Michael Gaynor
The best path for the GOP
By Michael Gaynor
The Republican Party needs to teach history to all of the American people as well as never forget it, because the liberal media establishment has not been reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In addition, the Republican Party must always stand by its basic principles and exclude, not include, the corrupt and corruption.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's article titled "The GOP's Path Back" surely is well-intentioned, but unfortunately it was not thought out sufficiently. It speaks of "the wreckage from the past two elections," eschews "looking in the rear view mirror" (as well as "sulking") and pledges to make the GOP "a party of of inclusion."
The GOP's main problems with the electorate, however, were failing to stand by its principles and failing to overcome the bias and brainwashing of voters by the liberal media establishment.
Liberal Democrat success in the 2006 and 2008 elections resulted from their continued insistence that their political philosophy had been right and the voters had been deceived by the Republicans in prior elections, especially the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
After the 2004 election, the liberal media establishment used the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, plus stories about corrupt Republicans, to turn voters against President Bush in particular and Republicans in general.
The now dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had not complied with United Nations resolutions for a dozen years and ordered that American planes patrolling the no-fly zones be shot down, if possible, but President Bush rushed to war?
No, President Bush did not rush, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's tyrannical rule was faster, easier and less costly in blood and treasure than expected. Democratization of Iraq proved much more difficult than expected, but the Bush Administration persevered and the Surge worked.
As for Hurricane Katrina, the liberal media swiftly spun the story to suit the liberal Democrat agenda and to portray Republicans as unconcerned about poor blacks. (Presumably, President Bush accepted Colin Powell and Condi Rice as key advisers because they were not poor.)
The liberal media establishment chose to essentially ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that limits the President's power to act, the uncooperativeness and incompetence of the Democrat Governor of Louisiana (Kathleen Blanco) and the Democrat Mayor of New Orleans (Ray Nagin) and the lack of preparation by the state and local authorities in Louisiana and instead lambasted President Bush for not immediately traveling to New Orleans (if he had, he would have been lambasted for diverting resources for a photo op, of course!) and former FEMA Director Michael Brown for not being Superman.
Congressman Kantor:
"Surveying the wreckage from the past two elections, Republicans have much we could feel sorry about.
"But...don't expect to find [the House Republica] conference sulking or looking in the rear view mirror. Bloodied but resolute, our focus is on the present and the future. We will discuss a range of entrepreneurial and market-based solutions to the challenges threatening small businesses, working families and American competitiveness. We will also chart a course to regain the public trust and make ourselves viable in districts across the country. And, not least of all, we will reaffirm our commitment to using new technologies to present our alternatives directly to the American people on the issues they care about most."
The first step needs to be to ascertain how things went wrong, however. Unless the past is properly understood, the truth cannot be told and focus on "the present and the future" necessarily will be flawed.
Congressman Kantor: "We stand at an enormously critical juncture for our country. With the economy in tatters, Congress and the new administration have a public mandate to take bold action to stop the bleeding. Hanging in the balance are essential questions that will define the shape of our economy for years to come. How big of a hand in private markets will the government have? Will private companies be saddled with layers of government bureaucracy? Will the government bail out every failed industry or just those deemed essential to averting economic ruin? Will we spend so heavily that we have no choice but to raise taxes in the future and permanently undermine the hopes and dreams of our children and grandchildren?"
All good questions. But before those questions are answered properly, the GOP needs to educate the public as to how the financial crisis came about. That involves exposing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), its ties to key Democrats including President Obama, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and the insidious relationship between corrupt ACORN political activity and the election of Democrats backed by ACORN.
Congressman Kantor: "With so much at stake, there is a tremendous necessity for an honest check on one-party Democratic rule. American taxpayers, on the hook for the huge deficit sums Congress plans to spend, instinctively know that."
True! And that honest check requires honesty with the voters on how the Democrats managed to retake control of first Congress and then the White House after President Bush was re-elected.
Congressman Kantor: "The GOP may not control the agenda, but there are reasons for hope. We share a set of values that make us unapologetic about rewarding hard work and preserving the incentive for small businesses and the self-employed to grow. History is on our side. Countries, towns and communities stagnate when government micromanages industry and people are left to depend on handouts. They thrive when small, medium and large private businesses — driven to innovate and grow — create sustainable jobs."
History IS on the GOP side, but the liberal media establishment and many writers of history books are not. So it is up to the GOP to teach the true history.
Congressman Kantor: "At a moment when the country needs our help, it would be a great mistake for the House GOP to turn inward and simply become the party of 'no.' We want our new president to succeed, and America needs our new President to succeed, which is why we will contribute the full force of our ideas to help him navigate the choppy waters. That's why our leadership met with the president three times to offer him our ideas on the stimulus, including among other proposals a reduction in small business tax liability by 20 percent."
Like other conservatives, I want AMERICA to succeed and if what is good for America is also good for President Obama, so be it! But for America to succeed, the whole truth about the current financial crisis needs to become generally known. As for individuals, including President Obama and now no longer Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, let all the facts be known and justice be done.
Congressman Kantor: "We must speak out when we think the president's party has erred, as when House Democrats added hundreds of billions in unnecessary discretionary spending to the stimulus that will do nothing to create jobs. In fact, it is our duty to reject the 60 percent of the House bill's discretionary spending that the Congressional Budget Office says won't enter the economy by Oct. 1, 2010."
True again!
Congressman Kantor: "It is astonishing that for every $1 in tax relief spent for small businesses, the current House Democrat stimulus plan spends over $12 buying new cars for the federal government. That's the kind of egregious waste that results when one party is able to draft legislation without putting the taxpayers' needs first. It's a blatant example of why we need a Republican check on a Democrat-dominated Congress."
That what happens under the "spoils" system.
Congressman Kantor:
"As for us Republicans, the outlines of the GOP of the future are already coming into focus. We pledge to become a party of inclusion, not exclusion. What binds us is our faith — a belief in the ability of individuals to succeed in a free environment and to shape their own destiny through hard work.
"Opportunity and the incentive to work and produce inspired America to flourish. The Republican Party will never forget that."
The Republican Party needs to teach history to all of the American people as well as never forget it, because the liberal media establishment has not been reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In addition, the Republican Party must always stand by its basic principles and exclude, not include, the corrupt and corruption.
© Michael Gaynor
January 30, 2009
The Republican Party needs to teach history to all of the American people as well as never forget it, because the liberal media establishment has not been reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In addition, the Republican Party must always stand by its basic principles and exclude, not include, the corrupt and corruption.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's article titled "The GOP's Path Back" surely is well-intentioned, but unfortunately it was not thought out sufficiently. It speaks of "the wreckage from the past two elections," eschews "looking in the rear view mirror" (as well as "sulking") and pledges to make the GOP "a party of of inclusion."
The GOP's main problems with the electorate, however, were failing to stand by its principles and failing to overcome the bias and brainwashing of voters by the liberal media establishment.
Liberal Democrat success in the 2006 and 2008 elections resulted from their continued insistence that their political philosophy had been right and the voters had been deceived by the Republicans in prior elections, especially the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
After the 2004 election, the liberal media establishment used the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, plus stories about corrupt Republicans, to turn voters against President Bush in particular and Republicans in general.
The now dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had not complied with United Nations resolutions for a dozen years and ordered that American planes patrolling the no-fly zones be shot down, if possible, but President Bush rushed to war?
No, President Bush did not rush, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's tyrannical rule was faster, easier and less costly in blood and treasure than expected. Democratization of Iraq proved much more difficult than expected, but the Bush Administration persevered and the Surge worked.
As for Hurricane Katrina, the liberal media swiftly spun the story to suit the liberal Democrat agenda and to portray Republicans as unconcerned about poor blacks. (Presumably, President Bush accepted Colin Powell and Condi Rice as key advisers because they were not poor.)
The liberal media establishment chose to essentially ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that limits the President's power to act, the uncooperativeness and incompetence of the Democrat Governor of Louisiana (Kathleen Blanco) and the Democrat Mayor of New Orleans (Ray Nagin) and the lack of preparation by the state and local authorities in Louisiana and instead lambasted President Bush for not immediately traveling to New Orleans (if he had, he would have been lambasted for diverting resources for a photo op, of course!) and former FEMA Director Michael Brown for not being Superman.
Congressman Kantor:
"Surveying the wreckage from the past two elections, Republicans have much we could feel sorry about.
"But...don't expect to find [the House Republica] conference sulking or looking in the rear view mirror. Bloodied but resolute, our focus is on the present and the future. We will discuss a range of entrepreneurial and market-based solutions to the challenges threatening small businesses, working families and American competitiveness. We will also chart a course to regain the public trust and make ourselves viable in districts across the country. And, not least of all, we will reaffirm our commitment to using new technologies to present our alternatives directly to the American people on the issues they care about most."
The first step needs to be to ascertain how things went wrong, however. Unless the past is properly understood, the truth cannot be told and focus on "the present and the future" necessarily will be flawed.
Congressman Kantor: "We stand at an enormously critical juncture for our country. With the economy in tatters, Congress and the new administration have a public mandate to take bold action to stop the bleeding. Hanging in the balance are essential questions that will define the shape of our economy for years to come. How big of a hand in private markets will the government have? Will private companies be saddled with layers of government bureaucracy? Will the government bail out every failed industry or just those deemed essential to averting economic ruin? Will we spend so heavily that we have no choice but to raise taxes in the future and permanently undermine the hopes and dreams of our children and grandchildren?"
All good questions. But before those questions are answered properly, the GOP needs to educate the public as to how the financial crisis came about. That involves exposing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), its ties to key Democrats including President Obama, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and the insidious relationship between corrupt ACORN political activity and the election of Democrats backed by ACORN.
Congressman Kantor: "With so much at stake, there is a tremendous necessity for an honest check on one-party Democratic rule. American taxpayers, on the hook for the huge deficit sums Congress plans to spend, instinctively know that."
True! And that honest check requires honesty with the voters on how the Democrats managed to retake control of first Congress and then the White House after President Bush was re-elected.
Congressman Kantor: "The GOP may not control the agenda, but there are reasons for hope. We share a set of values that make us unapologetic about rewarding hard work and preserving the incentive for small businesses and the self-employed to grow. History is on our side. Countries, towns and communities stagnate when government micromanages industry and people are left to depend on handouts. They thrive when small, medium and large private businesses — driven to innovate and grow — create sustainable jobs."
History IS on the GOP side, but the liberal media establishment and many writers of history books are not. So it is up to the GOP to teach the true history.
Congressman Kantor: "At a moment when the country needs our help, it would be a great mistake for the House GOP to turn inward and simply become the party of 'no.' We want our new president to succeed, and America needs our new President to succeed, which is why we will contribute the full force of our ideas to help him navigate the choppy waters. That's why our leadership met with the president three times to offer him our ideas on the stimulus, including among other proposals a reduction in small business tax liability by 20 percent."
Like other conservatives, I want AMERICA to succeed and if what is good for America is also good for President Obama, so be it! But for America to succeed, the whole truth about the current financial crisis needs to become generally known. As for individuals, including President Obama and now no longer Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, let all the facts be known and justice be done.
Congressman Kantor: "We must speak out when we think the president's party has erred, as when House Democrats added hundreds of billions in unnecessary discretionary spending to the stimulus that will do nothing to create jobs. In fact, it is our duty to reject the 60 percent of the House bill's discretionary spending that the Congressional Budget Office says won't enter the economy by Oct. 1, 2010."
True again!
Congressman Kantor: "It is astonishing that for every $1 in tax relief spent for small businesses, the current House Democrat stimulus plan spends over $12 buying new cars for the federal government. That's the kind of egregious waste that results when one party is able to draft legislation without putting the taxpayers' needs first. It's a blatant example of why we need a Republican check on a Democrat-dominated Congress."
That what happens under the "spoils" system.
Congressman Kantor:
"As for us Republicans, the outlines of the GOP of the future are already coming into focus. We pledge to become a party of inclusion, not exclusion. What binds us is our faith — a belief in the ability of individuals to succeed in a free environment and to shape their own destiny through hard work.
"Opportunity and the incentive to work and produce inspired America to flourish. The Republican Party will never forget that."
The Republican Party needs to teach history to all of the American people as well as never forget it, because the liberal media establishment has not been reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In addition, the Republican Party must always stand by its basic principles and exclude, not include, the corrupt and corruption.
© Michael Gaynor
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