Category: Awards

"I’m going to ensure that Republicans come out of the gate and seize this moment, we’ve really been given a second chance at a first impression and I’m going to tell them that we have to rise to the challenge with principle and conviction and not with this attitude that you saw coming from the White House yesterday and from some other quarters on the establishment left in Washington which was that somehow the message of the election was that they want Democrats and Republicans to work better together, to get along — good heavens," – Mike Pence.

The pre-election NYT poll found that 78 percent want the Republicans to compromise with Obama rather than stick to their positions in the next two years; 76 percent want the Dems to do the same; and a slightly lower percentage, but still overwhelming, wants Obama to compromise too: 69 percent.

"Had congressional Republicans taken pragmatic steps on health reform between 1994 and 2008, PPACA wouldn't have happened. President Bush's reform of the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance alone would have made a significant difference, as would his plan for giving the states greater control over Medicaid. If you believe that the 111th Congress made many bad calls, Republicans in previous years deserve much of the blame. Major policy shifts are rare. But when it rains, it pours," – Reihan Salam, NRO.

“Apart from the question of whether or not it’s appropriate to control greenhouse gases in the first place, and given that you’re going to take some form of control, I believe that emissions taxes for greenhouse gases are more economically efficient than is cap-and-trade,” – Thomas Crocker, who is credited with inventing the cap and trade approach to reducing air pollution

"Much of the New Elite does not, in fact, love America and is, in Murray's phrasing, defective in its patriotism. Today's elites — not just here, but in Europe as well — are increasingly post-national. Murray writes that "the New Elite clusters in a comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities," which is correct, but he doesn't seem to get (or at least didn't write) that these "comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities" are increasingly part of a distinct transnational community. Marx and Engels were wrong when they wrote that "the working men have no country" — but that description is increasingly apt for large parts of the post-American New Elite," – Mark Krikorian, NRO.

"I have no doubt there’s a vast amount of money wasted in defense, but at the same time I think it’s the most important thing the federal government does, and it has to be something it does all over the country. So I would be a very strong supporter of the National Guard but I’d also take a very sharp pencil to looking at the defense budget, because I think Dwight Eisenhower was right when he said there was a military industrial complex, and this continues to be a problem we have to deal with," – Senate nominee Jim Huffman (R-OR).

"Having spent a good deal of time writing about the crude left-wing history of our country by charlatans like Howard Zinn and Oliver Stone, I have become wary of politicized history in general, whether it comes from the precincts of the far left or the far right. This time the culprits are on the right, one of the biggest examples being Glenn Beck. … Now, from the precincts of the left, come two important critiques of both Beck’s and the Tea Party’s historical narrative," – Ron Radosh, heralding works by Jill Lepore and Sean Wilentz.

"A convenient Tea Party mantra has been the presumptuous, and seemingly amnesiac notion that President Obama 'betrayed the American people,' that 'We the People have spoken and never wanted Obama’s policies.' … To trumpet this narrative makes conservatives seem like sore losers in denial, and to threaten a 'second revolution' with upside-down flags as a reaction to losing a fair election speaks more about a general bitterness towards the electoral process itself which is inconsistent with our supposedly superlative support for the constitution," – Christian Hartsock, Big Journalism.

Amen. I have one loyal and valuable reader who keeps going nuts about the health insurance bill being rammed down the throats of the country.

But Obama explicitly campaigned on it; it was never hidden; he didn't change it significantly from his final campaign message (although he opposed mandates in the primaries). It was fought over in the presidential debates. And he won the election by a landslide on that platform. And he passed it after months of Congressional wrangling. There was nothing faintly wrong or treacherous or deceptive about any of it.

By all means, oppose it. But quit complaining there was something dictatorial or undemocratic about its passage.

“[Grover] Norquist has been an influential figure in the conservative movement for a generation, but his response to Governor Daniels is almost laughably self-important. He acts as if he were speaking ex cathedra. There is an imperiousness and intolerance to Norquist’s words, an effort to shut down debate rather than to engage it. This approach shouldn’t be used in any case — but to employ it against arguably the nation’s most successful governor is very unwise,” – Pete Wehner, Commentary. My very similar take here. Dish reader follow-up here.