News and Commentary on Politics, Media and Culture

Frustrated with Washington, with career politicians, with presidential candidates who do not represent what we believe in, Conservatives presently have only one option:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”. — Theodore Roosevelt

I heard Dave Ramsey give the above quote on talk radio yesterday about financial matters, but I thought it fit the political situation for Conservatives perfectly. We can’t do anything about the presidential candidates, but we can try to change things in or own little part of this great nation. We have to try and vote out the bad guys, vote in some new good guys, and start from the bottom and work our way to the top. No small task my friends.

Here’s the present situation:

A news report comes from London that “For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama’s victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States at a time when the nation’s image abroad has been seriously damaged.” Finally the United States has done something that the rest of the world can be proud of — we’ve elected a Black man as a presidential candidate???. Looking back over America’s history, I see so many things that should make the world proud of us — but it’s Barack Obama that makes people from Britain, India, Kenya, proud of us?

We can add groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Nation of Islam, Iran, and others to the list of groups who are happy about Obama, although I don’t think they were mentioned in the Washington Post article.

Jimmy Carter has advised Barack Obama NOT to choose Hillary Clinton for his Vice Presidential running mate. “I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made,” said Carter. “That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates.” What? Carter admits Obama has ‘negative aspects’?

Then we have reporters making stupid statements like “we don’t have enemies”, Sounds like something Carter or Obama might say. No, “The U.S. Has Rivals and Competitors, Not Enemies.” God help us all.

The E-Word:

PHILADELPHIA–”A Gallup poll,” Libby Quaid wrote for the Associated Press on June 2^nd, “found that two-thirds of [Americans] said they believe it would be a good idea for the president to meet with the leaders of enemy countries.”

Who are they referring to? An enemy is a country with whom a nation is at war. “Enemy countries”? We have enemies (hi, Osama). We have critics. We even have competitors. But the United States doesn’t have enemy countries. [snip]

Occasionally someone tries to point out the obvious: we’re not at war. No war = no enemies. It’s the truth. But the truth doesn’t go over well. [snip]

Enemies! Enemies! Enemies! Enemies everywhere, but never an attack.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?,” an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America’s next big foreign policy challenge.)

We have enemies my friends, enemy countries, enemy terror groups, enemy individuals, and enemies in this country, in the media, and in Washington:

Mickey Edwards who is a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, wrote “Reclaiming Conservatism,” and is a lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, writes: “The central feature of American government, the one that made the United States “exceptional” and preserved our freedoms for more than 200 years, is in the process of being destroyed. The enemy is not in Iraq or the hills of Pakistan but in Washington and in cities and towns throughout the United States.”

Indeed, enemies of America do not have to launch a military attack to be called ENEMIES.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., recently bemoaned the fact that legislators were going to have to fend for themselves in November’s elections.

“You are going to run on who you are and establish some independence,” he told The New York Times, “and that is going to be tougher for some than others.”

[snip] I had assumed that was precisely what they were supposed to do.

The opposite, of course, would be to pretend to be someone other than who one really is, or to have no convictions other than to obey somebody else’s directives. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has a similar confusion. On National Public Radio, she said part of her job as House speaker was to ensure that there would be a Democratic majority in the next Congress. That, of course, is likely to happen regardless of what she does, but that is actually the job of the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Pelosi’s job is to legislate and to see to it that the House fulfills its constitutional duties as a separate, independent and equal branch of the federal government. [snip]

In November, voters will elect every member of the House and one-third of the members of the Senate. In January, each successful candidate will take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Perhaps it would be good for each of them to get a crash course in exactly what that means.

Amen and Amen!

In your neighborhood, make sure the candidates know what you expect of them when they get to Washington. A refresher course on the Constitution might be in order. And remind them, if they want your vote, they need to remember who their boss is — not the Washington insiders, not the money changers, … but YOU.