The good old days

The current administration makes me pine for GWB.

I miss GW's wisdom, his steadfast adherence to his ideals no matter what the facts. Science shmience. Intelligence shmelligence.

He really appreciated loyalty, too. In choosing senior civil servants, he recognized that fealty to the cause is way more important than relevant experience. (Except that he threw Scooter under the bus. Cheney had the right idea there: you stand up for your guys all the way, period, even if they did lie.)

Sigh. There are so many things to miss about GWB. I just felt so safe when he was in office. With him strengthening America’s position in the world. He just really put things on the right track.

Except that he wasn’t conservative enough. That was his only problem.

A tribute to conservative media

Any American watching this video will be proud. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKBa9K_vAm8 The rational, balanced people shown here really help bring up the level of political discourse in our country. It’s a credit to the First Amendment that we still have media in this country with the integrity to truly educate the citizenry about the actual details of proposals before Congress and the facts behind them.

Young Cons Anthem on YouTube

These Dartmouth students, wise beyond their years, are demonstrating that liberals, I mean socialists, don’t have a monopoly on new media mastery. These guys really have something special: they stay true to conservative ideals while combining musical talent and fresh thinking in a really hip, telegenic package. It’s rich young white kids like this who could wind up completely converting their demographic to Republican voters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkeZ2P4SiY8

Liberal, socialist, progressive

Quick note about word choice. Recently in the news (http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090423/pl_politico/21638) was an item about an RNC conference measure to re-brand the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Socialist Party.” In case you hadn't noticed yet, "Socialist" is the new favorite word of conservatives, and has completely replaced "liberal" in our vocabulary. "Liberal" is shopworn, "Socialist" is fresh. BTW, you'll notice that those on the left don't use the term "liberal" anymore either; now, they say they're "progressive." So "liberal" is totally out.

Purging our head

RNC Chairman Michael Steele has got to go. Not only is it not OK to be a moderate, it's not OK to even reach out to moderates. Yet here is Michael Steele saying crazy stuff like this: “I’m a student of multiplication and addition, and not subtraction and division. My focus is on building a party that reaches across the board.” No wonder conservatives are attacking the guy (http://conservativeamerican.org/, for example). We need to purge for the sake of our purity. The motto for our strategy for 2010 has got to be "Shrink to Win in 2010!"

Come on, Michael, be the rabid dog a party chairman is suppposed to be (like Howard Dean).

Prediction: Steele is gone before the end of the year.

Shrink to win

We're all riled up about Charlie Crist since he announced he'll run for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez in 2010.

The main pieces of evidence against Crist are that he hugs Obama and he doesn't have a family.

He's also not across-the-board anti-tax, having proposed cuts in property taxes but an increase in cigarette taxes, and if there's anything I can't stand it's a moderate. You say his views are nuanced, I say he's a waffler. We have to be black and white on our issues. Pro-life. (That's always the top issue). Anti-tax. Pro-family (i.e. anti-gay, plus pro-life). Pro-gun. There's no in-between on our issues, and I don't trust anyone who is in between or even smells in between. And Charlie Crist smells in between.

As one learned commentator on RedState.com says about the Crist-versus-Rubio Senate race in 2010, "It is not an understatement to say the heart and soul of the GOP will be determined in the Florida election."

Here's another nice zinger from that site: "Crist is much more interested in protecting endangered animals than Florida’s tax payers." I like that, getting in a gratuitous dig on environmentalists.

We don't want guys like Crist, even if they can win a seat that would otherwise go to the Democrats. I'd rather have purity. It's easier on my brain.

Why we're better than England

It's because we don't ban people like conservative talk-show host Michael Savage from our country. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/05/07/us.savage.banned/index.html OK, we couldn't, really, since he's a U.S. citizen, but even if we could, we wouldn't, even if he is a mean-spirited bigot, because we believe in freedom of speech and trust that the best ideas will triumph over inferior ideas. Those Brits probably banned Savage just because he isn't classy enough for them. Maybe the BBC doesn't give chavs their own radio shows.

Logic game: read the two statements below and answer the question that follows.

Statement 1. Home Secretary Jacquie Smith cited Savage for "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence."

Statement 2. Savage said, "I have never, ever promoted violence. There has never been one violent incident attached to my show."

Question: What part of the British Home Secretary's characterization did Michael Savage not deny?