Flies At the Picnic

Let me tear Limbaugh apart.

Limbaugh says "We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be."

Now here is the problem. We see globalization, free trade and not fair trade, and outsourcing. We saw Bush glorify free trade and the factories close and the cities and states going broke, and the  people are losing their jobs, their healthcare, and their pensions. How can you be the best when this free trade or ideology is tearing apart the middle class?

Limbaugh says "We love and revere our founding documents, the constitution, and the Declaration of Independence."

I guess it matters not that Bush broke 4 amendments to the constitution. And we also saw the far right religious nuts wanting their ideas in government. 

Limbaugh says "We believe in the preamble of the constitution..... of life, liberty, freedom, and happiness."

So what we got for 8 years is cronyism, the loss of the middle class, the attempt of putting religion in government, the attack on science, militarism, and corporate fascism.

Limbaugh says "We think all three (life, liberty, and freedom) are under assault."

And where has Rush been for 8 years?

Limbaugh says "We don't want to tell anyone how to live."

Oh really. Let's just have free trade and close down the factories and make people lose their jobs with no answer.

Limbaugh says "50 years of a welfare state."

And where has the republicans put us in?

Limbaugh says "We want everyone to succeed." 

Now, how can you do that when you ship jobs overseas and ruin the country.

Limbaugh says "......false promises......."

Just like the failed trickle down theory. Just like getting Osama Bin Laden. Just like having a balanced budget in 2012. Just like "America has no problems by Bush at the Olympics. 

Limbaugh says "Their problems don't get fixed by government.

No, all we saw was laissez-faire by Bush and nothing got done. Just total ignorance as problems developed. 

Limbaugh says "Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts."

Yes, 8 years of cronyism and lies. And the trashing of the constitution and the middle class.

Limbaugh says "How did the United States of America become the world's lone superpower."

Well we have certainly seen the erosion of our superpower in the last 8 years. We are in 130 different countries, a military stretched thin in two wars, our jobs are going overseas, our money going to Iraq, an infrastructure in neglect, deficits and debt. We see South Korea building batteries for cars, China is building the largest nanotechnology facility in the world, and Singapore has been subsidizing embryonic stem cell research when we have had a president attack science.

Limbaugh says "He's (Obama) spending wealth that has yet to be created."

Well, Bush did that. He borrowed for tax cuts and borrowed for his war. This is called guns and butter. All the tax cuts were spent and now we are back into a recession. 

Limbaugh says "You think Obama has any intention of paying for all this spending?"

Just like Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the republicans that ignored the deficits and debt of the last 8 years. Add to that Cheney saying "deficits don't matter."

Limbaugh says "We got out of the 80's recession with tax cuts." 

Partly true, but Paul Volcker had beaten inflation and then had the interest rates lowered. Reagan left deficits. 

The rest of the Limbaugh message was more of the same biased cheerleading.

Now I would consider myself to be in the center to center right. Both parties can and do go over the deep end. At this point I see both parties destroying this country. At this point I really don't care what Obama does. After all Limbaugh, Hannity, and others did not speak up on the Bush cronyism, deficits and debt, and his incompetence. They didn't seem to care about our country for 8 years. So this is where we are. And you (republicans) think, you are going to win over people by bashing Obama, and not having answers to our problems, then you will get no votes in my opinion. The memory of Bush is too soon.

Just about every riposte to a conservative's criticism of Obama is met by a spitting tyrade about Bush, and how we weren't criticizing him for 8 years when he blew up the budget, violated civil rights, etc. etc.

First off, many of us did, even those of us who voted for Bush. Conservative voices derailed his crony Harriett Myers nomination, the amnesty bill, the Dubai ports fiasco, etc. Some of us carry no brief for W, and W has nothing to do with Obama's RESPONSE to the mess that Obama has taken on.

The fact is that the left cannot afford to stop Bush bashing, because without W to react to, so-called progressive ideas have nothing to them but bitter complaint, class envy, and hyped-up crises that require their programs. There are few new ideas under the sun, and Obama's are stuck in 1978.

It's time to stop being angry at Bush, and start looking how to solve the problems in front of us. And those problems are better solved by leveraging the wealth and output of the private sector, and through public/private partnerships as Paul Tsongas used to advocate, rather than creating big new government bureaucracies... and also by electting a Congress that takes its regulatory oversight powers (FNMA, FNMC) seriously.

One more thing: We conservatives need to own up (and many of us have) to the failures of the last administration (the Iraq occupation, Katrina, etc.). But I challenge you to find any examples of past governance mistakes that the left has owned up to.

Even now, they are trying to dismantle Welfare Reform, the closest thing they have to fixing one of their broken programs.

Wait... make that two. Back in the 90s, I think Susan Sontag did eventually admit that Stalinism was a bad thing.

"craven... snivelling..."

I don't think so. BTW, I'm 50 years old.