Fears of a Straw Man

A Facebook friend and ideological opposite of mine linked to the NY Times, where Timothy Egan went on a rant yesterday about Rush Limbaugh and how brilliantly the White House has "played" him.

Two comments followed at the FB link which: 1) said "smart conservatives" should be embarrassed by Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin; and 2) said "smart conservatives" was an oxymoron. I wrote the following in response:

I truly don't understand why it is that Democrats always tell Republicans what we as a party should be. (And then a lot of them, including Egan and two commenters above me, proceed to evaluate my intelligence based on my belief system.)

I also don't get how Egan comes up with the idea that the White House has "played" Limbaugh or the conservative movement. If anything, the White House has looked petty by having Gibbs calling out Limbaugh, Santelli, Cramer, or whoever else dares to oppose them. Can you imagine Bush calling out Michael Moore or the Dixie Chicks by name? The press would have had a field day.

And, of course, Egan's comments on Rush consist of a lot of half-truths. "He reiterated his desire to see the president of his country fail." Yes, he wants to see anyone who would make this country into a socialist nation fail in that endeavor. "He made fun of one man’s service in Vietnam..." He stated that John Kerry made his four months in Vietnam out to be more heroic than they actually were.

But really, the issue here is that a lot of these Democrat columnists, along with moderates (i.e., not conseratives) like Brooks, Frum, and Parker, want the Republican Party to compromise its own main tenets. We just tried that with John McCain, who only got the base of the party out to vote when he selected a real conservative as his running mate.

And that brings us to Sarah Palin. Why should I be embarrassed by Sarah Palin? She is a fiscal conservative, and her social views match mine, though she will defer to her state's constitution over her own views when they disagree. Yes, she had a bad interview (though in her defense, at least two interviews in Sept were heavily edited to make her look bad)...so what? Obama needs a teleprompter just to introduce his HHS nominee. Non-story.

Here's the deal: conservatives want to see businesses and people keep more of their money. (I do NOT refer to failing businesses, including banks, getting bailouts. That is NOT what capitalism is about. However, there is a lot of blame to go around with regard to the banks, many of which were forced to give out bad risk loans. But I digress.) The Obama administration appears to believe Keynes's idea that the government can spend its country out of recession, even if it means massive debt. That's just something I, at least cannot compromise on. And for people who disagree with me to tell me that I have to compromise to succeed seems disingenuous at best.