A sign at one of the tea parties yesterday:
A sign near the center of the crowd summed up the sentiment succinctly: Above side-by-side pictures of President Bush and President Obama were the words “Dumb & Dumber.”
And not much hope for smarter, at least until November 2012.
Becoming and being the President is such a circus. We will never get anyone really competent and qualified to take the position. Smart people know better than to subject themselves to such an uncomfortable experience. Look at Fred Thompson.
Are there any less-dumb possibilities on the horizon?
With conservatives worried about liberals with too much power and liberals worried about conservatives with too much power, when will everyone wake up and see the common enemy? Yup, I’m not holding my breath either.
In the current mess, I think the problem isn’t ideological labels (which have become meaningless now anyway) so much as party labels, but what’s needed is for more people to pose that sort of question but more like this:
With Republicans worried about Democrats with too much government power and Democrats worried about Republicans with too much government power, when will everyone wake up and see that the problem is THE GOVERNMENT’S POWER?
Q: When will everyone wake up and see that the problem is THE GOVERNMENT’S POWER?
During a debate, when Jon Tester ran as a Democrat in Montana for the US Senate, his GOP opponent accused Tester of wanting to “water down” the Patriot Act.
Tester rejected that argument and said he did not want to water down the Patriot Act, he wanted to REPEAL the Patriot Act in its entirety.
Having refused to block Dubya’s power grabs, Republicans have little leverage to block Democratic power grabs and therefore a genuine 3rd party could be the only road forward for libertarian minded people.
Or, as Andrew Sullivan asserted today . . .]
Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian when Democrats are in office and a statist when Republicans are in office.
Rand, wasn’t Andrew Sullivan on your blog roll at one time?
Yes, he was, until he went nuts and became Bush deranged over gay marriage. If he made such an assertion about Glenn, it is continuing evidence of his derangement. Neither Glenn or I supported either the Patriot Act or the formation of the DHS.
I might suggest that libertarians may need to be more willing to loudly support Democrats who — from time to time — are more libertarian than their Republican opponents.
Jon Tester, as one example.
Also, I recall Jim Webb of Virginia complaining that his lifetime NRA rating was higher than George Allen’s and therefore the NRA should have endorsed him.
= = =
Anyway, Sullivan is wacky. I agree.
John Cole at Balloon Juice is a better read, for a former Repubican crossover guy and Daniel Larison at American Conservative always offers an intelligent conservative perspective.
I wonder if a coalition of libertarian Republicans and independents would have enough voters to make inroads on the large governments representatives we have now. I disagree with Bill white because any libertarian Democrat will still have to work under Reid and Pelosi since they are the party leaders in Congress. Nice committee assignment you have there, be a shame if anything happened to it.
Is Jim Webb still in the Senate? We hear so much about him.
Bill White, you might recall the host of this blog, and Glenn Reynolds too, recommending “no voting” Republicans in 2006. The reason was because Republicans were over-spending and expanding government.
So, I ask this, Bill White; when will you quit supporting irresponsible Democrats like John Murtha, Charles Rangel, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd to name a very few. Does it not bother you at all that President Obama has difficulty finding Democratic politicians that pay the taxes that they expect others to patriotically pay? Does it bother you that Nancy Pelosi wants to put constraints on free speech?
Jon Tester voted for TARP and the Stimulus package.
“Also, I recall Jim Webb of Virginia complaining that his lifetime NRA rating was higher than George Allen’s and therefore the NRA should have endorsed him.”
Bill, When two candidates have an equal rating, they endorse the incumbent, regardless of party. This is a long-established and well known policy of the NRA.
This is what happend in the case of Webb. A bit of research on your part would have revealed this.
And not much hope for smarter, at least until November 2012.
Rand, how can you say that? If President Obama were to leave office before January 20, 2013, then our Vice-President would become President. And if he were to leave office before that date, and a new VP hadn’t been inaugurated, then our Speaker of the House would become President. And if she were lo leave office, then … Well, you can see that our nation’s governance would be in capable hands!