming that "objective economists" all agree that raising taxes in this bad economy would be good for the economy. Surreal.

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 04:39 PM | Printer Friendly

October 04, 2010

The Fruits of Obama's Muslim Outreach

I realize it's unfair and, according to some, even racist to hold President Obama accountable for his failed economic policies and cynical campaign promises, but could we at least raise a question or two about his foreign policy boasts?

Was it not President Obama who said that President George W. Bush had tarnished our image in the world and that he would restore it by reaching out to the Muslim world and not "engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush"?

Obama wasn't alone. The conventional wisdom on the left, both at home and abroad, was that America's policies were partially responsible for incurring the wrath of jihadists that led to the 9/11 attacks and that President Bush's aggressive response to the attacks had exacerbated the problem.

Shortly after Obama was elected, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu said that Obama's very election had turned America's (abysmal) global image on its head. He wrote in The Washington Post, "A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we had our first shock, hearing your president respond not with the statesmanlike demeanor we had come to expect from a U.S. head of state but like a Western gunslinger." Tutu then proceeded to list the many alleged sins of the United States under Bush: our abuse of prisoners, rendition, torture, "hostility to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases," our refusal to assent to the authority of the International Criminal Court, and "the arrogant unilateralism (we have) employed in declaring to be enemies any countries (we) deemed 'against us' because they were not 'for us.'" The "Bush administration," wrote Tutu, "has riled people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude has sadly polarized our world."

Reading this makes me wonder whether Tutu has been one of Obama's speechwriters. All the talking points are there. Could anyone read Tutu's words, which should be revolting to patriotic Americans, and deny that they mirror Obama's both on the campaign trail and during office? It's all there, from the cowboy references to torture to unilateralism to rendition and prisoner abuse to environmental wackoism to America's "arrogance."

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 04:41 PM | Printer Friendly

September 30, 2010

'Finding $700 Billion Is Not Easy' -- if You're a Socialist

A couple of back-to-back statements by President Obama at a town hall rally in Des Moines, Iowa, tell us all we need to know about his economic philosophy and that we aren't going to climb out of his recession and begin to slow the growth of the national debt as long as he's calling the shots.

Voters, he said, tell him to "cut government spending." But "most spending is for veterans, for education, for defense. ... Finding $700 billion is not easy."

Yet a few minutes earlier, in response to criticism over illegal immigrants getting health care in the United States, he had said, "It is very important that we have compassion as part of our national character." (How about compassion for future generations of Americans?)

Does anyone see the disconnect here? If Obama believes our national character is deficient unless we expand the welfare state to illegal immigrants, then how could he ever preside over a balanced budget?

His wildly inaccurate statement about where the money is spent is equally revealing. For fiscal year 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and other sources, benefits for veterans constituted about 3.5 percent of the budget; education expenditures were 3 percent; and defense and security totaled about 20 percent.

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 10:37 PM | Printer Friendly

September 27, 2010

What Is a Narcissist To Do?

With news of President Obama's plan to swarm the heartland this week to re-energize his base, one wonders whether he's finally heard the message that mainstream America is repulsed by his agenda. Is his direct appeal to "the young and minority voters" an admission that he's beyond electoral redemption with the rest?

Well, a new George Washington University Battleground poll indicates that only 38 percent of Americans believe he deserves to be re-elected. His personal approval rating is higher -- mystifyingly -- but that is doubtlessly small comfort to Democratic congressmen, whose political fortunes are on the line in just five weeks.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the midterm elections will be nationalized like never before (including 1994), and the primary issue at play in these so-called "local" elections will be the president's agenda, just as it was with the U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts. The Republicans were smart to introduce their "pledge" notwithstanding its flaws, but even without it, the congressional elections would have been nationalized.

The Washington Post reports that Obama is focusing his efforts on his "surge" voters -- "the roughly 15 million Americans who voted for the first time in 2008" -- because the polls are "showing independent voters swinging toward Republicans in Wisconsin and the nation's other battlegrounds."

But even Obama's 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, acknowledges that though many of these voters still strongly approve of the president, "a lot of them aren't showing enough predilection to vote."

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 07:10 PM | Printer Friendly

September 23, 2010

GOP Pledge Is a Step in the Right Direction

The Republicans' "Pledge to America" is an encouraging step on the road back to recapturing America. It's not enough for Republicans merely to stop Obama's disastrously destructive agenda in its tracks. This pledge is their acknowledgment that they have heard the grass roots, too -- that they are not exempt from scrutiny or accountability merely because they are the anti-Obamas.

Rep. Paul Ryan conceded as much in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos when he said that the Republicans have lost their way in the past and that with this pledge, they are embracing bold steps to get this nation back on track.

That said, Ryan made clear that Republicans are not trying to reinvent the wheel. Rather, he said, "We are here trying to reclaim our country by rededicating ourselves to those timeless principles that made us exceptional." The pledge, he said, contains the basic building blocks to get us back on the right track.

Precisely correct. This is not rocket science. It's a matter of rolling back government, radically reducing spending, ensuring that taxes are not so high that they smother economic growth, repealing and replacing Obamacare, bolstering our national defense and embracing traditional values.

These are not complicated ideas, and they don't need to be. We just want to restore government to its intended role under the Constitution. These timeless principles -- not some gimmicky ideas designed by faux conservatives to appeal to "moderates" -- are what allowed America to be exceptional.

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Posted by David Limbaugh at 06:04 PM | Printer Friendly