The not so successful party

In the 18 May 2009 edition of the Spokesman-Review an “In their words” quotation:

“Notre Dame is arresting a priest. Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby? You’ve got it all backward.”—The Rev. Norman Weslin founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group, addressing police who arrested 21 people, including a priest, at a disruption Friday to protest President Barack Obama’s weekend commencement address at Notre Dame University.

On one of this week’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” a depiction of one of these “Lambs of Christ” literally verbally attacking the President with shouts over and over again, “Baby killer,” “baby killer.”  So how do shouts of “baby killer,” save a child’s life?  Or for that matter, prove how “Christian” a person is?

I do believe that on the same show Jon Stewart had as a guest, Newt Gingrich.  Of course Mr. Gingrich former Speaker of the House engaged in the usual partisan hack job.  But the reason for his being on the show had to do with his writing a book.  But for about 10 minutes Gingrich vented about Obama as a “socialist,” of course and Stewart had to pointedly remind him of what had taken place in the last year of GW’s presidency.  Such as the gvt under GW taking over AIG.  Which now brings to mind a most pertinent argument about what ought to be called “socialism,” an accusation that is only valid when you aren’t the party in power.

Newt Gingrich had to make at least one concession, where the GOP had begun to act too much like Democrats in the spending dept at least.  And as far as Gingrich was concerned, when the people voted on 4 November 2008, why vote for the GOP who behaved too much like the Dems when they could simply vote for the real thing.  How about that.  But it wasn’t just the spending that McCain was promising.  Even he was promising too much gvt.  But only Obama can be accused of “socialism.”  But after such a concession was made, Gingrich still seemed to have a problem wrapping his head around a particular reality; and that was, that the last administration set the stage for the economic fiasco that this nation now faces.

You ever hear of giving someone too much of a good thing?  On “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” this evening, I managed to catch an episode of “Common $en$e” where the fellow doing the reporting discusses what happens to bad banks for example and what solutions might be had to make them solvent “good banks.”  This evening, he showcased a fellow who managed to get himself deep into debt.  And this guy was actually a reporter for the New York Times.  He’d gotten a couple of mortgages on his new home and ran up a massive credit card debt besides.  He should have been smart enough to “know better” right?  He even admits to it.  At the same time he informed the PBS viewership, he got a green light all the way.  Well yes, GW’s infamous “ownership society.”  To live large, spend, spend, spend and keep the economy working during a time of a War on Terror.  It broke the bank all right, this same New York Time employee finds himself facing foreclosure and is 7 months behind on payments of his debt.  He wrote a book and hopes people will buy it to enable him to pay his way out of debt.  In a truly conservative world, any mortgage broker would want to make certain that person applying for the loan actually had the finances available to pay it back.  That is, to exercise caution before okaying such a mortgage.  But, as was documented, even the mortgage company threw caution to the wind while waving a lot of green stuff in the guy’s face.  Then I don’t think you can call what happened in the last 8 years, “conservative.”  For the gvt to finally have to take it over; well, I suspect it is inevitable.  And a little late for the GOP to suddenly want to return to their “private enterprise” roots.  Deregulation helped to create this mess.  The anarchy that followed created the sort of situation ultimately documented on “The News Hour.”  Either you are pro-anarchy—in which case you really can’t call yourself “conservative,” or you are supportive of reasonable rules and regs that keeps the marketplace humming healthfully along.  Which would mean that some amount of gvt is going to be necessary.

Now back to the abortion issue that had a priest on camera screaming “baby killer” at the President of the United States.  Yeah, Obama is pro-choice, how about that.  He also made some comments to the graduating class of Notre Dame very remnicient of former President Clinton, of making legal abortions rare and providing women with other options than just abortion.  Yeah, pro-choice.  For what he said, he was still attacked as a “baby killer.”  If that can tell you anything, the disruptive priest (probably the one who ultimately got arrested) seemed to have become extremely hard of hearing as he chose to listen to his own strident screams over that of the POTUS address. Yeah, I guess he could be arrested.  Too bad there isn’t a criminal charge out there for misrepresenting one’s own belief.