Quotes of the day
posted at 10:35 pm on March 30, 2009 by Allahpundit
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“Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a ‘transformative’ radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, as noted, he is carrying out the Bush policies – the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander-in-chief.
In other words, while it’s reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the anti-Christ. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first – not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him either.”
***
“The answer is obvious. The right, for the most part, embraces basic Judeo-Christian ideals and would not promote nor defend the propaganda techniques that were perfected in godless communist and socialist regimes. The current political and media environment crafted by supposedly idealistic Mr. Obama resembles Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela more than John F. Kennedy’s America.
The Huffington Post, Daily Kos and other left-leaning sites benefit from the right’s belief that there are rules and decorum in political debate and civic engagement. Of course, every now and then, a curious right-winger will go in and engage in discussion at a left-wing site, but rarely under purely disingenuous and mass coordinated means. “
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Not all democrats are poor (on the gov.dime) but most poor are democrats . I’m sure you’ve heard this, and it goes well with your statement below…
Most Republicans are working people. Independent and self sufficient.
It’s a generality but a very accurate one to start a conversation.
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:03 AM
night neuquenguy
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:04 AM
Actually, I’ve been wondering about that. In the hundred-or-so national collectivisations that have happened so far, has anyone ever converted a pre-existing welfare state like America is now?
Think about it: Obama has just increased the federal budget by about 50%. This will, of course, cause America’s GDP to not just stop growing, but to drastically DECREASE in net dollars.
In the typical transition to a Marxist-Stalinist state, mollifying redistributions usually come from cannibalizing capital assets – things like factories, mines and wells. But that only works with a third-world economy. Things like banks and software companies can’t rely on drone labor; when they are nationalized, they will simply quit producing.
In other words: Welfare payments would eventually have to be DECREASED as part of the transition. Even assuming that Obama (or his immediate successor) becomes extraordinarily brutal, there will be no way to maintain order under those circumstances.
logis on March 31, 2009 at 1:05 AM
I laughed as I read your post b/c I’ve had similar encounters in my own hometown. We live in a Big Ten university town of about 150,000 people or so. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in conversations with people who then veer off on a political rant against Republicans, Bush, the war…whatever…just assuming I’m a fellow traveler. A number of times this has occured at the kid’s playground at the local park and involved university faculty types.
I suppose they were instantaeously disoriented because I was not wearing a dirty Nascar t-shirt while simultaneously smoking and drinking a beer while beating “sissy” and “bubby”.
moxie_neanderthal on March 31, 2009 at 1:11 AM
OK CNPP it is…
I hope your last paragraph is sarc. But I wonder too about the next election. Obama has a ground game that is only exposing the slightest of roots to the average political junkie. It’s deep and wide and will be much more so come 2010.
Crazy as it may sound I think 2004 was our last free and fair election.
He knows what he has going on under the table and does not seem too concerned with any analysis of his policies. Perhaps that is why.
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:12 AM
Horowitz – paragraph 8:
Horowitz – paragraph 10:
How he reconciles those 2 statements I have no idea. On the one hand he says that we are overreacting to think that Obama is a transformative liberal and then goes on to say Obama may defeated because he is so extreme. I normally agree with Horowitz but this is not one of his better columns.
echosyst on March 31, 2009 at 1:16 AM
+1
Ernie sticks to his guns. We bump heads but my bruises heal up pretty quick.
G’nite fellow HotAirHeads. I have my weekly one day of day shift tomorrow and 5AM was invented by the devil.
Limerick on March 31, 2009 at 1:16 AM
night lim
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:18 AM
Well I always wear my Nascar shirt when I steal out of cups of blind people. I generally start my day by kicking a few homeless people, making some massive stock deals that undermine the lives of the poor. Then I usually go door to door and peek in people’s bedrooms and lecture them on their disgusting behavior. It’s a load of laughs.
msmveritas on March 31, 2009 at 1:18 AM
Go to the headline post on this. There’s more over there on this article specifically.
Someone earlier mentioned that Horowitz was sounding a bit bi-poloar.
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:20 AM
Hopefully he doesn’t or he has gone quite mad.
MB4 on March 31, 2009 at 1:21 AM
We are facing somewhere north of $50 trillion in unfunded govt obligations. This budgetary crisis will be compounded if the administration successfully goes into healthcare. A WSJ op ed late last week pointed to the 42% increase in costs in Mass. as a result of govt “reform”.
There is no option but to dramatically increase taxes and radically reduce payments. However if you are killing the golden goose through tazation and govt interference it only compounds our capacity to deal with the coming tsunami.
Once we reach the tipping point it will get very ugly very fast. It should give everyone pause to consider that as we are approaching the precipice Obama is stepping on the gas.
moxie_neanderthal on March 31, 2009 at 1:27 AM
strangelet-
Did you say something?
I can’t hear you.
I feel your mind going.
I can feel it going.
Can you sing “Daisy“?
strangelet?
Dr. strangelet?
I can feel your mind going…
profitsbeard on March 31, 2009 at 1:27 AM
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:28 AM
night all
katy on March 31, 2009 at 1:29 AM
Classic! Between the two we’ve captured the two extremes of Republican stereotypes.
moxie_neanderthal on March 31, 2009 at 1:30 AM
Night Limerick, Katy, and all the trolls at sea…
profitsbeard on March 31, 2009 at 1:30 AM
oops….read “taxation” and “inability to deal with the coming tsunami”….
moxie_neanderthal on March 31, 2009 at 1:33 AM
Only weaklings fall for their nonsense.
A nation which is fooled by those who will say/do anything to fool her, deserves them.
getalife, if you’re independent, then I’m the queen of Romania. You are entertainia.
profitsbeard, you need to be cloned, by the multi-millions :)
Entelechy on March 31, 2009 at 1:36 AM
It is stepping on the gas. I can’t fathom that they’ve seriously considered any credible economic advice. This is driven entirely by ideology and it is very scary.
The blog linked earlier KeithHennessey.com is fascinating. Thanks to those who pointed it out.
msmveritas on March 31, 2009 at 1:40 AM
That evokes the image of Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff.
Oslime-a and Shillary driving the USA off a cliff. We need a cartoon of that.
csdeven on March 31, 2009 at 1:41 AM
Whiskey Tango Foxtrott? How strange can our times get? - government run site on tears over economic losses…Mr. Horrowitz where art though?
Entelechy on March 31, 2009 at 1:42 AM
We need to put a stop to that.
hillbillyjim on March 31, 2009 at 1:50 AM
We’re trying.
csdeven on March 31, 2009 at 1:55 AM
Definitely. If we do stuff like that, it would make people think that we don’t like Barak Obama.
And that would mean we’re all “deranged”!
logis on March 31, 2009 at 2:00 AM
I don’t know about “we”. I personally don’t like Barack Obama. At. All.
He is anathema to everything great about this nation, and I just DON’T LIKE HIM. Even a little.
hillbillyjim on March 31, 2009 at 2:05 AM
Obama is like the proverbial reformed drunk.
Except that he’s not really reformed.
He just plays one for his teleprompter.
In order to bluff his way into un-Constitutional powers.
In his drive to undermine the country and morph it into a chimaera of France and Zimbabwe.
And only the worst of both.
I see neo-LADAS riding out of pseudo-eco-friendly, nearly-empty factories in the shining faux-utopian future under this quack nostrum peddling doofus shyster schmuck.
He’s not the anti-Christ, he’s the anti-Jefferson.
And I don’t mean George.
Everybody sing, now:
“We’re a-movin’ on down!…”
profitsbeard on March 31, 2009 at 2:06 AM
You mean OFW Syndrome. The whole country is suffering, including yourself.
We recognize the disease, you don’t.
Obama Franks Waters LLC
unclesmrgol on March 31, 2009 at 2:08 AM
So true.
hillbillyjim on March 31, 2009 at 2:10 AM
Dude, I’m lovin’ your “Donkey shit-eater” approach to troll patrol.
I haven’t laughed so hard in I don’t know when.
hillbillyjim on March 31, 2009 at 2:15 AM
March 30 (Bloomberg) — Criminals know that people who are distracted might forget to keep an eye on their valuables. It’s just happened to us as a nation.
We have all been so busy whining about bonuses at American International Group Inc. and arguing about the so-called card- check legislation that we forgot to watch the Social Security surplus. While we were looking away, that surplus disappeared, eight years ahead of schedule.
Something extraordinarily important was revealed in mid- March and received almost no news coverage. If you typed in the words “Social Security” on Google’s news service last Friday, the top hit was a New York story about a man who kept his dead mother in a freezer ever since she died back in 2007, just so he could continue to collect her benefit checks.
Almost as gruesome is the news about Social Security’s finances. Social Security has for years been the near-term bright spot in the federal budget. Each year the program has raised $50 billion to $100 billion more in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. Sure, deficits were expected far off in the future, but the current program was on sound financial footing.
Those days are, for the moment at least, behind us. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office estimate, the Social Security surplus will be only $3 billion in 2010. That number is almost surely too rosy, and the actual realization next year will be a big deficit. In February, according to data from the Social Security Office of the Actuary, the program paid out more in benefits than it collected in taxes and interest combined. There will be many more months like that before we are through.
MB4 on March 31, 2009 at 2:17 AM
Hey Americans, look who’s doing the jobs you used to do…
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/29/1m29farm231735-more-unions-favor-legalizing-worker/?zIndex=74335
RealDemocrat on March 31, 2009 at 2:32 AM
we are not witnessing the coming of the anti-Christ.
Damn near, and that is coming from a religious skeptic.
Bishop
True! the “anti-Christ” would be competent.
DSchoen on March 31, 2009 at 2:39 AM
Interestingly enough… lately I’ve been signing things with Jeffersonian…. not Republican, nor Conservative…
Its actualy much closer to what I think, and the label has not been discredited.
Romeo13 on March 31, 2009 at 2:39 AM
Hey, I;ve found somebody else who’s been buying yhe drugs from the mexicans…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGhipjS-MNk
RealDemocrat on March 31, 2009 at 3:14 AM
If sock puppet ends up going all the way to marxism, I think the country will grind to a halt. At least I hope so. That will foment the explosion in his face that he (we) needs.
Of course, I also advocate the same result for his socialization plans. I love seeing liberal socialists fail at their asinine agendas, and I’ll particularly love seeing this blow up in sock puppets face. I hope the explosion is like molten plastic in his face; Something he’ll never forget, and carry the badge of that dishonor forever.
Spiritk9 on March 31, 2009 at 3:39 AM
You must be in the Republican Martyr’s Brigade, because those of us in the Republican Taliban haven’t started our jihad yet.
TMK on March 31, 2009 at 6:38 AM
I appreciate Breitbart’s concern but… how many people actually get taken in by the astroturfers? They’re so easy to spot it’s a joke now. “I’m an Evangelical Christian (Praise the Lord!!) and a lifelong Republican (Praise W!!) but I’m concerned that Obama might just have the voice of an angel and the body of a god.”
Liberal astroturfers are so cartoonish that it’s hard to get worked up about them.
Lehosh on March 31, 2009 at 6:42 AM
im with horowitz. y’all give the guy too much credit.
ernesto on March 31, 2009 at 7:15 AM
Lehosh: I don’t think that the Axelrod astroturfers fool anyone. Most conservatives tend to politely refute their nonsense with logic and facts. The purpose of the astroturfers is to take up time and bandwidth by diverting the topic and by insulting our intelligence.
As annoying as they are, it is best to ignore them and continue the discussion. If their nonsense annoys too much, offer conter-information without referring to them by name, and then spend the bulk of your post contributing to the topic.
I will tell you one phrase that annoys the hell out of them, and that is to use the term “the failed Obama administration.” They go ballistic. Get the phrase into enough usage, and it begins to come up in Internet searches.
onlineanalyst on March 31, 2009 at 7:17 AM
Don’t panic with skyrocketing unemployment rates, the stock market losing 1/3 of it value, government takeover of large segments of the economy in industries such as financial services, insurance, mortgage, auto-making, banking, health care and even the press. A national debt slated to go from $1-$2 Trillion to $7-$11 Trillion, a quickly deflating currency, inflation pressures, mounds of new restrictive government regulations on business as well as individuals, massive capital investment leaving America, punitive taxes, and an energy policy based around solar and wind. Not to mention vain attempts to find moderate Taliban, sucking up to Mullahs in Iran, and money for Hamas. OK Dave, I think we understand him, now what?
Dollayo on March 31, 2009 at 7:20 AM
I’m not givin up. I’ll be in the middle of the front row in Evansville at the auditorium/spillover to get the Cuda to sign my poster of her (the one with Gingrich’s sig. already). And yes, I’ll have my McCain Palin shirt with of course McCain x’ed out and 2012 under Palin. Hopefully, a photo too.
Sapwolf on March 31, 2009 at 7:20 AM
but you complain about astroturfing. in the same post.
sesquipedalian on March 31, 2009 at 7:42 AM
i’m not giving up either. keep those phone/email lines to congress going. read what they are considering on a daily basis & inform your fellow bloggers.
we can’t give up because there is no other way for us to live.
kelley in virginia on March 31, 2009 at 7:42 AM
I think Obama has a strong get whitey complex. It’s hard to miss in his book and in his words.
tarpon on March 31, 2009 at 8:07 AM
Wrong answer….. Yes we are….
doriangrey on March 31, 2009 at 8:08 AM
It’s called marketing/advertising.
After the 2000 elections the dems had numerous meetings about how they could win elections. They figured that they were so close that that if they used marketing tactics (say the same thing over and over no matter what you say and it’s true) they could win. They even hired some guy who was supposed to teach them how to use words and phrases.
They lost 2004 and they actually fired the guy they had hired and started using even stronger language. They had the media on their side and their lies and propaganda was accepted as truth. No negatives for the dems. but negatives all the time for republicans.
It’s just marketing in it’s most ruthless form and we don’t have the delivery mechanism to compete as of right now.
Vince on March 31, 2009 at 8:23 AM
I don’t mean to sound defeatist with my previous post but I don’t like to sugar coat the current situation. He is right when he says “that the American system, the one the Founders created, is still in place”. The people still have the power to save our great republic. I won’t give up till my last breath.
Dollayo on March 31, 2009 at 8:30 AM
I guess David isn’t watching the economy circle the drain while our savings and retirement dwindle and Congress runs toward the socialist cliff with wild abandon.
He just wants to think Ogabe is another inept politician. Nothing to see here. Go back to you place in the unemployment line.
Writing us all off as having ODS is his way of showing how enlightened and superior he is.
It never fails; you get some attention and your ego swells to fill a room. Then everyone who would normally agree with you becomes “little people”.
SKYFOX on March 31, 2009 at 8:35 AM
Fine, we’re loons and you’re a boring parasite. Are we done here?
venividivici on March 31, 2009 at 8:40 AM
Crazy as it may sound I think 2004 was our last free and fair election.
I think you may be right. Any one know what percentage of the vote was fraudulent? Why do so many assume it was 1-2%? What if it was actually 10-15%? We don’t know. And no one wants to find out.
I noticed here in Georgia, Saxby Chambliss had to have a runoff, the vote was so close. Won the runoff by 10-12%. My contention is, that difference is representative of the fraudulent vote that didn’t have time to create fraudulent absentee votes, and busloads of bought off voters, who may not exactly be fraudulent, but then again aren’t honest voters.
Point is if we do not know the extent of the problem we can not solve it. If the fraudulent vote is 10% can we ever win again? You know they are trying to increase fraudulent voting. We are becoming a banana republic.
odannyboy on March 31, 2009 at 9:03 AM
I would be very disappointed if anything like that took place here. I’ve always felt that banning at hotair was about protecting the integity of the site and not giving the left any real ammunition to marginalize it. Allowing someone to think their views were being expressed when they aren’t is flat out censorship even more then banning someone outright.I’ve made comments directed to allah and ed that caused them to respond directly and if I were banned for something like that I wouldn’t think it was correct but that would be their right. But for a site to stealthly ban someone means that they know that they can’t combat your ideas and feel guilty about banning you for being correct and within bounds.
peacenprosperity on March 31, 2009 at 9:16 AM
I think both 2000 and 2004 were manipulated by acorn and the democrats and were not as close as they turned out. I live in a county with over a million residents where every republican presidential candidate has won handily since Eisenhower. The election results the last time tried to tell us barry was within 5000 votes of mccain. Now it’s true mccain was a lousy and disappointing candidate but the voter turnout did not support any theory that democrats increased their base at all.
peacenprosperity on March 31, 2009 at 9:22 AM
I’m with ya Sap.
katy on March 31, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Obama is willing to do and say anything in order to win. His massive NY email campaign for Scott Murphy is case in point, stating the candidates unsubstantiated claims as matter of fact when indeed there is no proof of the so-called “1000 jobs created”. There IS proof that he will vote for everything Obama wants, especially bail-outs and higher taxes to pay for bigger government, and no national defense as prosecuting the 9-11-01 terrorists would cost too much.
maverick muse on March 31, 2009 at 10:13 AM
How much has Obama’s recession sucked out of your retirement.
Johan Klaus on March 31, 2009 at 10:13 AM
I’ve noted two bannings at HotAir, both on the basis of commenters absolutely furious with Allahpundit over a specific issue of being two-faced, as memory recalls. Tempers were hot, and profanity was profuse with the first banning I saw, and the warning was ignored.
It would appear that bannings at HotAir are personal, not actually based upon whether the commenter is leaving false information in the threads. IMHO, also appears that Allahp welcomes trolls, and has an affinity to them.
I could be wrong; but so it seems.
maverick muse on March 31, 2009 at 10:25 AM
On the one hand, page view counts matter. It’s a matter of blog economic survival. So, I can understand the “stirring the pot” posts and allowing trolls to further stir the comment threads. It generates page views. And even when the threads get off-topic, such as your comment and mine, the topics they get changed to are often still relevant in the culture wars between conservatives and liberals.
On the other hand, the inanity of the liberal trolls, the frequent profanity, the bashing of certain types of conservatives, and the internecine warfare between self-identified conservatives (or, as in Brietbart, are some of them just pretending to be conservatives?) can be very tiring, make threads difficult for me to read or follow, and include vast amounts of uncorrected misinformation. So, there are times that I just can’t take it.
Loxodonta on March 31, 2009 at 11:40 AM
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