Republicans are a Christian Party

By Frank Moraes 

Conservatives are so cute! At least when they try to figure out why no one likes their party. It just never occurs to them that it might be, you know, their policies. Look: conservatives like their policies. It is the party of the rich that does the work of the rich. And a bunch of Christians and racists. Conservatives don't talk about the racists for a couple of reasons. One is that it is who they are. Another is that they don't believe in racism. Except reverse racism, where the powerless make the powerful cry. But that's just part of doing the work of the rich. Let us say no more about racism!

But Christians? There's something there. And Jonah Goldberg thinks he understands why Asians are not voting for the Republican Party. Back in December he wrote "The GOP: Not a Club for Christians." That's an aspirational title, because Goldberg fully admits that the Republican Party really does act like a Christian group: 

I've attended dozens of conservative events where, as the speaker, I was, in effect, the guest of honor, and yet the opening invocation made no account of the fact that the guest of honor wasn't a Christian.

Now Goldberg doesn't take offense to this, because he understand that he is one of them. After all, he's the speaker. But what about a Jew or a Buddhist or a Muslim who just happened to be in the audience? He might feel like an outsider.

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Jonah Goldberg calls for more lying

By Frank Moraes

Jonah Goldberg has written the kind of article that liberals just love, "Compassionate Conservatism Redux." In it, he admits that this election has taught him a valuable lesson: as much as he and the other evil men at National Review may love their "Give me low tax rates and give them death" ideology, they need a kinder, a gentler conservatism if they are going to convince the rubes to vote for them. And what is the kinder, gentler conservatism? Certainly not George Bush Sr. He wants to take us back to George Bush Jr. and his idea of "compassionate conservatism."

Quick: what made Bush's conservatism compassionate? Bmmpth! You couldn't think of it quickly, because he never actually governed that way. But let's go back to the way that he claimed he would govern. Goldberg reminds us:
 

People forget that Bush was elected during the [post-Cold War period] and had the [War on Terror] thrust upon him. But at the end of the 1990s, he was one of many voices on the right trying to craft a political rationale to deal with the changing electoral and demographic landscape. He campaigned on a "humble foreign policy" in 2000 and promised something very, very different from a "leave me alone" domestic policy.

Let's see here: would a man who cared about, say, seniors, pass a law that was first and foremost a giveaway to drug companies? Would a man planning on a "humble foreign policy" have Dick Cheney as vice president? It doesn't really matter. The truth is that I have no memory of a Republican ever governing based upon his campaign. Sure: they all promise tax cuts and they almost always pass them. But other stuff? Not really. Remember Reagan? Remember how terrible the federal deficit was and how he was going to knock it out with those three 10-percentage-point tax cuts? I do.

When a Republican promises something like fiscal restraint or human compassion, I know they are lying. So when Jonah Goldberg says that the Republicans need to revisit "compassionate conservatism," what he means is that they need to sound more compassionate. And once in office, they can devastate the poor and start a bunch of new wars. In other words, what Goldberg is really saying is that he's been too honest in the past.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Pot calling the kettle Negro president

By Carl 

Well, well, well, Jonah Goldberg  really doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut, does he? 

Even though the incident made headlines for no discernible journalistic reason, it was noteworthy as a succinct example of Obama's arrogance problem. Rather than make a self-deprecating joke, he opted instead to make a self-inflating one, as if to say that the title mattered less than the man. 

First, the joke was actually funny: he was standing at the podium giving a speech as President of the United States, the most recognizable office in the world.

Whomever holds that office is automatically inducted into that pantheon of recognition not because of who he is... underachieving President Bush was the absolute walking truth of that... but because he holds the office.

Rather than stop the speech he made a joke about the event, passed over it, and continued the speech.

According to Fudgie the Whale, this is somehow indicative of Obama's "Outsized Ego." Interesting. By stating the obvious truth, Obama = President, which is why everyone was there in the first place, this indicates a weakness of character.

Had it been Bush, it would be in Fudgie's head no doubt that this was Bush being a real man, that he was firmly in control of the situation. A self-deprecating joke would have had the PNAC crowd scratching their heads, wondering if it was time for Seven Days In May.

Fudgie? The only outsized ego here is yours. Your projection of your insecurity, no doubt related in large part to your undersize penis, is telling. That you somehow could make a federal case out of a passing impromptu and unscripted joke is, well, paranoia at its finest. Your dual delusions of both grandeur (that anyone in the world beyond your Mommy gives a rat's ass about your opinions) and persecution ("Scary black man with stereotypically honking big penis is shoving things down my throat!") are both disturbing and comforting.

Your mom felt empowered by exploiting two young women into a futile distraction of the Greatest. President. In. History. You seem determined in some squick-producing Oedipal rage to topple his successor (I notice you have this tendency to ignore the intervening Presidency...something you share in common with many of your psychotic state) to one-up your mommy.

Sad. Truly.

I could write a book about your narcissistic tendency to view the world as a playground that only you are entitled to enjoy, and your paranoia about sharing it with people who differ from you and your "peers".

I use the term loosely. The only reason you folks are lumped together is so the rest of us don't have to work too hard keeping track of you. Kinda like why we keep sheep and cattle in herds. The collective bleatings and mooings give us comfort, knowing you're secure and safely locked away in a pen.

When the world outside that fence intrudes, it's Katie bar the door for you folks. Rather than accept the world as it is, you attempt to edit it to your liking. Obama makes a joke? It's not a sign of self-confidence or wit, no, it's a character flaw, a trait that he must wrangle under control!

I am often reminded of the Republican party mantra: never complain, never explain. Republicans are the ultimate disciples of Frederick Winslow Taylor: there can be only one way to optimally perform a task or behave in a given situation and anything else is inefficient. This obsession with efficiency concerns me in society -- it's what free markets are all about -- but for you, Jonah?

Considering how hard mommy had to work to teach you to tie your shoelaces (I was going to be even more Freudian, but...), I think it's the safest place for you. It makes you... predictable.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Suck it up, Jonah

By Mustang Bobby

Jonah Goldberg objects to the stimulus package -- big surprise.

I just don't want to pay for it. It's not that I don't want government to do nice things for deserving people in certain circumstances. It's not necessarily that I'm hostile to this group of beneficiaries or that (though I am in fact hostile to some). It's that I think most of Obama's ideas will not work, will be a waste of money and will hurt the economy. And, flatly, I don't want to pay for it. I don't want to break the law. I don't want pull a Geithner or a Daschle or anything like that. But I don't want to pay for it. I will look for every means within the boundaries of the law to minimize what I pay in taxes and I make no apologies for that whatsoever.

Well, you know what, Jonah; life's rough. As a Quaker, I didn't want to pay taxes to support the war in Iraq, and as a gay man, I resent supporting the policy of Don't Ask/Don't Tell in the military with my queer dollars. As a supporter of a woman's right to choose, I didn't want my tax dollars to go to the Bush administration's gag orders about reproductive choice as a qualification for providing health care to women in Africa, nor did I enjoy paying my taxes for any of the other stuff you so heartily endorsed during the Bush years.

But the 1040 form doesn't come with check boxes. And besides, one of the responsibilities we have as citizens is to pay for what we have whether we like it or not. If you don't like it, you vote someone else into office. And listening to you whine like an ill-mannered six year old doesn't make your case for putting your kind of people back into power.

HT to Steve and Boatboy.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)