Quotes of the day

“To acknowledge that his critics act in good faith would shake the president’s oversized self-confidence. He alone is in possession of the truth, the only honest broker in a den of conservative thieves, the heir to the noblest traditions of American history…

In recent months the characterization of Obama’s opponents as a bunch of lying name-callers who do not care about facts, do not possess reason, advocate timidity and the status quo, and cannot ‘engage in a civil conversation’ has become all too familiar. It is the natural outcome of an unstoppable force–the angry and arrogant left-wing of the Democratic party–running up against an immovable object–the instinctual conservatism of an American populace that is skeptical of complicated and expensive government interventions…

Isn’t it possible, though, that the moderates, independents, and “right-wing nutters” who traveled to congressional town halls and voiced their opposition to the president’s big-government initiatives do know what’s good for them–or, at least, know that Obamacare may turn out to be bad for them? That it might be too costly and too onerous for an American economy with high unemployment and staggering fiscal imbalances? That today’s reform, like others in the ‘history of our progress,’ may lead to unforeseen distortions and crises down the road? Fixated on its attempt to manipulate the economy in ways that produce its desired social outcomes, the White House has neglected the only real ‘public option’: listening to the public. Determined to pass health care reform even over the objections of popular opinion, the Democrats are practicing a hubristic and antidemocratic politics.

And they will come to regret it.”

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