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April 3, 2009
Reagan and Anti-Reagans
Mark Levin played one of Reagan's best speeches Wednesday (March 31, 2009). In 1964, Reagan went on TV to make the case for Barry Goldwater and in his speech he touched on many topics, displaying a mastery of all of them, citing examples and statistics to back up his claims, periodically injecting some levity.
So many people in the GOP like to bandy Reagan around because they know that it's the right thing to do, but they fail to recognise why Reagan's words are so powerful, ignore his message and only use him to grant them some credibility with Republican voters.
Reagan is powerful because he spoke to you directly. He didn't hide behind vagaries, didn't mince words or clothe his speeches with meaningless phrases. To use a familiar quote, "He meant what he said and said what he meant". He talked about defending freedom, and how it is the right of every human being, and he wasn't afraid to point out Soviet oppression.
Contrast this to Obama, who obviously thinks he - and what he wants and believes - is the most important thing. More important than his word, and obviously more important than his Presidential oath.
There is no way a President of the United States should be able to fire the head of a private company (GM in this case). No way, no how; it smacks of tyranny or at the very least, a dictatorship... definitely not a representative republic. Further, it is galling that after that his administration is embarking on a course to grant the Fed even more sweeping changes that would allow Congress to limit compensation!
The President has enormous power, not only to change the fortunes of us individually, but the course of the entire country. So when the President is barely courteous to our oldest ally and fawning to the leader of an oppressive theocracy, you know something ill is in the wind.
Reagan wasn't like that. He was proud to be an American, gracious to our stalwart allies and critical of our enemies (think Libya and the USSR, among others). He understood the power of friendship and the need to maintain strong ties with similarly minded countries and to refuse to give legitimacy to rogue or oppressive regimes. I'd like to point out that for all the criticism of President Bush and his ties to 'big oil' he was hardly fawning of the Saudi royal family and pushed for ways for America to become less dependent on their oil. Clinton, and apparently Obama now, appear to see the relationship with the Saudis differently (remember, the Saudis have donated a LOT of money to Clinton's library).
Add that to ANOTHER embarrassing gaffe - giving the Queen an iPod filled with show tunes, (she's not THAT kind of Queen), pictures and Obama's speeches - and it's a wonder Obama has ANY supporters still left, except for a handful of die-hard ideologues. What makes this latest incident even more inexcusable than Brown's DVD's and barely lukewarm reception is that the Brit media in particular (and some American news outlets), were extremely critical of Obama's brush off of Brown. Brown and Labour aren't polling well in Britain, but he's still their Prime Minister, so to have him treated poorly is insulting to them. Several opinion pieces in the Guardian and elsewhere voiced that they were extremely insulted by Obama's treatment of Brown. Rather than learning from that and trying to come up with a more thoughtful gift for the Queen of England (for goodness sake), he gives her an unimaginative iPod, pre-loaded with his own narcissism. The best retort to that I've seen is from a poster at Hot Air, who suggested the Queen erase the iPod, fill it with Churchill's best WWII speeches and re-gift it to Obama. Personally, I think that's BRILLIANT, and it's what I would do. The Queen is a much better person than I am, I guess.
I don't know why people don't see Obama for the danger he is; apparently most Democrats still support him strongly. Any man who, after being elected to the most powerful job in the world, thinks it proper to go about bashing America and calling us arrogant isn't someone who can be trusted. We're supposed to 'respect' the President, but how can we, when he takes a trip abroad and sees it as an opportunity to disparage the average American? Where is the reciprocal respect? Where's the appreciation for being elected President? It's an honour to serve as Commander in Chief, yet Obama sees it as an opportunity to disparage our way of life. Why seek the office if you think the country is so terrible? A desire for control and power is the only believable reason Obama would seek the Presidency then, and anyone who has those aspirations cannot be trusted.
Posted by hanyap at April 3, 2009 7:34 PM