Redstate

(and, as the Gipper would have wanted, a parting shot at the House Dems)

By Mark Kilmer Posted in Republicans — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Today, March 14, Fred Thompson substituted for radio legend Paul Harvey, and he began thusly:

Wasn’t it Casey Stengel, the old baseball manager, who said one day after the third dropped fly-ball in the outfield, “can’t anybody here play this game?” That’s sort of the way I feel when I watch certain parts of our government in action.

We’ve known for a long time that our intelligence capabilities weren’t cutting muster. It was certainly the case before 9/11, and it’s still true in Iraq and elsewhere. Now we have apparently decided that we really don’t know if North Korea has a uranium enrichment program to make bombs or not.

Whether it’s the Katrina response, the problems at Walter Reed Medical Center, bungled border security, or the IRS and FBI which can’t get their computer systems working, it seems like we’ve lost our ability to take care of some of the most basic duties of government.

[ . . .]
What we need now are managers who understand that even building a government with “less wrong” about it would be a major public service and a truly worthwhile legacy. Of course, it would be nice if they got a little help from Congress and the White House.

Read the entire transcript here, at National Review Online. (They also have the audio.)

And compare to this:

Read On…

Sometimes giving a burocrat [sic] a new rule is like handing a pyro-maniac a lighted match in a haymow. …

A Congressman from Conn. [Bill Cotter, D] is upset and properly so. It seems the Dept. of H.E.&W. has told Wethersfield school officials their all-boy 6th grade choir violates sex discrimination guidelines. Under their rules musical groups can be separated only by vocal range. I hope by the time you hear this the Congressman has been successful in his fight to restore common sense.

[ . . . ]
Now I know that the govt. workers responsible for this foolishness aren't evil people. They just get carried away with trying to solve every facet of every problem and believe the country will come unglued if they don't. …

Our problem is a permanent structure of govt. insulated from the thinking & wishes of the people; A structure which for all practical purposes is more powerful than our elected representatives. Only you & I can change that. We must send Congress a mandate to restore government to the people.

This is RR. Thanks for listening.

Those words are from Ronald Reagan's radio talk of September 21, 1976. They can be found in the book Reagan, In His Own Hand.

I'm not endorsing a candidate; rather, in the parlance, "I'm just sayin'."

I saw this mentioned at Penraker, who thinks we will "recognize Reagan's style in Thompson's piece."

The only question is whether Thompson is copying Reagan's style, or whether it is naturally his.

He hits all the common sense themes.

Don't underestimate Thompson.

I Fred Thompson jumps in, the dynamic changes. I can think of two campaigns which become superfluous, for different reasons, and another, the health of which is certain today.

Let's see how this plays out.

POST SCRIPT: Keeping in mind President Reagan's discussion of bureaucracy above, consider this, written by House Republican Whip Roy Blunt for today's Washington Times:

But on issues relevant to war and peace -- on matters of basic operational authority in Iraq -- Democrats insist that bureaucratic reporting requirements for commanders on the ground be ratcheted up. But don't worry: If Gen. David Petraeus crosses all his t's and makes sure to initial every page, Democrats assure him that he may be allowed to conduct his mission until 2008. Of course, if the reports don't pass bureaucratic muster, he may have to pack his forces up as early as June.

Those folks, the House Democrats, are even more repugnant in the context of war.