Pelosi Dumb?

Recently there has been a spate of articles asking if Rick Perry is dumb (and even one asking if Barack Obama is dumb). It is certainly a staple of American politics that anyone on the right is dumb. After all, George Bush certainly was, not to mention Ronald Reagan. The flip side of this assertion is that liberal politicians are smart. The arrogance and ignorance of those who actually believe such propaganda needs no explication. For these assertions are based not on any evidence, behavior, or activities, but on party label. In short, if you are a Republican you are dumb, and if you are a Democrat you are smart. I find this rather simplistic and somewhat lacking in empirical evidence as you might expect.

But, let’s apply the Forrest Gump standard: stupid is as stupid does. And let’s look just at Nancy Pelosi for the moment – onetime speaker of the house, and current minority leader. Let us also just focus on her most recent statement: the lack of a rebuttal is disrespectful to the president.

Really? Not providing an alternate view to the president is a sign of disrespect? Or is it that one doesn’t consider the president’s words needing a rebuttal? After all, disagreeing with the president we are told is racist. Now, not disagreeing with him is disrespectful. Exactly how does Nancy Pelosi view Barack Obama? It appears he is somehow above disagreement and above … response? I don’t get it. What is Pelosi after?

Does she want a Republican response highlighting how all of the president’s prior policies have made the economic situation worse? Or, does she want the Republicans to challenge the efficacy of Stimulus II? Does she want the Republicans to put forth their own agenda of tax cuts, lower regulation, repeal of Obamacare, and less government intrusion?

I doubt it. It seems to me that Pelosi is out for short-term political gain. A gain which will not materialize based on the last couple of years. And that makes Nancy Pelosi dumb.

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Obama as Reagan?

Wow.

It seems there is a new idea developing in the media that Obama is somehow “Reaganesque.” Here is but one example from Time.

I have no doubt that Obama has looked into his predecessors. I have no doubt he wants to kick his game up a notch. But Reagan? Not likely.

Ronald Reagan – a great president – was vilified by the media, castigated by liberals, and dismissed as a lightweight by most of his political opponents. The principal reason he was great is that his beliefs served as the foundation of his presidency and he never hid them from the American people. In the end, his beliefs resonated with the country. Those beliefs ended the Cold War, brought prosperity, and returned the country to a sense of exceptionalism after the anemic Carter and the trauma of Watergate and Vietnam.

Obama, by contrast, has consistently hidden his beliefs, lied to the country and to the world, and employed a policy of subterfuge to enact his radical agenda. His beliefs resonate on college campuses, but in few other places.

Obama Reaganesque? I see that not as a long overdue paean to a great man, but a pathetic media attempt to hoodwink the people. Won’t work – whatever Obama is, he isn’t Reagan or anything close. My liberal friends will scoff, but then, they missed the point when Reagan was president. How ironic that liberals in the media are now trying to link Obama to a man they despise.

The City Shines

I had only just heard about this suggestion to honor President Reagan this morning and it seemed a great idea to me.  Imagine my surprise while running errands today around Boston and Cambridge when I noticed a LOT more headlights on than usual. 

Even here in one of the bluest of blue states.  I’m proud of Massachusetts today.

Hush Puppy

The dog not barking can be seen in the New York Times again. They now ‘report’ President Reagan’s family won’t allow President Bush to associate himself with Reagan’s legacy.  Which family member do they quote?  Why Ron Jr. of course.

Mr. Reagan is in mourning and he has my sympathies on the passing of his father, but the NYT is running a shell game here.  Those of us who can remember the Reagan years with clarity will recall that there were two children who supported their father’s policies and two who did not.  The two mentioned in the Times are – anyone?  Anyone at all?  Yes, front row – correct!  Patti and Ron, who opposed most of what their father stood for in office. 

But just slip a little hush puppy and it all goes away – right?

Welcome Vodkapundit readers!

Revisionism

No one is better at revisionist history than liberals in academia and journalism.  I suspect it’s more than just controlling the present in that it remains a peculiar facet of liberal thinking that one must always be on the side of the angels, and that all good things must come from the left.  If something good occurs ostensibly from the right, the true answer must lie elsewhere.  Stephen Den Beste masterfully fisks just such a believer’s opinion piece in the New York Times. And what a fantasy this John Patrick Diggins entertains.  SDB remembers the real liberal view of Reagan the same way I do:

I don’t remember any consensus at the time that Reagan’s foreign policy was even remotely enlightened. (Or at least not from the left.) On the contrary, it was bitterly criticized in much the same terms that Bush’s foreign policy is now being criticized – and by much the same people and institutions – for being un-nuanced, excessively muscular, and confrontational. (They didn’t use the epithet “unilateral” back then because it hadn’t been invented yet, but if it had been he’d have been called that, too.) I remember Reagan being criticized for being stupid, misinformed, and dangerously religious. He viewed the world in absolutes, almost like it was a cartoon, and he was intolerant and uncompromising and imperialistic. I remember him being portrayed as feeble-minded, as an idiotic puppet, an actor playing the part of President – badly – whose understanding of the job and of the world was formed by watching bad movies. He was “the great communicator” and it was ruefully acknowledged that he was more effective in delivering speeches than any President since JFK, but he was an empty mask, the form of a President without any real substance. He was a Potemkin president.

But Diggins would have us remember it this way:

But many neocons came to hate Mr. Reagan, saying he lost the cold war since he left office with communism still in place.

The mind boggles.  The dreaded neocons hate Reagan?  It would have been nice of the Professor to have served us up a quote or two in support of this astounding assertion. Instead, he implies Dick Cheney (boo!) was among the haters for fearing a resurgent Soviet Union – no quote there either however. It’s pretty clear that the biography he’s written on Reagan will belong on the fiction shelf.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already, enjoy the whole fisking.

Who Knew?

I had no idea that the death of President Reagan was functionally equivalent to hell freezing over.

via Michelle Malkin

Brava

Monica White has an excellent tribute to President Reagan with a bonus fisking thrown in.  And she’s from Europe which makes it so much better!

via Vodkapundit