A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

1. 

   Todd
   October 21st, 2009 - 10:32

   These are some incredibly disturbing stories you’ve linked here. I am not a conservative, and consider myself something of a moderate (if such a thing really exists). What I appreciate about your site here is that you’ve actually linked and quoted news stories, and THEN given your thoughts. This is the kind of thing that is angering the president and his staff. They obviously cannot (or will not) differentiate between Glenn Beck’s commentary and, say, Shepard Smith’s news reporting.

   I love how no proof or examples about Fox are given by Gibbs, the man responsible for verbally representing the Commander in Chief. He and Rahm and Axelrod all said on the Sunday talk shows that “it isn’t just Fox’s commentary…it’s their news reporting that is skewed too”, yet when given the chance to offer up proof or evidence of their claims Gibbs says “Watch Hannity and Beck and you’ll see what I mean”.

   Wait, I thought it wasn’t commentary (aka Free Speech in action) that you disliked, but the biased news reporting of Fox?

   PATHETIC!!!

   If Bush had tried to silence or alienate the NY Times or MSNBC he would have been dragged over the coals (and rightly so). This is a great use of the president and his staff’s time, btw.
2. 

   Bradford
   October 21st, 2009 - 15:35

   “All this from the man who promised to be a “new kind” of leader, someone who could ‘clean up Washington.’ What the American people are quickly remembering is that politicians are politicians, no matter how badly we want them to be saviors or messiahs.”

   Hi, Robbie

   As I said before in our conversations, there would’ve been no messiah search, and subsequent “messiah” ascension had we not been brought to our knees and dragged through the coals of hell. I see a direct connection to what happened for nearly the past decade and the direction of this country for the next few years.

   “If you’ve ever heard anything more foolish than a liberal Democrat’s White House staff accusing Fox News of being the only network with a “perspective” or “agenda”, I’d love to be made aware of it.”

   Well, to be fair, Fox News did start it first. I would have much more respect for Fox News if they just dropped their slogan and MORE explicitly reveled in spreading their “agenda.” Sadly, though, the days of objective and true journalism in the mainstream are almost completely gone. Every network almost proudly displays its slant.

   I don’t know if I quite get the point of this post. Should I be upset that our president is participating in a war against one of the premier news networks? I’m not. I’m more upset that the American people have to suffer underneath such all around shotty journalism–on both sides. We don’t get facts…but many of us probably don’t want them either. We’ll take our news just like microwaved food: instant, in portions small enough not to overwhelm our ignorance or challenge our preconceived notions/biases/prejudices/crappy ideas, and of little nutritional value.

   I don’t know if there is room for compromise anymore between our broken two party system. I recently read that a shockingly low number of people self-identify as Republicans anymore. It was below 20%, if I can recall correctly. More and more people are becoming Independent–whatever that means.

   But there are people on the left pushing an agenda. There are people on the right fighting for their say in the “changes” coming down the line. Unfortunately, Robbie, we don’t agree on big issues. Not only do I support our President’s agenda, I want him to become more Bush-like and ram it through, irregardless of what the other side wants….ya know, but respect the other stuff….Big things like international law, international perception, diplomacy, and civility.

   The strong arm of Obama is what I voted for…so far, I’m getting a limp wrist. I want Gitmo closed, Iraq OVER, Afgah (undecided just yet), a strong public option, truth commissions, and strengthened national border, true pathway to citizenship, strict financial regulations, a strong middle class (Remember the Clinton years?)

   ….but I’m tangenting.
3. 

   Frank the Tank
   October 21st, 2009 - 18:53

   Bradford-

   “There would’ve been no messiah search, and subsequent “messiah” ascension had we not been brought to our knees and dragged through the coals of hell. I see a direct connection to what happened for nearly the past decade and the direction of this country for the next few years.”

   I understand what you are saying here, but I think it is a weak (at best) argument. Obama promising on the campaign trail that he would “rise above the politics of Washington” is engaging in all of the worst kind of politics in Washington (and, notably, of Chicago as well). That has little to nothing to do with George Bush. Each administration of course is affected by the previous, but it should not affect their tone and strategy (i.e. attacking a single news network because they don’t like their commentary). You are stretching in a big way to try and correlate the mistakes of Bush with the nastiness of Obama’s minions. You gotta be able to separate those two things.

   Fox News “started it first”??? So it was incumbent upon them to “play nice” and wait until the Obama administration “started something” with them? That makes no sense. Let’s be clear about what is going on here: Glenn Beck led the charge to get Vance Jones (a self-described Marxist) fired. That happened. Andrew Breitbart (and Beck again) led the Acorn charge. Acorn, an organization intimately linked with high-ranking Democrats from California to Nevada to Chicago to the White House, has been run through the mud. Think what you will of those facts, but those are the reasons the White House has gone after an entire news network and tried to lamely pass it off as “oh, they don’t do real news from morning until night there”.

   As RJ’s guy Prager says often “First tell the truth, then give your opinion.”

   The point of this post, and I won’t speak for RJ, is to highlight all of the craziness that is going on in Washington right now…AND (and this is important), from the people (the Democrats in Congress and the White House) who promised things would change with partisan bickering and back-room deals and lack of transparency. Both sides engage in political posturing, but Pelosi and Obama for the past two years have not shut up about “Cleaning” things up in DC.

   Where do you see that? Where are the lobbyists being removed? Where are the olive branches? Where is the real change? Or could it be that Obama and the current Democrats are NO DIFFERENT than any other politicians (the thing all rational-thinking people knew all along).

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