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Quote of the day

posted at 10:40 pm on November 19, 2008 by Allahpundit
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“‘When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, ‘We’re OK with minor reform.’ I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things,’ Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president…

He said business leaders should help find solutions to the middle-class squeeze or face a revolt. ‘We need a strategy as a country to make sure they have an opportunity to move up that ladder,’ he said…

He stressed that the new administration would ‘throw long and deep,’ taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. ‘The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington,’ Mr. Emanuel said.”


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Comment pages: 1 2

The revolution is coming.

ctmom on November 20, 2008 at 7:38 AM

I am ready for it! Lets not just talk lets act! Anybody serious about it, lets get our marching orders and dates right so we can do this!

Mercy4Me on November 20, 2008 at 7:46 AM

All we are is TALK. Conservatives never have a MILLION MAN MARCH to DC, because we HAVE JOBS, responsibilities… BUT WE BETTER START CHANGING OUR PRIORITIES!!!

WE NEED TO BE IN THE STREETS, ON THE NEWS, GETTING RADICAL IN OUR OPPOSITION! WE BETTER LEARN FROM THE DAILY KOOKS, the MoveOn’s, the MMA’s… ORGANIZE, FIGHT, PROTEST or as the Messiah said to his followers, “GET IN THIER FACES”!!!

Otherwise, we lose, America loses… “toast”!

Mark Garnett on November 20, 2008 at 7:57 AM

Karl Rove has some advice for Obamao re executive skills. The money paragraphs:

One of Mr. Obama’s first decisions was to make Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff. This smart, aggressive Chicago pol may turn out to be a wise pick. But first he must decide what his role is. Will he be the opinionated enforcer who ran the Clinton White House political office? Or will Mr. Emanuel fashion himself into a more traditional chief of staff?

The phrase former chiefs, Republican and Democrat, seem to prize is “honest broker.” President Ronald Reagan’s chief, James A. Baker III, once cautioned, “Don’t use the process to impose your policy views.” Effective chiefs of staff don’t short circuit the decision-making process. Instead, they strive to impartially present the views of others and become a trusted channel of communication to the president for leaders on both sides of the aisle.

Being an impartial manager who constructively encourages individuals to marshal data, strengthen arguments and shape options is hard for anyone. It will be particularly hard for a combative advocate like Mr. Emanuel. His success may depend on his ability to submerge lifetime habits and offer his opinion sparingly.

Already Tiny Dancer displays his true colors and agenda. It will not be a pretty scenario for the next several years if our loyal opposition forces in the Republican party don’t call out this Emanuel bulldozing style and its central planning agenda NOW.

onlineanalyst on November 20, 2008 at 8:00 AM

taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy” WTF? So, the best thing to is to increase taxes and regulate industry in a time of economic crisis? Wait till they start this environmental nonsense on our energy. People don’t want to hear the “higher energy prices for the good of the planet” nonsense. Want to see a backlash? They’ll get it.

marklmail on November 20, 2008 at 8:21 AM

onlineanalyst on November 20, 2008 at 8:00 AM

That’s like asking the Leopard to change his spots. Ain’t gonna happen. In any case Obama is an authoritarian who is not interested in honest brokers; he is interested in power.

That’s the Chicago way.

Buy Danish on November 20, 2008 at 8:22 AM

AMEN, my fellow blogger. We must at the first sign of “overreach” is march to DC and start our protest!

Mercy4Me on November 20, 2008 at 7:42 AM

A problem that I see is that The ONe has such a huge ego that anything less than 2 million people would be ignored or laughed at…

However, the old Chinese “Death by a thousand cuts” might work better. IE. a series of local protests of 50 people or so targeting your communist democrat communist congresscritter. Make it so that every time they venture out for a photo op there are a bunch of pissed off people with signs. If our local appartchick were going to be giving some award to my kid, I’d ask my kid if he wanted to rip it up and throw it back at him.

IOW a local effort is easier to maintain and might rattle the dem congresscrappers.

bullseye on November 20, 2008 at 8:23 AM

Obama Hears a Giant Sucking Sound
His legacy is spent before he gets his hands on it.

Mr. Obama’s one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping on “deregulation” as if that were the source of current troubles. His real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

Mr. Obama must be looking around and beginning to suspect he will be pouring his political capital, along with considerable taxpayer capital, down bottomless holes for the next four years. He won’t be building a legacy as the new FDR, but cleaning up after the last one.

MB4 on November 19, 2008 at 11:55 PM

Throwing long and deep means to me that they’ll spend for their ‘new New Deal’ programs over and above all the bailouts. Since their policies won’t sustain economic growth, inflation will be used to moderate debt. Inflation big time. Maybe stagflation.

How I wish Romney were Prez instead of what we have now.

petefrt on November 20, 2008 at 8:23 AM

BHO has brought in all the OLD farts from the past for Carter / Clinton part 2!!! No one in the MSM, or really even in so called Conservative blogs are “calling the Messiah out on his BLATENT lies to the fools in America that voted for “CHANGE”! Why can’t people just start mentioning all the SAME OLD NAMES and ask THE ONE about his cliams, his lies of “CHANGE”? Because we have no one as the Conservative voice that has the “nads” to hammer this point home… We should be repeating “THIS IS NOT CHANGE” over and over and over and over . . .
Mark Garnett on November 20, 2008 at 7:42 AM

Unfortunately this will be change. All of these Clinton-era retreads were frustrated by Slick Willie’s ineffectual approach to governance, compounded by a Republican Congress after 1994 and Ol’ Slick chasing after interns.

Obambi is the figurehead President they wanted, with the Congress they wanted, and it’s going to be full-speed ahead with the radical-left socialist agenda.

The only chance is that the crashing economy that Mr. Emmanuel hopes will give them the excuse to midwife a socialist nation will instead turn into a “giant sucking sound” that will leave their folly stillborn.

MrLynn on November 20, 2008 at 8:26 AM

Having all these experienced Washington Insiders on his cabinet gaves Barry the opportunity to run the country the way he represented his state.

He can vote “PRESENT”.

Just keep the teleprompter in front of him.

Carter 2.0

kingsjester on November 20, 2008 at 8:32 AM

Obambi is the figurehead President they wanted, with the Congress they wanted, and it’s going to be full-speed ahead with the radical-left socialist agenda.

No it’s not. They are smarter than that, so it will just be an accelerated creep, sleight of hand, beachhead by beachhead.

SlimyBill on November 20, 2008 at 8:42 AM

‘The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington,’ Mr. Emanuel said.

Can’t it though?

Aronne on November 20, 2008 at 8:43 AM

How I wish Romney were Prez instead of what we have now.

petefrt on November 20, 2008 at 8:23 AM

Ditto, but between the religious right that was afraid of a Mormon, and the conservatives who were suspicious of Mitt’s credentials, we ended up with John “Reach across the aisle” McCain, who couldn’t articulate a coherent argument for the whole campaign.

Did anyone see Mitt’s op-ed piece in the NY Times yesterday? “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” he wrote, and he’s right.

Let Mitt toil in the the rubber-chicken circuit for the next few years, and maybe he’ll emerge, as Ronald Reagan did, as the candidate in 2012. That’s assuming Obambi and his enforcer Emmanuel don’t have Obambi’s mindless brownshirts so hypnotized by then that no opposition is possible.

MrLynn on November 20, 2008 at 8:45 AM

I watched that meeting. The quote that actually sent a chill up my spine was:

.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by this is, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

.
They were already planning dramatic changes and now they seem to feel they have a license to go hog wild on us. The MSM keeps saying they “have to govern to the center”. No they don’t.

BrideOfRove on November 20, 2008 at 8:55 AM

Does anyone else remember the terrorist manual The Management of Savagery? There is an English translation online. It describes a strategy where in you either create a catasrophe of take advantage of a natural one and then move in with an offer of restoring order. When a Nation is in flux or chaos, that is usually when the most freedoms ae lost and people should look long and hard at what’s going on around them.

BrideOfRove on November 20, 2008 at 9:03 AM

oh goody,

Now we’re gonna’ get Socialised Medicine shoved down our throats, whether we like it, or not.

Funny,

how I get severely chastised and roundly criticised, whenever I tell someone I blindly pull the lever on a straight Republican ticket,

isn’t it.

franksalterego on November 20, 2008 at 9:06 AM

Barry and Rahm are going to be the best thing that ever happened to the Asian and (Eastern) European economies… and the worst thing that ever happened to the USofA. Goodbye, business!

fiscallyconservative on November 20, 2008 at 9:10 AM

The revolution is coming.

ctmom on November 20, 2008 at 7:38 AM
I am ready for it! Lets not just talk lets act! Anybody serious about it, lets get our marching orders and dates right so we can do this!

Mercy4Me on November 20, 2008 at 7:46 AM

All we are is TALK. Conservatives never have a MILLION MAN MARCH to DC, because we HAVE JOBS, responsibilities… BUT WE BETTER START CHANGING OUR PRIORITIES!!!

WE NEED TO BE IN THE STREETS, ON THE NEWS, GETTING RADICAL IN OUR OPPOSITION! WE BETTER LEARN FROM THE DAILY KOOKS, the MoveOn’s, the MMA’s… ORGANIZE, FIGHT, PROTEST or as the Messiah said to his followers, “GET IN THIER FACES”!!!

Otherwise, we lose, America loses… “toast”!

Mark Garnett on November 20, 2008 at 7:57 AM

You both are so right. So right. I’m convinced that conservatives are RIGHT/CORRECT but we’re not “in your face” type people. By God, we better get that way quick! I guess we’ll just have to have our marches on the weekends when most of us aren’t working!

We can sit here all day and comment on this blog, but we’re preaching to the choir here! The elites in DC and NYC don’t even know we’re here! The left thinks the right voted AGAINST The Big O because of race! They don’t EVEN know how we feel, what we stand for, or the fact we’re highly intelligent people. We know why we voted for McCain and we know why the opponent was bad. Sure, there might be a few conservatives with a public forum (Rush, Sean, Levin, Laura, etc.), but for the most part we’re silent and we’re no longer the silent MAJORITY.

We’re going to have to get off our butts and away from out computers and take it to the streets.

We need a ring-leader obviously! Some one give us a date or series of dates, locations, and tell us what we’re marching for on that particular day (we have so many things to protest), and we’ll do it!

Oink on November 20, 2008 at 9:20 AM

Obama’s challenge is to truly deal with the root of the problem. Which he can’t / won’t do, as he would have to go after politicians in his own party, Frank, Dodd, et.al.

He will address the syptoms, but not the root of the illness.

PappaMac on November 20, 2008 at 10:06 AM

The best quote in that article from the WSJ today is:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Mr. Emanuel said.

That, my friend, is what this is all about.

furytrader on November 20, 2008 at 11:27 AM

Is this a tacit admission by Rham Emanuel that he and his party, but most importantly their Golden Boy, are incapable of solving America’s problems so big buisness has to bail them out?

Sure sounds like it.

SuperCool on November 20, 2008 at 11:51 AM

Think about past revolutions. It takes a crisis to provide the needed spark for drastic re-tooling of a government that, whether peaceful or violent.

Many liberals like the Great Depression, because that’s how the New Deal was created. Without the massive unemployment, FDR’s programs would never have been supported. Then, as now, “compassion” will give the government more power than was ever intended. In truth, this compassion is nothing more than short-sighted payoffs to buy support. FDR’s social programs, by and large, hurt the country more than they helped. The biggest increases in our economy came when welfare programs were rolled back.

What’s really compassionate? Giving someone free cheese, or cutting taxes so a company can grow, and give that person a job? Republicans need the will to say “the check you’re writing to compassion will be paid with the suffering of future generations.”

hawksruleva on November 20, 2008 at 12:01 PM

What a shame. The incoming administration faces a once-in-a-generation chance to really do some good for the economic infrastructure. It’s a ‘only Nixon could go to China’ chance:

- They could rein in the UAW. The Dems know they are largely responsible for Detroit’s ruin.

- They could prod action on tort reform, which they know is a growing problem especially WRT health care and especially the drug companies.

- They could address entitlements, which they know will bankrupt us within a few short years. And more.

But if this pep talk is any indication, they’re gonna blow it on same-old, same-old. That will open the doors to a return of the GOP, and frankly, I’m heartily sick of the GOP; they’ve demonstrated that they can’t (or won’t) address these problems, either.

Paul_in_NJ on November 20, 2008 at 12:22 PM

Paul in NJ: You must be living in some kind of reverse/parallel/universe or something. Doesn’t everyone by now know what BO stands for? (pun intended)

cjk on November 20, 2008 at 12:43 PM

How come socialist democrats are so concerned about the middle class all of a sudden?

abcurtis on November 20, 2008 at 6:17 PM

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