While liberals wring their hands over how to apply salve to the recent wounds dealt to the Obama campaign by reality, a new light is shining on an entrenched bit of partisan rhetoric, and it poses an existential threat to the Demographic Party if it continues. The building of heroes always coincides with the rise of a comparable villain. In fact, sometimes the villain is more interesting and important to the story than the hero. Remember The Dark Knight? Tragically, it was Heath Ledger’s final completed role before his untimely death, but his interpretation of the joker put people in seats more than anything else in that movie. The old saw in entertainment is that every story needs a good villain. And President Obama’s “story” is no different.

But who would serve as the villain? Why, none other than the hated rich. Liberals, no matter their personal wealth, have always clothed themselves in the rhetorical tights of Robin Hood. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor is a great story plot, but makes for a terrible reality, especially when the richest and greediest corporation in these United States is our own federal government, and it is trying to divert your eyes to those banks and private citizens who “have all the money”. The fallacy of the zero-sum economy assumption aside, the position of the left has always been, “Elect us so we can take from those who took from you, and you will be more prosperous (when we spend that money in government programs)”.

So the CEO in the corporate jet becomes the Lex Luthor, the wheelers and dealers on Wall Street become the chaotic Joker, and the small business owner who barely sees their family while working to build their business (which they didn’t build) is just Bane-in-waiting, or Bain-in-waiting, whichever. The necessity to craft a villain is even more significant than the necessity to build the hero. Batman Begins is nowhere near as good as The Dark Knight, because of the villain. And every iteration of the villain lends itself to a potential Robin Hood. It could be the community organizer who is carried into the White House on the shoulders of those he saved. It could be executive, the one good man in Washington, surrounded by xenophobes who fear his “otherness” and “newness”. Or it could be the dirty but noble tribe of commoners that occupy the centers of power, leaving the dirty streaks of their discontent to run down the side of a squad car. Heroes are these men and women, not the Navy fighter pilot tortured in Vietnam for five years, nor the hardworking family man who graduated from a parallel law and business program that is considered to be one of the hardest programs at one of our most prestigious schools. No, those guys aren’t heroes, they never dropped trou on a cop car.

In keeping with the latest “bloom is off the rose” trend that seems to be building momentum against Barack Obama, a few wealthy and prosperous individuals have recently, publicly, declared their discontent with the current regulatory and business climate (and the left says Obama hasn’t done enough, hmph.). The most notable is Steve Wynn, a Democrat, who even in 2009, was describing President Obama as “a wet blanket on business”. Recently, he came out and said he was afraid of Obama’s anti-business attitude. Not hesitant. Not concerned. Afraid. Liberal economists from Krugman to Krugman (he’s the only one they like anymore) have tried to argue that there is no “corporate uncertainty” preventing money from flowing in the market. I have to finally concede that they are right. There is no uncertainty. Business leaders are absolutely certain President Obama is aligned against them. (Unless you run GE)

The most telling example is a letter by Westgate founder David Siegel to his employees. In it, he makes a couple of interesting points, but there are two that stand out. First, he recalls the early struggles to build his business, and he also expresses that he is never “free” of his company. He may have a lavish home, but it is basically an extension of the office. A lot of the thugs and rapists on Occupy Wall Street have no idea about this. I served in the military. I understand completely, as do most conservatives and free marketeers. Success doesn’t happen overnight? Wrong. It happens overnight, every night, and often well into the wee hours when your family has long since gone to bed. But your family, your employees, and your customers are depending on you. That’s why you stay awake and keep working. You know what the President did when he found out our embassy was under attack? He went to bed.

The second point he makes, and thank God someone finally said it, is in regard to taxation. He couches it in a simple premise: If I took half of your paycheck, would you still work? Of course you wouldn’t. And why not? Because you would be working for me, regardless of who signed the check. Let’s ask ourselves, did the President’s party ever have enough control over the government to raise taxes? And don’t they always argue that tax cuts don’t stimulate economic growth? So how would raising taxes slow that same growth? And that’s the tip of the iceberg with this narrative. All of a sudden, the Westgate CEO is a real guy, and after the debate, the Rich Republican is a family man who cares about the country. Neither of these fit the villain profile upon which our hero rose to power. It begs the question: If the villain façade is illegitimate, what of the hero?

The problem with both of Mitt’s “gaffes” this week is so easy to put your finger on its scary. They are rooted in truth. The first was the statement in regard to the tragic and vile attack (and that’s what it is) occurring at our embassy in Libya. Mitt did what a President should do, he condemned an apology, condemned the attack, and expressed both disappointment and anger with just a hint of possible retaliation. The most condemning argument against the re-election of the most disorganized community organizer in history is thus: We were all stunned by Mitt Romney’s statement, because the last four years had actually made us forget how Presidents are supposed to act!

The other gaffe comes from a closed-door fundraiser where Romney was apparently “unguarded”, and he mentiond that Obama supporters who don’t pay income taxes are, well I’ll just let you read the words yourself (copied from HuffPo):

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney says in one clip. “All right — there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Then comes the deluge. Let’s pause for a second and remember the flap over “bitter clingers”. You remember the progressive left’s defense? They said that it was not a gaffe because it was true. Now they are looking at what Mitt Romney just said, and I’m pretty sure an orgy of near Roman proportions is about to break out. And why? Because it’s true.

The attack will be two-pronged, becuase the statement is true. First, it will be added to the “out-of-touch rich white guy” argument, and second, it will be presented as false. HuffPo has already taken the lead, stating that people pay zero because they take deductions that both Republicans and the Democrat Workers Party have championed. BullBiden. And all of the sudden, Mitt Romney has blown a chance at the Presidency that he apparently never had. Romney had Obama on the ropes, right? And now he’s blown it, right? Wrong. Last week, the media and the polling were telling us this thing was over. They were wrong then. They are Pelosi-wrong now. (How to be Pelosi-wrong? Pull the skin of your head taught in the back, apply a potato chip bag clip, and swear 2010 didn’t happen, then read your meds to find out what’s in them…)

This should be an Obama bounce, if the Soicalist Media Workers Party is to be believed. I see it another way. I think this is type of stuff Mitt Romney shouldn’t be saying in private. He should be saying it in public. You’ve had your gloves up well into the late rounds, Mittster. Time to come out swingin’.

This will be published at about 1:00AM EST on Tuesday Sep.18, 2012. Rush Limbaugh is going to ape this argument on his September 18, 2012 show. Mark my words. That’s why you should listen to The Joseph Kurt Show, Saturdays at 6pm on 94.3WSC-FM in Charleston. I love Rush, so don’t tell him I said that.

While charting liberal hypocrisy is de rigeur here on RedState, and there are those who are going to be far better at it than I, I felt compelled to make the titular observation, and submit for you the substantiating evidence. Why? Because the President of the United States is basically the CEO of an incredible organization, whose purview includes the daily lives of millions of American citizens. It is a position of service. You know, “government by consent of the governed”. Now, while the challenger on our side has touted his business record, albeit far less than the left has accused, President Obama’s surrogates have made it their unholy crusade to turn ”private equity” into liberal dog-whistle speak for “punches women in the uterus and causes cancer”.

Remember that guy whose wife Mitt Romney killed years after he left Bain Capital? Mormon Voodoo is the most powerful Voodoo out there, since apparently it can reach across time, space, and (unlike our health insurance) state lines. Flash forward in time to the DNC, and you will discover a delegate saying that she would like to kill Mitt Romney. She doesn’t want to tell him why he’s wrong. She doesn’t want to vote against him. She wants to kill him. Why? Because Romney would destroy this country. I pray for that poor woman, because she has lived here for 40 years and has no idea what destroying the country looks like. This is the level of hatred that bubbles up at the mention of the name “Romney”. In the minds of Democrat voters they have managed to turn a Mormon missionary, whose father built an American success story (yes, he built that), whose wife survived breast cancer (and is still surviving M.S.), whose firm had an 80% success rate, and whose political track record is pretty moderate (natch) into a rabid, drooling, right-wing nutcase whose  gun fires bibles that only protect unborn babies from unions and taxes. He is, at once, a CEO who is able to kill American jobs and pioneer in outsourcing while still being an incompetent boob who didn’t know the blessing that was the individual mandate and the beauty of government bailouts. In short, Mitt Romney has made Democrats simultaneously scream from the hilltops the virtue of bailouts, and curse corporations that don’t use them.

And that’s the worst rub, isn’t it? The party that called John Corzine first, the party that asked that God bless the Occupy Wall Street debacle (remember when they didn’t boo God?), and the party that is trying to sell the smashing economic success that is the Worst Recovery Ever is now trying to say that Mitt Romney doesn’t represent mainstream America, doesn’t know how to create jobs, and doesn’t care for the little guy. When comparing Romney to President Obama, all of those statements should end with the word either. And their basis for this? Mitt Romney is a tax cheat/dodger who outsourced whatever jobs he didn’t kill. He had the 47th slowest job growth in the country as Governor of Massachusetts. He had swooped in like a corporate vulture to take over failing companies and sell off all the assets (at a profit!?)  before using a spell from Book of Mormon to give their wives cancer. There’s just one small problem: As the head of the largest and most powerful organization in the known world, President Obama has been an absolute failure, and is demonstrably guilty of some of the charges his party has leveled at the Republican nominee.

First off, let’s look at the taxes. Mitt Romney has never been investigated by the IRS. Now, in fairness, neither has President Obama, but let’s go ahead and be honest about who is being accused of not doing their “fair share”. There’s another narrative a lot of people miss about this accusation: The IRS has no problem investigating people when it feels they have dodged the law. In 2009 (the first year of tax returns Romney is “hiding”, the IRS conducted over 23,000 audits of high-income earners. 23,000! This leads to two possible conclusions: 1. Mitt Romney survived the audit, or 2. Mitt Romney did not get audited. This means that Romney is not, as of 2009 (and indeed today), a tax cheat. Also, there’s the false accusation that the 13% or 14% Romney paid in taxes is far less than the average taxpayer. That same year, a full 50% of taxpayers paid an average rate of 1.85% and only 13.5% of the total tax burden (data here). The tax code, as it turns out, is still quite progressive.

But what about President Obama? Well, he didn’t cheat on his taxes, either. What he and his party have done is accuse Mitt Romney of dodging paying his fair share through the use of loopholes like Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands offshore holdings. Remember, with Democrats, the rhetoric is far more important than the truth. The “crime” here is the use of legal ”loopholes”. That’s the insinuation: Mitt Romney and his army of white, rich, Republican lawyers are evading the law and stealing from the innocent little government who has no means to prosecute these criminals. Again, the rhetoric runs afoul of the facts. How was Obamacare passed? Budget Reconcilliation. The most massive and sweeping legislative accomplishment by any President in our lifetimes passed the Senate through the budget reconcilliation process, allowing them to dodge a fillibuster. Earlier this year, John Roberts pulled the political equivalent of taking the U.S. Constitution on a date to the prison showers, and made it legal.  Loopholes like budget reconcilliation are great when you are trying to raise taxes but awful when you are paying them?

Then there’s the whole job thing. President Obama has created 4.5 million of ‘em. He is creating jobs just as fast as he can, even with those stupid Republicans stopping him at every turn (except when he uses Executive Orders), and he has been a wild success! I mean, Romney had the 47th slowest job growth rate at the end of his term as Governor! Unfortunately, he had an unemployment rate in the low 4% range, or roughly half of the President’s unemployment average, so you can’t really grow too many jobs when your state is darn near statistically fully employed. See, when Mitt was an executive of a state more people went to work. As a politician, he was a job creator, as he was in the private sector (apparently nobody works for Staples, or Dominoes, or Guitar Center).

But what about President Obama? Well, his position on job creation is still evolving, I guess. He has done nothing but create jobs since he came into office, but for some reason, unemployment stays high. That is some strong Mormon Voodoo Mitt Romney is pulling off. Most of the people who read RedState are not economists, but we are smart enough to realize that when jobs are created unemployment goes down. If only they had a term for not creating enough jobs to make up for those that were lost since the beginning of your term in office! The left always likes to put quotation marks around Mitt Romney’s claim of being a “job creator” (see?), but they do no such thing around President Obama. The economy has created jobs, but not as many as were lost, but the President still claims the title of creator. Know what that’s called? A statistical loophole.

And what about the whole Solyndra/Fisker/GM thing? You know, the whole notion of public investments? There are two major problems with this one. First is the image problem, as in, who fired who, and who spent who’s money? The second is the temporal problem, which sounds like something out of Star Trek. First, Democrats love to bring up American Pad & Paper as an example of Mitt Romney shutting down companies without concern for their workers. They paraded fired employee Randy Johnson during Romney’s Senate campaign, Gubernatorial Race, and during this week’s DNC as an example of how they’ve moved forward…to 1994. The problem? Mitt Romney never served on the board at Ampad. While he was on the board at Bain, he never dealt directly with that enterprise. The rub in this case? There was a guy named Jonathan Lavine who was directly responsible for the Ampad deal. And he is one of President Obama’s biggest fundraisers. A lot of those dollars he gave the campaign? They would have been Randy Johnson’s salary. Real Robin Hood stuff going on over there in the Democrat Workers Party. Then, there’s the time problem. Remember how Mitt Romney used his Magical Mormon Drum Circle to cast cancer spells on that one steelworker’s wife? The cancer occurred seven years after he left Bain Capital to run the Olympics, and that worker, Joe Soptic, was fired two years after he left Bain Capital. As an interesting note about time in the campaign, and for my own amusement, I also want to point out that Democrats only use one month of the George W. Bush term when answering the, “are you better off now than four years ago?” question. The nifty way to package all this? Apparently, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney are responsible for what happens after they leave their executive positions, but Barack Obama is not responsible for what happens while he still occupies his.

In all, Mitt Romney is not the perfect candidate, but to his credit that is not how he is running. Mitt Romney is running as a realist. He is running as the painkiller you take after the hangover hits you. He is running as the alternative to platitudes and pandering. He is running as a real American story.

And President Obama? He has behaved an awful lot like the image he is running against.

-Joseph Kurt can be found delightfully polluting the airwaves with right-wing hatred and spew every weekend on 94.3WSC FM in Charleston, SC. Website here.

Cohen misses two marks an article that reads like a flurry of pseudo-intellectual haymakers. The first is before his friend’s use of government services, the second is during.  Arguably, there could be a third after he became a doctor, but since the focus of the opening paragraph is how his friend ascended on the strong back of government, let’s address those, shall we?

First, did his friend have an option to go to private school, and bypass it for public school? Or was private school cost-prohibitive due to public schools pushing less expensive options out of the market, much like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have made medicine and retirement more expensive? If this case is true, and the option was not available, did not the hand of government force the outcome Mr. Cohen is now touting? And as far as the Army paying for schooling this doctor, I can guarantee you there are Soldiers who are very grateful for this man’s education, and I am willing to pay for that. I can also guarantee you that the Army is getting their money’s worth out of him. The military tends to find ways to do that.

Second, and this is the “during”, does the fact that we created public schools and government services ensure that all the students there will perform so admirably? Of course it does not. If we treated education like healthcare, shouldn’t every student pay a certain amount of federal and state tax to recoup said investment? Oh, wait, they do. And the payback from individuals such as doctors and Army Officers is greater than the initial payout (in a monetary sense for most doctors, and a sacrificial sense for Army Officers, since they are paid by the government).  See, Mr. Cohen assumes that because we have such educational infrastructure we are able to produce such wonderful students. The truth is, his Army Republican Doctor friend has it right, and is the very reason we can produce such infrastructures. This temporal and causal abnormality is not just common, it is critical to liberal thought.

So why did this piece strike me so? The answer is yet another temporal abnormality. The left is forced to make end runs around its own proud logicians to compensate for something they could have dropped in a hot second. Yet here we are, revisiting the errouneous sound bite that won’t die. And why? Because the left doesn’t think this was a mistake, or a slip-up, or even a significant line in the speech. This is a universal truth to them! It was supposed to be a throwaway line at best. Their incredulity in this matter is not based on the fact that they are still defending this line, but that it had to be defended at all. And when they challenge our logic, they just hurl insults and invective, and don’t even realize the logical fallacy they have set themselves up for. Instead, we have excuse after excuse after excuse. And to what end? The phrase, “doth protest too much, methinks” comes to mind. It is critical to the liberal telos to illustrate not just the value and virtue of collectivism, but to reduce the value and virtue of individualism. Maybe we conservatives are crazy, and maybe society is better off for all public investment has given us. But if that’s the case, how do we account for the idea that public school produces more prisoners than doctors? Hey, Mr. Cohen, we built that, now didn’t we?

As a celebration of his 100th birthday, and because I found this sublimely illustrative, here’s Milton Friedman:

The first peculiarity that night was the purchase of said ticket. I stepped up to the ticket window, and a pimply faced carnie, who ironically went by the name Carney, asked me for $4.00. This was puzzling, since the purple SEIU sandwich board on the sidewalk said tickets to the show cost $6.00. I asked him why this was, and Carney could not respond. I then asked where he got the rest of the money for the ticket, but he said it was best if he didn’t answer that, either. Finally, I asked him who the well-dressed, and clearly wealthy, man behind him was. I was stonewalled a third time. I remember observing that I was never going to get a straight answer out of Carney. When I paid the $4.00, Carney turned around to the well-dressed man in the booth behind him, and took the remainder out of his pocket. He then printed my ticket with the words “Subsidized Seating” across the top in bold letters. I thanked Mr. Carney, and then proceeded into the theater.

The woman taking the tickets was a most odd sort. She had blond, wavy locks, and spoke with a strange Jewish accent. Her eyes wandered independent of one another and she never looked at the ticket she was taking nor addressed anyone directly. It was as if she was having her own internal debate, and was in the process of losing badly to herself. I thrust my ticket at her but she just kept rambling. I looked at her name tag and tried to call her by the moniker there indicated: Debbie. But that seemed only to make it worse. Finally, I grabbed one of her hands and forcibly fed my ticket into it, which she proceeded to eat. Upon completing the consumption of my ticket, she pointed toward the entrance, all the while maintaining what had metamorphosed into a crowd gathering in her head. However many conversations were going on in there, that sucker was at capacity. In retrospect, I hope they never let that poor
woman run anything.

The inside of the DNC was lined in an opulent and liberal covering of rich blue. There were a group of college-aged kids in first few rows, although according to the picture in the program, there were far fewer than in years past. It seemed the Great Husseinni had lost some of his appeal with them. But it was still a packed house. There were working-age men and women in purple SEIU sweatshirts scattered through the crowd. They were thanking patrons for attending and slipping them small denominations of cash. There were large, burly men with union symbols on their jackets gathered in a cluster around each other. They were constantly, and unnecessarily, shouting over the rather quiet crowd about how much they worked, but they never moved from their spot, and never actually did anything. According the program, they had been attending this show for years, even when the featured act was Bill and his Big Cuban Wand. Also, one of the principal assistants from that show would be featured in this one. This troupe seemed to recycle characters quite a bit.

But not The Great Husseinni. His show was new and different! Never in the history of political theater had these tricks been attempted! Excited and nervous with anticipation, I waited for the curtain to rise. Shortly thereafter, the lights dimmed and one of the college age students promptly fainted. I overheard one of her cohorts tell her that this was not the time, and she miraculously revived herself and continued to scream out loud in joyous ovation and rapturous applause. Finally, the curtain rose, the announcer announced the lead act, the college girl feinted fainting, and the show began. From stage left emerged a wiry man with disproportionately large ears and a sonorous, soothing voice. As he strode confidently toward center stage he waved his wand at the front row. The victim of the fainting syndrome rose on cue. The Great Husseinni shot her a very disappointed look. He faintly whispered under his breath, “That better be a Fluke, Sandra”. As he went around greeting the front row, shaking hands and kissing babies, his four assistants emerged from behind the stage left curtain. They danced their way out like a row of Rockettes, each of them clearly happy to be under the spell of The Great Husseinni. My God, three of these four women were beautiful, and polished. All but the last in line had great legs, and proudly displayed their gams in their tight leotards. But the last was clearly the ugly duckling. It was impossible to see her legs to know what they looked like, because she was wearing a pair of loose jeans over a frumpy pair of Birkenstocks. Her flannel shirt successfully disguised any femininity she had. Each of the girls, including her, had a major news network symbol on the front of their getup. They read: ABC, CBS, NBC, and finally the ugly duckling, MSNBC. During the whole show, I remember they never looked away from The Great Husseinni, no matter what it might have cost them. These dames were committed.

Next Post: On with the show…

-Joseph Kurt is going to have some fun with this one

Well now that the Tebowmania of the primary is over, Mitt “Peyton Manning” Romney had better have something up his sleeve. He has had a couple of good zingers during the debates, and he has been comparatively stable behind the podium, but that alone does not a good candidate make. (Write like Yoda, today, I shall) He had better hit the downfield passes, not just hand the ball off. He had better run the offense, not just adjust to the defense the media sends his way. For example, his response to the accusation that Romneycare is Obamacare’s ideological predecessor has been, so far, “You should have called me to see what worked and what didn’t”. I’ll say it for all of us: Governor Romney, that is not enough. “Why didn’t you call me and ask what worked” is not a rebuttal that sinks in with voters, its what you ask your neighbor when they buy the same grill as you did, and screw up setting it up. Don’t tell me how you would make socialism work, tell me how you would make it gone.

To be fair, which is totally unnecessary, Mitt has said he will repeal Obamacare. That is not enough, not in the light of what Rick Santorum has experienced. When I was helping to prep my station’s local morning show today, I came across an interesting video clip from November of last year. In the clip, Rick Santorum talks about the struggles and triumphs of dealing with a daughter who suffers from Trisomy-18. In one clip, the Grand Inquisitor of Catholic wing of the GOP erases everything  that has ever been said about him being a religious nut, and vindicates the image he tried to construct of a family man. It’s not a construct. Rick Santorum believes the family is the central and essential unit to the preservation of liberty. But there’s one moment, one joyous and tragic moment, where Rick Santorum talks about his daughter’s health care, that transformed my image of the man in a minute. The moment begins at 1:35 and goes to about 2:30.

I cannot tell you how much the line, “And then Mama Bear stood up” choked me up. Here is a doctor, telling a parent, that you have to come to grips with the imminent death of your child. To be fair to the doctor, they are required, far too often, to deliver such news. But to be fair to Karen Santorum, I am glad there are those out there that refuse to hear it. This is why Rick Santorum said “we cannot let them have this issue”. Imagine if the doctor, having the actuary tables on Trisomy-18 in front of him, was not allowed to prescribe the oxygen, and had to give the painkiller instead. Sound familiar?

This is why Rick Santorum was better prepared to take on Obama on the healthcare mandate debate. Let’s say he and his wife recieved Bella into the world after the full implementation of this law. What then? Are we to lay down and die when told, as the Secretary shall direct? Are we to let our children, precious and defenseless as they are, lay down and die, as the Secretary may direct? This was the crux of the Santorum campaign. Whether he got that message out or not was his responsibility, but nobody questioned whether he believed it. And what did the GOP have to say about Rick Santorum? Well, John McCain called Rick’s campaign “irrelevant”, and when John McCain says something about irrelevant, I trust him. He is the subject matter expert on irrelevant campaigns. (McCain’s quote here)

And Romney appears to not be too far behind. And this is the not-so-secret fear of the GOP Establismment. Santorum’s exit may prove a double-edged sword. It’s now Mitt’s show, and show he must. There is speculation that Romney was backed as a non-offensive candidate to try and prevent voters from souring to the possibility of a GOP President come 2016, and that Romney is the candidate who gives the party the most strength “down the ballot”, since Obama’s re-election is a fait accompli. This is actually the opposite of what has happened, though. The prevailing sense among the conservative and TEA Party rank-and-file is that Mitt Romney, as Santorum prophesied, is being shoved down our throats, and instead of bringing in independants, may drive away conservatives forever if he fails to win. The GOP might not be able to win with conservatives alone, so the thinking goes, but it will fail without them. And the GOP elite clung so hard to him during this primary season, they have effectively placed all their political chips on one space of the roulette wheel.

And now it is spinning fast. If the conventional wisdom around Romney being the Least Objectionable Loser (LOL) turns out to be true, the GOP has a bigger problem: They will appear to have forgotten how to win, or how to fight, and they may have spurned the spirit of the most powerful populist movement since The Progressives. Bad mistake, on both counts. The GOP, for all its bluster, seems to be capable of picking the perfect candidate for four years ago, every election cycle. McCain, being stong on national defense and moderate on economics, and, well, just about everything else, would have been perfect as a GOP candidate in 2004, if George W. Bush weren’t already on the ballot. Mitt Romney would have been better than McCain for 2008. About six months ago, we should have set the clocks at GOP headquarters ahead to 2016, and maybe we would have received an Alan West, or a Paul Ryan, or a Mitch Daniels, or a Rand Paul, and possibly a Ron Paul again (those people are dedicated).

But this game is different. Mitt is not the candidate who should give us the most in defeat. Instead, the voters are expecting him to win. That’s why they told us we should vote for him, wasn’t it? He has the greatest chance of beating Obama. GOP leaders have either underestimated how badly we want to win, or simply don’t care, at their own peril. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, as someone once said. This President has proven to us time and again what is down the ballot does not matter. When he had a majority in both houses, he blamed the Republicans. When he got shellacked in 2010, he set the House up as the villain, even though legislation to solve his problems is waiting there, along with his opportunity to “bury the old politics of the past”. He has demonized, publicly, the Supreme Court, for the possibility that it actually did its job! This is the real danger of the Least Objectionable Loser stratagem: If the GOP Etablishment backs a losing horse here, they may not get invited back to the track. For real American conservatives, the question is not what Romney can provide the party as a loser, but where should we go for a winner?

Joseph Kurt will bear the banner of conservatism, and he realizes now more than ever, it is for life. He has found his calling, and he is happy. 

First of all, a big thanks to all who R&R’d (Read and recommended, and if that’s not slang on the sites where I post yet, it is now.) my last post. Like most conservatives, I wish the media would do its job, so I wouldn’t have to. I would like to apologize to my wife for the spit-take that occurred when I saw that headline on a friends’ facebook post. (Article here) For a little backstory, my wife diligently saved her money before we got married, and bought our couch and bed for us as a wedding present to me. I spat the coffee I was drinking all over the couch, upon which I am now sleeping until I get the aforementioned beverage out of it. If any of you have a little room in your budget for a radio show host/blogger, I am available. Please send help and prayers to iamjosephkurt@gmail.com. While that request enters the ether, we have other matters at hand.

As a member of the Charleston TEA Party, and a conservative in good standing, I was forced to wonder if there was any legitimacy to the charge. That lasted for all of a few seconds. We have an innate ”distrust reflex” for most everything in media. When Fox News came along, it was a welcome relief just to watch someone try to show our side. Fox News rapidly became the Israel of broadcast journalism. Neighbors fired at it on a daily basis. The rest of its world tried to smear and demean it, and entire hate groups were built around it, like MSNBC and Current TV. In the spirit of Easter, I am going to try to be nice for a minute. Giving WaPo the benfit of the doubt, maybe they are just trying to explore another angle on the election. Maybe, just maybe, Pravda on the Potomac (Can’t take credit for that, Google search…-JK) is trying to give this election a fair shake.

Welcome back. I know you spent a little time doubled over laughing, and I don’t blame you. When I wrote that line, I nearly lost control of certain bodily functions that would have made the coffee spit-take debacle pale in comparison. But I digress, for the last time, I promise. Washington Post presents its standard evidence, which is polling data. Remember how polls are used to shape public opinion, not record it? Check this out:

“A recent Fox News poll showed just 30 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the tea party, compared to 51 percent who viewed it unfavorably.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll may be more illustrative, though. It showed Americans were more evenly split on the tea party, with 44 percent supporting it and 43 percent opposing it. But just 15 percent of Americans supported the tea party “strongly,” while many more – 26 percent – were “strongly” opposed to it.

That suggests opposition to the tea party is more strident than the tea party itself, which means the movement may be doing the GOP more harm than good.”

The article then goes on to quote a Democrat strategist who states that the TEA Party has become a dangerous group that no longer reflects the values of the American middle class. That’s a curious observation from the party of Occupy Wall Street, especially when the President has something like a 60-70% disapproval rating on how he’s handled the economy. And in my humble opinion, the President’s approval numbers factor into the whole scheme quite a bit. Follow me on this logical journey, if you will. The President is planning to run against Mitt Romney, the TEA Party, and the Republican Party as one cohesive unit whehter they are or not. We are going to be hit with the “do-nothing Congress”, “GOP Extremism”, and “Republican obstructionism” from all sides, whether the topic is relevant or not. Birth control, anyone? President Obama blamed Republican obtructionism in the pages of Rolling Stone before they even held the House! So in light of a -17% Presidential Approval Index among likely voters (See that here), President Obama’s team has thrown another dart at the Democrat re-election strategy board, hoping it resonates. The problem is, it only has one target: Run against a straw man. “It could have been worse”, “saved jobs”, and “profitable green industry” all spring from this political Narnia where President Obama has done a marvelous job, Obamacare is clearly constitutional, and a bunch of working-class voters in tricorn hats have ruined it all.

It just doesn’t jive. According to Rasmussen, the Tea Party’s approval rating as of November last year was 30%, and the Occupy movement was 37% unfavorable. Remember that Rasmussen polls likely voters. That poll should not exist, if the media is to be believed. Democrat Representatives marched with the Occupy movement, and it was supposed to revitalize the left. However, given the reality on the ground, and the grotesque images and video that turned up during the height of the movement, Occupy should have been called Communists Rallying for American Progressivism. Worse still, the polls on the TEA Party show Republicans view it favorably. And the worst yet? The numbers on the TEA Party bounce around like crazy. They are as nebulous as the group itself. In an attempt to pin it down and define it, the Democrat Party Media Relations Divsion has found itself herding politcal cats, or grasping at shadows. They vacillate from “it doesn’t exist”:

To, ”It’s a dangerous, racist, anti-everything, economic terrorist organization that’s responsible for the failures of the Obama administration and Congress’ bad poll numbers”:

Stupidity like this is actually amusing as can be. This “comprimise” rhetoric leads me to another point, though. Ever since the GOP took over the House in 2010, we have been mercilessly pilloried with the notion of how willing Republicans once were to comprimise. According to left, even as seen in the clip above, we used to lay down our arms and negotiate. Paul Begala wrote a column in The Daily Beast/Newsweek that he longed for a time when Republicans knew their place, and were kept under close watch by strong leaders, who would force them to comprimse when necessary. His ideal Republican: Bob Dole. Then we get drivel about Ronald Reagan raising taxes, and working to comprimise with Democrats. Even the President has jumped in to say Reagan could not win today’s GOP nomination. You know what Mr. President? JFK could not have won a Democrat primary since 1976.  But since the Imperial Scribes, not the Emperor, are the ones we are going after in this segment, let’s see what they have to say. From Leonard Pitts Jr. of The Miami Herald, Imperial Idiot of the highest order:

“No, it is the GOP that has abandoned the center and embraced ideological extremism as a virtue. It is telling to hear its candidates use “moderate” as an epithet and argue over who is the most “conservative,” as if the word contained some pixie dust of common sense and moral rectitude. It is sobering to realize that Ronald Reagan, patron saint of modern conservatism, would be unelectable by the standards thereof: He raised taxes and was known to compromise with political opponents — not “enemies” — to get things done.

That was then. His party has since engaged in a 30-year flight from the center that reaches its nadir — at least, let us hope it’s the nadir — in this era of tea party incoherence, faith-based policy, fear mongering and tax pledge tyranny. This era when compromise is both lost art and dirty word and some Americans see other Americans as enemies — an era in which there is something lonely and foregone about pleading with an angry nation that this is not how it is supposed to be.”

You want to see a clear and obvious difference between the character of Reagan and Obama? If Obama had just half the character of Reagan, we would have seen him sign cuts into law, real cuts, at least two times by now. Look at how Reagan handled not having congressional support compared with how Obama has handled it. To quote a famous comic book writer: ‘Nuff said.

And about this whole “too far to the right” business? Quick, name for me a social welfare program that has been cut. No? Name for me a year when we cut goverment spending. No again? OK, name for me a government agency that has exceeded its budget or risked insolvency. That one was too easy, you say? There’s a reason. When you look at government through that frame, its simple to see why the left says we are moving to the right. There’s a principle known as relative motion. If you walk past someone standing still, and you keep walking, and they keep standing still, the distance between you keeps growing, Only one side has to move to have “motion” between the two. The GOP of the years since Reagan has stood in place, mostly. If it has moved anywhere, it has moved to the left a little (Lindsey Graham). But when seen from the vantage point of a Democrat Party scrambling to introduce us to a National Health Care system, a more progressive tax system, and even seeking to take goverment control of private retirement accounts, it must look like we are moving to the right quite a bit. The notion that any powers not expressly granted to the Federal Goverment are granted to the States or the People (all capitalized on purpose) must seem like whacko Michigan Militia talk. That idea comes from the constitution, where our core position rests. How far has the Democrat Party gone when the heart of the American ethos is considered right wing extremism?

Finally, I have to add this: The TEA Party is starting to look more and more like they were hiding a crystal ball somewhere in their midst. The predictions made about the intrusion of government, the destruction of liberty, and the dire economic consequences of this President’s policies all seem like the eerie ramblings of a white-wigged soothsayer that somehow became true. The NDAA? Obamacare? Deficits? The list goes on. And the “do-nothing Congress” has tried to stop a President who does not respect his own constitutional limitations and responsibilities, much less theirs. They have had precious little succes. Liability, in legal terms, is synonymous with culpability and responsibility. The TEA Party sent the Congress to slow the machine, and they have somewhat, but when you are dealing with such an idealogue, culpability and capability do not always align. How do you stop a President that refuses to constrain himself or his signature legislation to the limits of the very document that grants him the Office? How do you stop a President that sees destroying the constitution as keeping the oath he took upon inauguration? It isn’t enough to vote a congressional counterbalance in. You must vote him out. That’s why the TEA Party is being framed like this. We are not the GOP’s responsibilty, we are not its liability, and we are not its culpability. We are the reason it has any capability. Time to put the tricorn hat back on and saddle up.

Wherever Joseph Kurt travels, a liberal on horseback rides out ahead of him screaming , “The Liars are coming!”. It never works.

Ah, Proglodytes. They always manage to step up and make it easy. I now know why Al Franken wanted to expand government control of the web. Any doofus with a search engine can take the government’s argument apart in a matter of seconds. I mean, earlier this week a famous Constitutional Law professor actually forgot Marbury v. Madison! Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to be that doofus.  This week’s little gem came courtesy of the highest office in the land, inhabited by one of the lowest men to ever hold its title. I could not find the exact quote, since it was buried somewhere in the hackneyed rhetoric about taking health care away from weather balloons or some such stuff. (Stuff in this article, even if it is a hyperlink, is a euphemism for what Rick Santorum said the Mainstream Media is constantly guilty of. Yes liberals, congratulations, you found the coded language.)

But the passage, and message, that I want to focus on goes something like this, and stop me if you’ve heard it before: “We’ve tried it your way before, and it didn’t work.” I actually stopped myself in the middle of that phrase because The Baracken Record has said it many times. In fact, he is so good at loading the same speech on the teleprompter that RNC actually finally had the guts to call him on his “recycling”. But I digress. Here’s the President saying something very similar to what he said on Monday and Tuesday back in 2010:

And just to make sure we didn’t forget what he was trying to do, the Imperial Scribes at the L.A. Times actually wrote this on March 30th:

Framing the November election as a defining moment for the middle class, President Obama said voters would have a choice between his policies and Republicans’ “you’re-on-your-own economics” as he sought to energize his most devoted supporters after a deflating week.

In a pair of campaign speeches to supporters, Obama cast the Republican Party as controlled by its most conservative wing and described his own policies as driven by American values.

“You know, if you’re out of work, can’t find a job, tough luck; you’re on your own. If you don’t have healthcare, that’s your problem; you’re on your own. If you’re born into poverty, lift yourself up out of your own — with your own bootstraps, even if you don’t have boots; you’re on your own,” Obama said in remarks before a cheering crowd in Burlington, Vt. “Hey, they believe that’s how America has advanced. That’s the cramped, narrow conception they have of liberty.”

If I weren’t so offended, I’d be amused. So the theme he’s going to run on is the idea that America has tried it the conservative, liberty-driven, free market way, and it failed miserably? Let me decode this for you, as if you couldn’t for yourself, if you’ll permit me. Barack Obama’s re-election message is going to be that it was all George W. Bush’s fault, and Mitt Romney is just another George W. Bush. It’s bigger than that, of course. But to his base, and to the media, (but I repeat myself) the marching orders are out. Already, the comparisons are beginning to trickle down (tee hee), and this one comes from Zbigniew Brzezinksi, a man whom I am convinced was named by Klingons.

But there are two major problems with President Obama’s assertions, and they are not only major, they are 180 degrees out-of-phase with history. First, there were many things George W. Bush did that conservatives didn’t like, such as Medicare part D, No Child Left Behind, signing McCain-Feingold, a pseudo-amnesty proposal, going to war without a declaration, and running up massive debts and deficits. But worse than that is President Obama’s perpetuation of many of these very same policies. Don’t bash Bush when you are a Super Dubya, and far worse on character and love of country. The second is the fallacy outright lie that we have tried free markets and deregulation. This is so disgusting on so many levels, my brain actually struggles to contain it all. Please pardon the following run on sentence: It isn’t just the false idea that we are under regulated, it is also the truth that the increases in the governemnt deficit spending under this man’s administration are such that the real inflation rate is 8% and the printing of fiat currency is driving down consumer spending power so rapidly that pretty soon the entire middle class will be so safely concealed below the poverty line, the President won’t have to worry about who believes his stuff.

The Super Dubya explanation is pretty easy. Well, a more accurate description would be Bizarro Dubya. (Please note, I have plenty of respect for President Bush, I am using Dubya to mock the left, not to demean the man). All the powers of President Bush, but twisted and evil. Afghanistan? Don’t worry, after surging the troops, President Obama calmed down the post Koran-burning situation with his words. A recurring theme of this administration is, “it could have been worse”, but that’s a subject for another post. Iraq? Not done there yet, but let’s make sure not to invite George W. Bush to the victory celebration. Medicare? I see your Medicare, and I raise you Obamacare! Amnesty? He’ll do that through the DOJ, no problem. War without a declaration? Illegal, unless his campaign is looking for the Qadaffi bump. Deficits? Hello? Anybody? Bueller?

But next we have the coup de grace. The campaign message is going to be that we’ve tried it Bush’s way, and it failed. Remember, for their purposes, Republicans = Bush = Rush Limbaugh = Racists = Rich White People. This one is a whopper. First of all, let’s get something out of the way. The definition of a free market (from investorwords.com, an online investment glossary) is as follows:

1. Business  governed by the laws of supply  and demand, not restrained by government  interference, regulation or subsidy.

Wow. Just. Wow.

Amazing. The period in which man enjoyed the most freedom was the latter part of the 19th, and earlier part of the 20th century. You know, the Old Deal. Mr. President, your argument is invalid. You said when you got elected that we had tried it the Republicans way for eight years, and it failed. Stuff.

The truth is, we’ve tried it your way for the past 80 years, and it has failed us all, collectively.

Joseph Kurt is an individual, and is damn certain of his societal responsibilities.

Since I couldn’t find the reference, I will have to go on faith on this one, and I apologize for any inaccuracy. I do not mean to impugn Mitt Romney with this, but I cannot remember to whom this observation should be credited, but I believe it was George Will. Mitt Romney, he said, will have to be moved to the right by force. Not violence, but the force of the popular voice of the right. I concur, since I firmly believe Mitt Romney’s campaign is shaped by the victory of 2010 as much as it is the defeat of 2008. The Republican Establishment, who swears they don’t exist, was broadsided by the “Tea Party Revolution”  in 2010. They are paralyzed with fear that Rick Santorum might win the nomination, since he is a zealot. They fear Ron Paul, since he is a hard-line ideologue, and will cost them much of their “hard earned” power. And they fear Newt Gingrich, since he knows where their bones are buried, and they might not have leverage in the Oval Office with him behind the Resolute desk. So it’s to be Romney, and we Tea Party types will have to drag him to the right, as if we were a team of horses harnessed to pull a deeply-rooted stump out of the ground. So be it.

I can’t see this as an impossible challenge. I’m sorry, I know I should be a little more openly wary of Mitt Romney, and I have. (You can listen to my criticism here) Conservatives, however, are not just trying to pull a single candidate to the right, it is our life’s mission to pull an entire electorate to the right. Compared to that Sisyphean effort, pulling Romney to the right seems like no big deal. The current President, by the way, would have to move dramatically to the right to be classified as a liberal! The Romney pull team, thank God, would ideally not have to be focused on economics, right? A rich capitalist with a “couple of Cadillacs” in the driveway should be as capitalist as any of us, right? No, he’s not. I said I didn’t see pulling Mitt Romney to the right would not be impossible, but I am not so stupid as to believe it will be easy.

So I have my harness on, and I am ready to let the pulling begin. First up, it’s the flip-flops, and they are legion. I could never encompass them as well as an incredibly damning number of videos, compilations, and ads have, so check this out:

Damn it.

I mean, my God. Maybe this will be harder than I thought. But just when I want to give up hope that there is a rightward streak anywhere under Mitt Romney’s coif, along comes the liberal media. Yes, you read that right. Here is what TIME’s Joe Klein had to say about Mitt Romney flips and flops on social issues:

“He was probably far more conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage that he professed to be when he ran for U.S. Senator and then Governor in Massachusetts. Stories in both the New York Times and Washington Post this year have revealed that Romney took his role as a Mormon Bishop and President (the ultimate Mormon authority in the Boston area) very seriously–and that he tried to enforce the laws of his church on abortion, homosexuality and premarital sex firmly, although humanely. His flip back toward social conservatism when he decided to run for President was probably a move toward his natural predilections.”

Whew. That was close. Oh, there’s more? The next paragraph of the same article?”

“And he is probably more moderate on policy issues than he’s been pretending to be as a Republican presidential candidate in the past two campaigns. He is a product of the empowerment Republicanism of the 1990s, as is Gingrich–an attempt to achieve progressive ends through conservative means. Hence, his support for an individual mandate universal health care system, which would use a private market to lower the cost of health insurance–an idea that was developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Hence, his support for a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions–an idea that George H.W. Bush included in the Clean Air Act of 1990, to (successfully) control Acid Rain. The radical turn of the Republican party has forced Romney to move right on those and a myriad of other issues.”

Damn it.

So here’s the hope: We are seeing, now, the real Mitt. Here’s the fear: In a few months, the polls will shake the etch-a-sketch. Somewhere, deep inside Mitt Romney, is a family man of character. We just don’t know if we are seeing that man, or the suit that man puts on. There’s something I do like about Mitt Romney, though, something I see in him that gives me a little more than just casual hope. It’s around the eyes when he is doing his Ken Doll act while trying not to get angry at the debates or the other candidates. It stems from an instinct that drives a man to success in  a (comparatively) free-market economy, a corporate CEO, or a talented athlete. Somewhere in that perfect exterior, there is a Mitt Romney who hates to lose. Call it a fear of not surpassing his father, call it a lust for power, or call it whatever you will. For every ounce of arrogance that Barack Obama has for thinking that he can’t lose, or conceit he has that he shouldn’t lose, Mitt Romney has a pound of resolve that he has to win. He feels this way because he knows he will never get this close to the office again. This is probably Romney’ s last ride. It angers me that he seems to move with the shifting winds of the polls, of course. And on some innate level, and maybe it’s the level where most politicians disappoint me in some fashion by not living up to their billing, I can see why Romney has done so much, well, let’s just call it “triangulating”. I get it, but I don’t like it, either.

I also keep forgetting the Proglodytes (Progressive + Troglodytes = Proglodytes) ”know” they are going to run against this guy. So how do we do a Lazarus on Mitt Romney’s conservative streak? Many would argue that we already have, compared to his term as governer and his campaign for Senate in 1994 against Ted Kennedy. It’s possible, but if that is the case, I do not believe the reversion is permanent. What the hell do we do now? The answer is a little more complex than I want, and maybe a little too late. I want to say that we should vote for Rick or Newt, as we did here in South Carolina, and if that is what you believe, you should. But I think many in our party have fallen for the spell that Mitt Romney looks and sounds like the President out of central casting, and if an electorate is so uninformed as to annoint a novice with the highest political office in the world, then they believe we have to aim beyond “simple party politics”. The recipe is easy enough, give the electorate someone not too far off of their ideological spectrum, and make sure he looks good in a suit. Mitt looks like he was cooked up in a lab somewhere in the Hamptons, so he fits a lot of bills. So what do we do if he wins?

The same thing we do if he loses. We pretend the Romney administration is as bad as the Obama administration, and we unite the way we did during the last four years. Make them prove to us they are different, and don’t let off the gas. The Tea Party rallies continue. The 9/12 groups continue to meet and get results. We continue to publish social media and blogs (You’re welcome). We keep doing excellent radio shows (You’re welcome). Make no bones about it, President Romney needs the Tea Party more than he knows. This fire cannot be quenched by a moderate administration, or we will have taught the GOP the lesson we taught them with George H.W. Bush, and Gerald Ford, and they will place a permanent embargo on the names and ideals of Reagan and Goldwater from future elections in perpetuum. We are in a race to change the future of the country, and to my fellow conservatives, I implore you, do not let the status quo reign over us because we changed the letter in parentheses after the President’s name. If we do that, we might just save Mitt Romney as a President, and the United States as a nation. The stakes are that high, at least.

Damn it.

Joseph Kurt is the Unceremonious Master of Ceremonies, and the host of The Joseph Kurt Show Saturdays at 6pm on NewsRadio 94.3WSC FM, in the Holy City of Charleston, S.C. (Show archives here) He is also the host of the Charleston Tea Party Podcast. He will never, ever give in, not one inch, for this is a matter of honor. Twitter: @JosephKurt1

In the very first paragraph of the article, the party line manages to slip out, and it is as follows: You are too stupid to notice there is a recovery going on around you. The exact quote is, “Given that…unemployment is still above 8%, you’d be forgiven for not noticing that there’s been a rebound-until, maybe, now”. That’s genius with a capital D. And they cite fantastic evidence to support their claims, such as the stock market hitting new highs, out-of-work claims at four year lows, and consumer-confidence figures ticking up. We’re back, baby, and badder than ever! The only thing missing now is a Joe Biden economic gaffe.

Yup.

But there are just a few problems with the logic. Now I understand there are more than a few problems with Keynesian logic, but I’m just talking about those statements and assertions she cites as evidence of a recovery. The first is the assessment of consumer confidence. As of this writing, which is the exact same date on the cover of the magazine, the Consumer Confidence Index is down by 1.4 points from February to March of this year. This reminds of two things: The first is the idea of liberal elitism and observation bias, and the second is the gravity the political left places on what “plays well” from President Obama’s speeches on the economy. Chuck Todd recently stated that media liberals suffer from a geographical, not ideological, bias. (You can read that here) Combined with the observations by your Keynesian Clergy, the implication is they think we’re stupid for not seeing the recovery. And they were smart enough to live in areas such as D.C. or New York that never saw the recession in the first place. Also, the notion of what “plays well” is absolutely critical to leftist ideology. This is an election year, and we have a professional campaigner as an incumbent, so everything is viewed through the prism of whether it helps or hinders that effort, and one of the “unbiased” media observations regarding the dip in President Obama’s polling numbers was the idea that telling Americans the economy had recovered was a no-no. (Article here) See, they still have buy gas and groceries, so it rings a little hollow to cheer your efforts in light of that inconvenient truth. So now, the administration has to convince Americans that we are in a soft recovery, or a jobless recovery, or that the recession has bottomed out, without sounding too optimistic. We’re a little back, Mr. President, but don’t tell us we’re back. Remember the caricature of Bush as the eternal optimist in spite of the truth? I’m no Hindu, but the concept of karma is really starting to make inroads into my beliefs.

As for the other numbers, jobless claims and the stock market, they are deceptive, at best. The administration’s tinkering with the unemployment figures is well-documented, but often left out of the conversation is this: Employment grows and declines in spurts, not in a straight line. It makes sense from a macro perspective. Good news for the national economic outlook is not compartmentalized into sectors of the economy, as the TIME piece suggests, and so growth occurs in short bursts. Without getting too wonkish, here’s what that means: One month’s data, or even a cluster of data, does not always a trend indicate. (You can read the source for that here) But there is TIME magazine, carrying the economic water for the administration in its half-full bucket of pure optimism. And as far as the stock market goes, wasn’t there a President who said we can’t look to the stock market’s gyrations as an indicator of economic health? And wasn’t he, like, really smart?

The piece is designed to ease America’s fears that the economy might actually have established a “new normal” of 8% unemployment and GDP propped up by government spending, rather than investment, trade, and consumption. But the idea and message, like the people who wrote it, have no basis in reality. The average American has seen a 9% drop in their spending power during the Obama administration, and that is real to them. The stock market is not. They have seen real inflation (factoring in food and gas prices) at 8%, even though Paul Krugman swears this is not happening. The political left is going to have to face reality, which is something they hate. They are going to have to admit to themselves that they are the only ones trying to force good news down the throat of a terminally ill patient. This is a sad analogy, I understand, but I did not put them in this situation. They built this house of cards themselves. Since Obamacare is on the political horizon these days, let’s look at it like this: We have not yet fully recovered from this malignant recession, and it is too soon to declare victory over it. At best, we are showing signs of remission, but here’s the problem: We have not stopped the behavior that gave us the tumor in the first place, and we are actually increasing its frequency and scale. The most bitter irony in all of this is that we are being forced to continue this fatal behavior by elected politicians (Obama, Reid) and unelected bureaucrats alike (Bernanke, Geithner). I guess those “death panels” aren’t just for healthcare anymore. -JK

Joseph Kurt is the Unceremonious Master of Ceremonies. He would first like to apologize for the inabililty to indent paragraphs in WordPress. He is the host of The Joseph Kurt Show on NewsRadio 94.3WSC on Saturdays at 6pm in the Holy City of Charleston, S.C. He is also the host of the Charleston Tea Party Podcast. He actually managed to scare himself while writing this.