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What To Call Tea Party People?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2010 Comment (60)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I need a journalistic wise man, or woman, to help me with a question of reportorial ethics. To wit: my use of the term "tea baggers."
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Why Democrats Cannot Give up on Health Reform Now
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2010 Comment (27)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If the Democrats on Capital Hill could caucus, and agree on a quick, magical, cost-free path to add about 5 million new jobs in the next six months, they would do so.
But they can't. The effects of the recession need to work themselves out. Aside from the capture of Osama bin Laden, there is no quick crowd-pleaser out there for President Obama and his troops in Congress.
Instead, they must pass their healthcare bill. Having gotten it this far, to surrender would be an invitation for political slaughter.
As usual, it's the Speaker of the House who recognizes this reality. Speakers know their members, and members know their constituencies.
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Beck’s Bad History: Roosevelt Was No Socialist
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2010 Comment (22)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One could make a career correcting the daffy ravings of Glenn Beck, but life on the planet is short. And besides, why would a liberaltarian like myself want to stop Beck and his tea baggers from drumming some of the Republican Party's greatest presidents--Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt--out of the conservative movement, on the charge of insufficient purity?
My old pal Grover Norquist once gave me a lesson on the importance of heroes and symbols to a movement--he's been trying to get Reagan's visage on a coin for years. Now the tea bag Cerberi want to disown the two Republicans who made it to Mt. Rushmore, and Beck has announced that Reagan wasn't really a conservative after all.
Confusion to our enemies, says I, and God bless all here.
Nevertheless, Beck's reading of history is so wrong-headed and perverse that we who labor in the archives and the stacks are obligated to correct the record.
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Stop Blabbing and Get Tiger Woods Back on the Golf Course
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2010 Comment (19)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Was Tiger Woods the upright family man, well-mannered Stanford gentleman, and tender-hearted philanthropist that we so wanted to see when he was dominating the PGA tour?
No.
Is Tiger Woods the hideously selfish and drug-taking satyr described to our delight over the last nine weeks by various Las Vegas waitresses, party girls, and porn actresses who claim to be his intimate companions?
Maybe a little.
Is Tiger Woods the contrite and chastened sinner who apologized to the public on Friday?
Time will tell.
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Healthcare Rate Increases Are a Political Wake Up Call for Democrats
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2010 Comment (26)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
There is a lot of room for fun and fantasy in Washington. Policy points are scored, rhetorical pistols leveled, and partisans joust with cocktail forks. And then, occasionally, reality intrudes.
Scott Brown’s election to the Senate was one such intrusion--a dramatic political upset that forced everyone inside the Beltway to pay attention to the discontent of the citizenry.
But I suspect, in the long run, that WellPoint’s Anthem Blue Cross unit’s recent announcement--that it was raising the price of health insurance by about 40 percent--will be another.
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The Terrifying Truth Behind Obama's Secret Socialist Agenda
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2010 Comment (26)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I have some sympathy for the tea baggers. I, too, lost a bunch of money in the Bush stock market crash, and haven't earned it back yet in the Obama economic recovery. And the value of my home has dropped a bit, though that could be a good thing if the wife and I stay put a few years—lower taxes, you know. Don't want to be feeding the socialistic governmental beast.
Well, actually that is where the baggers lose me. Obama has been in office for a year now, and I keep opening the door each morning, peeking down the street, and failing to see the bands of wolfish Leninists come to seize my property.
Indeed, the most direct effect of Obama's presidency on my home finances has been a modest tax cut.
And picking up the morning newspaper, I see that 1) under Obama, the CIA is assassinating al Qaeda and Taliban leaders at a far greater rate than during the Bush administration, 2) the escalation of the war in Afghanistan has led to a major U.S. military offensive against the Islamo-fascists there, 3) the White House has called for more tax cuts in this year's budget, and 4) the president proposes to spend $8 billion to help build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia.
War? Tax cuts? CIA assassins? Nuclear reactors? From a Democratic president? Have we forgotten all we were taught by Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas? The songs we sang with Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen? The Church committee?
Surely, the baggers are right. The measure of this Socialist Evil is its willingness to disguise itself as political moderation—even mushy conservatism—to worm its way into our hearts.
Obama's middle name is not Hussein.
It's Milhous.
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The Dangers of Republican Obstructionism
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2010 Comment (15)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Adolf Hitler had punched his "bloody fists" into France, and the British Army was stranded on the sands of Dunkirk where, as author William Manchester described them, "On the Flanders beaches they stood around in angular, existential attitudes, like dim purgatorial souls awaiting disposition." Then "from the streams and estuaries of Kent and Dover, a strange fleet appeared," Manchester wrote. Fishing boats and racing yachts, scows and tugs, all manned by volunteers: "English fathers, sailing to rescue England's exhausted, bleeding sons."
Winston Churchill, newly installed as prime minister, met with his French counterparts, one of whom made the divisive suggestion that the ad hoc British fleet would not also rescue what remained of the French army. Churchill's aides braced for what, they were sure, would be an angry retort. Instead the prime minister said, "We are companions in misfortune. There is nothing to be gained from recrimination over our common miseries."
We do not face the existential crisis that confronted the British in 1940. If Barack Obama is unable to provide the presidential leadership required at this moment, our system will grind out other pretenders until one, at last, proves capable. If the feckless Democrats in Congress pale at the work ahead, they will be replaced as well.
I don't know what it will take; hopefully, something less than the threat of another Hitler, to persuade the Democrats and Republicans that we are, indeed, companions in misfortune. Right now they seem bent on recrimination.
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Evan Bayh is Retiring--Who Cares?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 16, 2010 Comment (100)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The morning papers tell me that a great catastrophe has befallen the Republic: Evan Bayh will not run for re-election.
It will be harder for the Blue Team to retain its control of the Senate, the liberal commentators say. The Red Team will surely make gains in November.
To which I have to ask: So what?
Name me one piece of important legislation that Evan Bayh ever crafted for his fellow citizens, and then took on the chore of pushing through the Senate. Name me one great evil he exposed with a gutsy public hearing. Name me one courageous vote he cast that jeopardized his career.
The truth is, that America will not miss Evan Bayh. Here in the capital, his departure is viewed solely through the prism of Blue vs. Red. Nobody asks whether another senator from Indiana, regardless of party, might actually get something done.
We gave the Blue Team 60 seats in the Senate, and they bungled the opportunity--then ran for the hills when the Red Team won the special election in Massachusetts. They cower now, and whine like Evan Bayh.
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Charlie Wilson's Political War
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2010 Comment (2)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One of America's favorite politicians died this week. Charlie Wilson's rough-riding lifestyle finally caught up with him. Booze and blondes can wear on a man. We have the consolation of knowing that, whatever price he ultimately paid for his decades of partying, "Good Time Charlie" deserved his nickname.
Long before they wrote a book about Charlie, and Tom Hanks portrayed him in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, the gentleman from Texas was a legend on Capitol Hill. He didn't single-handedly defeat the Russkies in Afghanistan, but from what I know about his role raising funds for the Afghan resistance, Hollywood didn't stray too far from the actual script.
Charlie loved a good yarn, and in writing a biography of Tip O'Neill, I came across a couple of lovely stories. They're not quite as good in the cleaned-up version, but you can supply the necessary profanities.
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Washington Post Gets Hysterical Over Teachers Union ‘Thuggery’
Tweet Share on Facebook February 11, 2010 Comment (9)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The editorial writers at the Washington Post, with righteous fervor, have launched an anticorruption campaign against a Maryland political leader and strategist, Jon Gerson, and his clients.
In two recent editorials, including one in today's newspaper, Gerson's bunch is accused by the Post of "heavy-handed tactics" and political "thuggery," of using "corrupting" campaign practices, of demanding "shakedowns," and of generally acting like "a special interest group run amok."
This being Maryland, where the cleanliness of state politics matches that of Illinois and Massachusetts, one reads such epithets with alarm. What evils have the Post's renowned investigative teams uncovered? What slimy interest group has ventured into its crosshairs?
Crestfallen, I was, to discover that the target of this ire is merely a local suburban teachers' union. And the "corrupting" tactics that the union practices? In election years, it asks the candidates that it endorses to help bear the cost of printing, mailing, and otherwise distributing the literature that bears its endorsements.
I am not making this up. This is the supposed corrupt shakedown that has inspired two semi-hysterical editorials.
