Will April's Showers Bring May Flowers?

April was a pretty rough month in any way that you want to size it up. Record spending, debt, unemployment. A major shift towards socialism by our government. Increased attacks on the sacrament of marriage by homosexuals and liberal thinkers. And then finally ending with an attack by a Swine Flu pandemic. It's all a bit much for a normally happy soul such as mine to take in for one big reason. There is no end in sight. President Obama was only recently elected, and just took office three months ago. He still has more than three years at a minimum in office, and if the magnitude, scope, and pace of his 'Change' continues as it has thus far it will be an agonizing three years. One thing that I have come to appreciate over the course of these past three months is the utter joy and euphoria that Obama elicits in his followers. It makes me jealous, because frankly I have never, ever had that feeling for a President of the United States. Forget Kennedy and Johnson, I was just a baby. As a young child, Nixon and Ford certainly were not high on my priority list. I liked Jimmy Carter at first. He spoke to my youthful desire for progressivism. He was a minister and brought a certain amount of credibility and morality to the office, which was important to the country after the dishonesty of Nixon's Watergate. And he was intelligent too, a genius, at least that's the rep that the media was passing around. It was Jimmy Carter that began to ruin things for my early liberalism. By the end of his term he was proving to be a major letdown, and I'm still trying to figure out that whole 'genius' thing. His and liberalism's weaknesses were on full display in the face of the emergence of radical Islam, Soviet aggression, and America's energy problems. But still, politics and these major issues at this point were still only news stories to me, fleeting images on the TV set, and I would quickly change the channel to a ballgame or a comedy and go back to my own inner liberal feelings. During the 1980's, Ronald Reagan was king, but I didn't support the kingdom. I didn't vote for 'The Gipper' either time. Here was the first time in my lifetime where it was obvious to me that a large portion of America was feeling something for a President that I just wasn't getting. It was disconcerting to me, because I was beginning in my 20's to actually pay more attention to national and world affairs. I was a liberal Democrat and became a joiner, with paid memberships in 'Greenpeace' and 'Amnesty International', and with subscriptions to 'Rolling Stone' and 'U.S. News & World Report', and enjoying anti-establishment music videos on the new media outlet of MTV such as Genesis' "Land of Confusion". But something began to change. The optimism of the 'Morning in America' days that Reagan led, the return of outward signs of American patriotism, the general feelings of positivism were creeping into my psyche a little at a time. His demand that the Soviets "Tear down this wall!" followed by that event actually happening was a watershed moment, the moment when I began to think to myself "Why are there so many millions of people seeing what I am not?" and I began to realize that these folks couldn't possibly all be evil or idiots, and I actually began to open my mind to thoughts and ideas outside of my previously grounded liberal thinking. But it still wasn't a transition. I still voted for Dukakis in 1988, because I simply was not ready to vote for George H.W. Bush for President. He was as establishment as you could possibly get, and a former head of the C.I.A. to boot, and I simply did not trust a former head of a spy agency to be my leader. When he eventually led us into the Gulf War, all his faults were on display in my mind. I didn't understand the whole Iraq issue. My naive liberalism still had me being sold by those talking heads and celebrities who lamented our 'going to war over nothing but oil' and other such talk. In 1992, with my own life going through major changes on many fronts, I remained a liberal thinker for the final election. When Bill Clinton was elected, it was the first time in my life to that point that my candidate had won, and I was excited. His youthful exuberance was infectious, and I genuinely believed that he would make things better. But I also by this time was already in the habit of looking at issues deeper than the surface, reading and researching major issues beyond just what I was being sold on what I increasingly was noticing was an obviously biased mass media in newspapers and on television. I hated the idea that these folks seemed more like cheerleaders whenever a Democrat was involved, and like antagonists when a Republican was involved. It was all so obvious, and it was turning me off. When I realized that all of the positive economic turns of the early Clinton years were going to happen no matter who was President, that they had actually begun in the final months of the Bush administration, and yet the Dems were trying to take credit, I began to experience my first bit of cynicism towards my party and its politicians. By the end of Clinton's first four years the transition was complete. My own personal scales had tilted towards conservatism over liberalism, and as Newt Gingrich led the 'Republican Revolution' of 1994, I was amazingly in tune with their message and supportive of this man who just a couple years earlier I would have viewed as a negative influence. I was still a Democrat, but I did not vote for Clinton in 1996. The second Clinton term was what fully shoved me over to the conservative side, and my final flip to an actual change of party to the Republican side. Still, even with the election of George W. Bush in 2000, I was not excited. Seeing Al Gore for the quack that he has turned out to be, I was simply unbelievably relieved with the narrow outcome in Bush's favor. Bush was not the conservative that I was becoming, but he was much more tilted in that direction than Gore and his followers would have been. The attacks of 9/11 and President Bush's outstanding leadership in the following months and years cemented my support for him, and helped cement my conservative beliefs. But he never elicited that outright joy as a follower or supporter. And obviously Obama will never elicit those feelings for me. And yet I look around at his followers and I realize something. His supporters are every bit as enthused and enthralled as Reagan's were back in the 1980's, and I was on the outside back then as well. I don't get it, but I am trying to learn more about Obama's programs and ideas beyond what the media on both sides is trying to feed the public. So far, the more that I learn the worse it looks to me, but I am going to try to keep learning and stay open. The showers of April turn to flowers in nature in May. We can only hope that the showers brought on our nation by the early Obama actions in April will bloom into flowers in May, but I don't hold out hope. May has not started well, with an announced SCOTUS opening and the specter of the likely appointment to the Supreme Court later in the year of what will almost definitely be its most liberal member ever. The Swine Flu is still advancing, with a possible retreat for the summer but a return in the fall. Chrysler joins the growing list of formerly private businesses in the auto, banking, insurance and other industries now controlled by the government. It is still raining. But I won't let it get to me. One thing that age and experience teach you is that if you wait, the sun will indeed come out tomorrow. There are signs of hope. We have rid ourselves of Senator Arlen Specter, a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who saw the writing on the wall that we were going to dump him in the upcoming primary and who then ran for the Democratic cover like a coward. And I still hold out hope that one day I will have that President come along who inspires me and elicits that passionate adulation of feeling to go along with a support for their policies and direction that Obama's supporters feel today. Someone like Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, or Sarah Palin. You gotta keep that smile on your face and in your heart, and keep your own dreams alive.

No Monkeying Around With Obama

To say that the world has gone overboard with political correctness is an understatement, and this is nowhere more visible than in the world of editorial cartoons. You learned in recent years that you can't draw an editorial cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammed without risk of being shot dead, blown up or decapitated by some radical Islamic lunatic. Having a sense of humor is an integral part of the human experience. And in democratic societies, freedom of speech including a free press is a vital piece of our civilization puzzle. But it's not just the radical Islamic world that has lost its collective sense of humor, or at the very least its willingness to allow sarcastic expression. The more radical members of the black community here in America are at it again as well. Write or draw something that those people don't like, and they are all over you like white on rice. Oops, did I call them 'those people'? Better be careful, they might find something to take personal in a few typewritten words. I might get a letter from the NAACP and some choice comments from Al Sharpton. Last week a woman in Connecticut was severely mauled when her friend's pet chimpanzee got loose and attacked her. A frantic calle went out to 9-1-1, and the responding police officers were faced with the chimpanzee attacking them. They had no choice but to shoot the animal dead. It was a major story all over the network news. Another major story in the news recently has been the alleged 'stimulus' bill that the majority of Americans were against, but which President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts in Congress decided to ram down our throats anyway. Into the fray stepped cartoonist Sean Delonis, a famed satirist who took the big monkey story and decided to merge it with the stimulus bill story. Delonis drew an editorial cartoon which was published by the New York Post which depicted the police officer, gun still smoking, in the immediate aftermath with the dead chimp lying on the ground in front of him in a puddle of blood. In the caption the cop is saying: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." Uh, oh, look out. The first black President in American history leads the effort to foist a ridiculous spending bill on the people, and automatically the monkey shot last week is a representation of him when drawn as a cartoon in a spoof by poor Sean Delonis. The 'Reverend Al' led the charge of the race-baiters, as usual, with his statement that "..given the historic racist attacks on African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys...one has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this.." Really, Reverend Al? And why is that? Why does anyone have to ask that question at all? The fact is that this was a brilliant incorporation of one big story into another by Delonis, who has solid credentials and whose work is widely respected in the industry. The very same race-baiters who had no comment to make when Chris Brown punched out Rihanna, perpetuating yet another negative stereotype within the African-American community, look for a way to undermine any attack on 'Saint Barack' and his programs and policies. They are so tied up in forcing his success that they cannot allow the small criticisms, and editorial cartoons are indeed small, that President Bush had to experience for the entirety of his eight years in office. From his being from Texas in particular and the South in general, from his use of the word 'nuceuler' instead of 'nuclear', to a thousand other things, President Bush was skewered and pilloried for almost a decade, just as President Clinton was for almost a decade before that. Here is the fact: Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America, and as such he is subject to editorial attacks in cartoons, on television programs, and every other media outlet. It comes with the job, which requires the thickest of skins, no matter that skin color. Sometimes the commentary will be biting and difficult for he and his supporters to stomach, and sometimes it will be downright funny to even the most frequent 'liberal Kool Aid' drinkers. The New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp, the parent company of Fox News, a frequent basher of Obama and certainly the one major news outlet that has not been his cheerleader. Sharpton and the race-baiters hate Fox, and this may be part of the problem. The fact is that Obama's plans, policies, programs, and politics are as up for attack as any of Bush's or Clinton's were in the past. Oh, and Reverend Al and friends, not every reference to the word 'black', not every banana peeled, not every watermelon eaten, not every child abandoned, not every woman beaten, not every monkey shot dead will be any kind of racial reference. Toughen up, Obama supporters, or it's gonna be a long, hard four years for you people.

Obama-Dem Mistake #2

It's bad enough that the United States supports by law the murder of our most innocent citizens, the helpless babies aborted by the millions each year simply to make their parents lives a bit easier. As we discussed last week during the 'March for Life' recognition, with the 'Roe vs. Wade' decision by the SCOTUS in 1973 the U.S. began officially supporting the legality of most forms of abortion. But now we are no longer happy with actively supporting this policy creating a culture of death in our own country. Now we are actively supporting the policy worldwide, not just with ideals, but with taxpayer dollars. During the administration of perhaps the greatest President of the last century, Ronald Reagan, the 'Great Communicator' instituted what became known as the 'Mexico City Policy'. In this policy, Reagan made it clear that any recipient of U.S. foreign aid would not be permitted to promote abortion as a method of family planning. According to ABC News, the American "government under Reagan would not provide funding for family planning services to clinics or groups that offered abortion-related services overseas." When Bill Clinton was elected the policy was overturned, but it was reinstated under President George W. Bush and has been in place for the past eight years. In renewing the policy, President Bush stated "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad." This past week, on the January 22nd anniversary of the 'Roe' decision, new U.S. President Barack Obama again reversed the policy. In announcing his decision, Obama once again made the classic liberal Democrat philosophical and moral mistake. He only recognized one party in this process when he said that the decision "protects women's health and reproductive freedom", ignoring the rights and the very life of the unborn child who it is his sworn duty to protect to the best of his ability. The closing of Guantanamo Bay highlighted in last week's 'Obama-Dem Mistake #1' article is likely to result in American deaths. This decision on allowing taxpayer funding of overseas abortions will absolutely result in the deaths of Americans and foreigners. It is hard to believe that any self-respecting Catholic could possibly support Obama or any congressional Democrat who would actively and outwardly support the murder of innocents as a key part of their agenda. It is another clear difference in liberal and conservative positions in American politics. It is a moral stain on the American way of life. And it is clearly the 'Obama-Dem Mistake #2'. As each one is highlighted and explained you can click on the below label of that name to see the full listing of the accumulated mistakes of the Obama administration and the Democratic congress that is supporting them.

An American Mandate for Change

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy"
The American people went to their respective polling places yesterday and voted, and when they were done the election result was not even close. In a truly historic victory, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected to the Presidency. He was elected by a 53%-47% margin over his Republican challenger John McCain, a far greater margin than this writer believed was likely or even possible. In doing so he becomes the first African-American ever elected to the highest office in the land. That may not be too significant for the younger generation raised in a largely racially integrated society. But to those of us who were alive in the 1960's and '70's, the election of a black man to the Presidency is truly remarkable. Forty years after Martin Luther King was assasinated in Memphis, Tennessee, his dream has taken its largest step forward into becoming reality. Could even the great Dr. King have had the foresight to see this happening in America this quickly, if ever at all? In electing him, the American people have shown unequivocally that we have fully matured beyond the racial prejudices and barriers that previously separated us. In a time of Islamofascist terrorism, the American people overcame fears and elected to the Presidency a man with a Muslim-sounding name and at least a familial Islamic past. In a time where Americans are believed to be divided racially, the American people overcame those perceptions and elected to the Presidency a man whose mother was white, and whose father was a black man who abandoned them. The key factor in the Obama victory was the simple but effective theme of his campaign: Change. After 6 years of war, no matter how necessary, Americans were tired of it. They have grown tired of talk about terrorists, Osama bin Laden, Islamofascism, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. They have grown weary of a Bush administration that, though keeping America safe since 9/11, has done little to address any substantive issues beyond security here at home. Liberals wanted Bush impeached, but did not have the power to put him through the type of trial to which Bill Clinton subjected himself. In my opinion, last night's vote by the American people was all about Democrats and dissatisfied centrists ceremonially tossing George W. Bush out of the White House. Unfortunately for John McCain, an obviously good and decent man and a true American hero, he was standing in the shoes that Bush was unable by our laws to stand in himself. It likely would not have mattered in the end who was the Republican nominee for President or Vice-President. This race was certainly not decided by a dissatisfaction with a potential President McCain, or even any real problems with a VP Sarah Palin. This race was a referendum on the Bush administration, highlighted by the Obama campaign's primary message in the closing weeks that a McCain victory would signal a '3rd Bush term' and a continuation of its ideals. Hillary Clinton must really be kicking herself this morning. For years she was seen as the next great Democratic hope. She was not only the clear front-runner just a year ago, but she was the only real candidate in the race on the Dem side. Had Barack Obama never emerged, she would be celebrating her own history-making election today as the first female U.S. President. That is how much the people of America wanted a change. In the end, Republicans across the nation were fighting a battle that they had almost no chance of winning. Yesterday, Barack Obama swept to the Presidency thanks to a mandate for the very change that his campaign brilliantly called for, and he brought along a boat load of U.S. Senators and Congresspersons in his considerable wake. America will be a fundamentally different nation over the next few years. Whether that change is for the better or not is yet to be determined. I personally do not hold out the same hope that Obama's followers feel this morning. But one thing is certain, America will change, because it has been mandated by a clear majority of the people. Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama, to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden, their families and campaign staff, and all those who voted for them. When possible and as best we can, we Republicans will support you as our President. We will also oppose you vocally on issues that we feel are key to our nation and our American culture. And as we all move forward from today, may God bless America as He always has in the past.

Bill & Hill's Mile-High Show

The Democratic National Convention winds down today in Denver, Colorado, culminating with tonight's acceptance speech by Barrack Obama. In that speech, Senator Obama must go further than he has at any time in his campaign to this point. He must speak to those 'swing' voters, the true 'undecideds' who allege that they have yet to make up their minds. Because so far his campaign has been only about two themes: ambiguous 'Change' and the typical liberal anti-Bush mantra. What has been seriously lacking are specifics about what programs and policies that an Obama administration intends to implement in order to reach those goals. He cannot win over middle America with ambiguity and misdirection. For example, he cannot win with the kind of speech given the past two nights by the Clintons. Former President Bill Clinton last night, and his wife (for now at least), New York Senator Hillary Clinton gave speeches that showed as much that they are positioning for another run in four years as they are supporting any specific Obama plans this time around. Hillary Clinton has been clearly wounded by her blowing the '08 Democratic Party nomination. Just last Fall, even early this past Winter, she was not only the clear front-runner, she was really the only candidate. She then went on a months-long crash-n-burn of a campaign, while Obama suddenly emerged, gained the affections of the all-important media, and took off on his own meteoric rise. For the Clintonistas, especially their leader Hillary, this 11th-hour defeat was heart-wrenching, and there were weeks if not months of denial. Even up to the opening of the DNC, all the rumblings coming from the back rooms were that the Clinton supporters and staff were still bitter. The Clintons knew they had little choice but to eventually support the nominee, but they still angled for terms and conditions, and the Obama camp, knowing how important the Clinton supporters would be to their efforts, caved in and gave the Bill & Hill show prime exposure, with Hillary headlining on Tuesday night and the President headlining on Wednesday evening. In her speech, Senator Clinton used the word 'I' 18 times, the word 'my' 11 times, the word 'me' 13 times, and even the word 'mine' once. During her speech, she referred to herself 43 times. She mentioned the candidate as 'Barrack Obama' just 9 times, two more simply as 'Barrack', once as 'President Obama'. She mentioned his challenger John McCain a half dozen times. For everyone but the already-on-board liberal crowd, it was obvious that Clinton's speech was a reminder to her supporters of her campaign and her dream. I heard it spoken this morning on Bill Bennett's radio program that the Clintons are already planning to run again in four years. I believe that they would never challenge a sitting Democratic president, so that has to naturally mean that, despite tepid public pronouncements of support couched in her self-aggrandisement, the Clintons are hoping for an Obama loss in November. For his part, the former President out-mentioned Obama 14-4 over his wife. Bill Clinton knows how these things should be done, how these things need be won, and he put the emphasis where it belongs, on the candidate. But he did take time to mention his wife enough (3 times) at the front of his speech to know where his true feelings lie. Make no mistake about it, the Clintons and their zombie-like Clintonista followers pine for a do-over, and they want it to happen yesterday. The next shot they will get is in four years, and an Obama loss may ensure their front-runner status again. Rest assured that next time around they will not blow it. Bill and Hillary Clinton put on a masterful show the past two nights in the Mile High City of Denver as the first phase in their recovery towards what they see as a new opportunity in 2012.

Winning the Future With Real Change

Some of the biggest influences on me in recent years have been the ideas and writings of Newt Gingrich. The man is simply the single most eloquent spokesperson for the Conservative cause since Ronald Reagan himself. In fact, blasphemy acknowledged, he may actually be an even stronger advocate for the cause. Three of his books, "To Renew America" (1995), "Winning the Future", and now "Real Change" (2008) are absolute must-reads, particularly "Real Change", which was just released this year and is much more updated in scope and time. Gingrich is a college history professor, historian and novelist who has written outstanding works of living-history fiction on both the Civil War and Pearl Harbor as well. In the concept of 'living history', you take known historical events and people and 'adjust' the facts/results to show 'what might have happened' had certain things gone a different way. In the real world, Gingrich was first elected to Congress from Georgia back in 1978. He was re-elected 10 times, and eventually became the architect of the 'Republican Revolution', which saw the Republican Party take control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years thanks largely to an effort that he led called the 'Contract With America'. Gingrich became the Speaker of the House, leading numerous Republican challenges to President Bill Clinton's liberal Democratic agenda, and was named by Time magazine as the Person of the Year in 1995. Newt Gingrich is now 65, and may have seen his opportunities to lead the party as a Presidential candidate pass him by, but he remains a leading Conservative activist, thinker, and teacher. In a year when the Democratic nominee, Barrack Obama, talks incessantly about "change" to a taxing, weakening, liberal agenda, 'Real Change' is well worth your reading time, and in future Blog entries I am going to talk about some of the particular ideas that it puts forth on various topics of importance to our families and to the nation.