The Republican Party, McCain, and Palin Need a Timeout
Reader Comments
Response to Joe the Plumber
What the liberal biased media forgot to mention was that Joe the Plumber did show up to the McCain rally that day and stood on the stage with McCain.
How dare Farrell blame the Republicans for absolutely everything!
In 2001, almost every American citizen was prepared to go to war, not just the Republicans. The President is not the one to declare war, Congress is. The Democrats in Congress were also prepared to go to war. The blame cannot be put upon just the Republicans, but on the country as a whole.
Also, John McCain and Sarah Palin don't need a "smart way out", because they are not trying to get out. They are going to finish the war with dignity, unlike the Democrats, who do not want to be responsible for their actions. All that they are going to achieve by getting out of the war is ruining America's reputation even more!
And just because we have a Republican President that does not mean that just the Republicans or Bush need to be blamed for everything. In recent years, the Democrats have had control of Congress. They have enough seats that they could have passed the bailout bill the first time without any help fronm the Republicans, yet the Republicans were blamed for not passing the bill.
I am sick and tired of the Republicans being blamed for everything just because we have a Republican President.
Farrell also says that "the Democrats at least know what they want to do... they are singing from the same sheet of music."
The Republicans don't need to all have the exact same beliefs to be considered Republicans. One of the great things about this country is the variety. They are still Republicans as long as they hold conservative beliefs. There is a difference in how conservative an opinion can be. There can be strong conservative opinions and moderate conservative opinions, but they are all conservative. At least the Republicans have variety in their Party, unlike the Democrats, who only have identical opinions, according to this article.
Joe the Plummer
I see he No Showed McCain's rally... maybe he decided to go pay his delinquent taxes.
Yes... a thoughful, articulate man with common sense and American values... yeppers!
Geez... is it election time yet? I'll be singing that song... Back to Alaska!
raise shields and brace yourselves
A democrat president, democrat house and democrat senate with filibuster proof majority basically means our system of checks and balances has been short circuited. Even more so if Obama gets a couple of Supreme Court judges thrown in. There won't even be any moderate voices within the democrats. Joe Liberman is already being targeted for daring to have a different opinion. If there is any silver lining, they won't be able to blame the upcoming train wreck on the republicans. They'll try of course, but the public will soon start to notice that George Bush isn't up there anymore. No Bush, no Cheney, no Rove. No scapegoats left. We are about to see what high taxes and high social spending will do to a country in a recession. It's going to be a hard four years just to give the public lessons in basic history and economics.
Good column ...
...you really hit the nail on the head.
Regardless of what one felt about the Reagan years, they are moving further and further into ancient history. The Republican party is increasingly being defined in terms of the Bush 43 years. They cannot continue to live on the Reagan legacy and on social wedge issues.
To the atrocious track record of recent years which you have succinctly outlined, I would add fiscal recklessness.
Rhetoric about tax cuts (and this applies to McCain as well) don't count for much when (1) they mainly go to the super-rich, exacerbating the concentration of wealth and the (once again) growing problem of poverty in America, and (2) the national debt is exploding, thus meaning that we are just pushing taxes onto the next generation. "Tax cuts" under these circumstances are not tax cuts at all; they are just stealing from our children. Just the *interest* on the national debt is consuming half a trillion dollars annually of our taxes.
Tax cuts and big deficits may or may not have served their purpose during the Reagan years. However, the money still has to come from somewhere, and the "logic" of the Laffer Curve has long since been debunked.
McCain also said he will bring our troops home in victory, not in defeat as Obama would.
How dare him to suggest that our troops could come home as anything but heroes!!!
Our brave men and women have already made America proud and to suggest that a policy made in Washington would diminish their sacrifice is disgusting.
If a Democrat would have rattled off that garbage, the Republicans would have pounced all over it saying it was "Anti-American" and "We support our troops"
McCain is actually trying to slander our troops to further his campaign, I'm pretty sure that's not putting country first!
"A timeout could well put the GOP at risk of going the way of the Whig party"
Good!!! We handed this country to the Republicans on a silver platter. We gave them the ability to do what ever they wanted with no oversight from the Democrates. Through absolute greed and incompetence, they have destroyed our country.
How can anyone possibly defend this party. Americans are dying. People are going homeless, going hungry, losing their jobs, going without medications and medical treatment. Not to mention the brave men and women giving their lives for this country in a war caused by lies.
"And, with but a modicum of Republican cooperation, a Democratic administration may even reduce the number of abortions, reform the tax system, end our dependence on foreign oil, and get costly entitlement programs under control"
I am curious, how will it be possible to end our dependence on foreign oil and get our costly entitlement system under control when the party that will be in control of everything is opposed to tapping domestic oil sources and is proposing new entitlements such as a government subsidized healthcare plan? And believe it or not, taxes on the "rich" are not a panacea that will solve all of our problems, although you wouldn't know that from listening to the Democratic Party. Evidently taking more and more money from the people who work hard to earn it and redistributing it to people who didn't is the answer to everything. Just ask Barack Obama.
And it is absolutely amazing that the author of this piece can rattle off all of the things Democrats claim they want to do and state that is a foregone conclusion that it will be accomplished, simply because the Democrats say so. I seem to remember Republicans claiming the same exact things concering health care, entitlement reform etc. How much of that stuff was accomplished. It is beyond naivete for anyone, particularly someone who writes about politics for a living, to make bold statements like that simply because so many wondrous things were promised by politicians.
Also the author claims we have been punishing the Democrats for four decades for what they did in the sixties. So I am guessing you can think of absolutely nothing they did wrong in the intervening years. I guess the Carter years never took place. And evidently the author thinks the Democrats have done absolutely nothing wrong, at all, in the past forty years that would make someone vote for the Republican party. What arrogance.
"Have you noticed that, overall, when a republican responds to questions about who will win the election, it's a response of fear, loathing, "your world as you know it will end", "what about us" kind of response? But when a democratic, (and of course, this is a generalization, but by no means a gross one) is one of a more logical, "what about our nation", "how about the poor, uneducated", "we can do this" kind of response?"
The above quote is, quite simply, absolutely ridiculous. The most tedious thing to listen to every election season is the Democrats claiming they don't engage in fearmongering or negative attack ads. Anyone who has turned on his TV during election season and watches the negative ads knows this is absolute nonsense.
And the reason many people respond pessimistically when asked about an Obama presidency is because they think his policies would be absolutely horrible for this country. High taxes and out of control spending will not solve an economic crisis. I have a distinct feeling that when asked about a second Bush term in 2004, most Democrats didn't respond with "what can we do to help the poor". To claim that Democrats didn't engage in fearmongering and handwringing during that election is another easily refutable lie.
