There is panic in the ranks of the left this Halloween.  In today’s Times, Frank Rich, does his level best to whistle past the graveyard, but the fear is clear.  He astonishingly titles his piece, “The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York.”  I guess they feel the Hitler moniker has lost its zest, so the leftists resort to calling those on the right, Stalinists.  Their disorientation could not be more palpable.

What has them in such a tizzy?  It centers around the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.  The local Republican party bosses chose a candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who would never be mistaken as a conservative, although Mr. Rich actually called her, “a mainstream conservative by New York standards.”  That’s like saying David Letterman is chaste by liberal standards, as if these things are measured on a relative scale.  But that’s the way liberals and statists think.  If your neighbor is more promiscuous than you, then you must be celebate.  If you want to make Nancy Pelosi a moderate, move her to Cuba.

Ground Shift

What has Mr. Rich and his cohorts nervously clearing their throats, is that the uprising against the entrenched statists, led by the Tea Parties, actually delivered results.   Ms. Scozzafava is pro-abortion, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-Obama stimulus package, pro-card check to make it easier to form a union without a secret ballot election, and supported by ACORN.  This is what Mr. Rich calls a conservative, “by New York standards.”  What sticks in his craw is that the election was a win-win, for him and his friends.  Elect the Republican or the Democrat and it doesn’t matter much, they both hold the same basic views.  Then along came Doug Hoffman.

Doug Hoffman threw his hat in the ring on the Conservative Party line.  By this Saturday, with support pouring in all across the country from true conservatives, Hoffman was in a dead heat with the conservative and the Republican Scozzafava was fading fast.  So she decided to suspend her campaign, and Mr. Rich and company hit the panic button.

So how does Mr. Rich frame his argument?  Well he starts by saying Hoffman has no grasp of local issues.  Uh, the position is United States Congressman, not city alderman.  He well understands the issues at the national level and how the policies of the Obama Administration are bankrupting the country.  Those policies will negatively affect the people in his district.  But leave it to Mr. Rich to scoff at Hoffman, because he doesn’t know how much pork barrel spending the district needs. A true patriotic Congressman, like John Murtha, finds a way to build an airport in the district that nobody uses and hands the bill to people in other districts like, well, New York’s 23rd.  He’s going to Washington to fight those who are bleeding the Treasury dry.  So Mr. Rich fights that by calling Fort Drum, home to the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, a “pork-dependent military base.”  Hmmm…the last time I read my copy of the Constitution, it specifically required providing for the national defense.  I couldn’t find in my copy where it required building airports no one needed so that John Murtha could get re-elected in perpetuity.  I understand it is a fine distinction, but I would have thought someone employed by the New York Times would be able to make it.

Frank Rich’s Happy Talk

Mr. Rich oddly calls the developments in New York as good news.  With a recent Gallup Poll, showing that for every self-described liberal there are two self-described conservatives, Mr. Rich says the ideologues that brought about the events in New York’s 23rd, may then start picking off other conservatives and destroy the party.  Does he mean conservatives like Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Charlie Crist, oh my!  With 73% of GOP voters saying that Congressional Republicans have lost touch with their base, this is not good news for Mr. Rich and company.  What he believes is that a small cabal of conservatives will put unelectable candidates on the ballot that voters will reject and the Democrats will gleefully reap the rewards.  In reality, the GOP leadership has for too long put weak candidates on the ballot that Democrats easily beat because the Republican base cannot get excited about them.  McCain is a war hero and worthy of our admiration, but just look at his signature legislation:  McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy.  He was not a conservative on many fronts. 

Nixon was a conservative, Ford was not.  Reagan was a conservative, Bush 41 was not and  Dole was not.  George W. started more conservative than not, but then drifted to become a big spender.  McCain was not a conservative.  Do you see a pattern here?  Conservative Republicans win.

With Obama’s approval rating going down in a virtual straight line, Mr. Rich confidently proclaims that the only politician Obama has to fear is Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.  By all means, Mr. Rich, you keep telling your pals that.

In 1956 the Federal Highway Act was signed into law creating the Interstate Highway system that today is 47,000 miles long.  The bill that created that was 29, that’s not a typo, 29 pages long.  Who could not read through a 29 page bill before deciding whether or not to vote for or against?

In this Congress we had a stimulus bill that was over 1,000 pages long, a cap and trade bill that was over 1,000 pages long, and health care reform that is sure to be over 1,000 pages long.  Who could possibly read over 3,000 pages of legislation and make any kind of intelligent vote on it.  I don’t know about you, but I have read regulatory “prose” and after 10 pages or so, I need to take a walk around and get a cup of coffee, just to clear my head.

Why Are These Bills So Long?

Someone once asked, “Where is the best place to hide a tree?”  Answer: “In a forest.”  A 1,000 page bill is a very good forest.  Arlen Specter just introduced legislation to help tort lawyers make more money from frivolous lawsuits.  Consider this:

To show what a loyal tort-lobby servant he is, Mr. Specter has also introduced a bill to let attorneys claim an up-front tax deduction on expenses they incur while building contingency fee cases. Amazing but true: Mr. Specter wants to give a tax cut to sustain the likes of Mel Weiss or Dickie Scruggs in the yachts to which they have become accustomed while they await jackpot jury verdicts. Even Democrats are too embarrassed by this giveaway (estimated cost: $1.6 billion) to pass it as a stand-alone bill, so tort lobbyist Linda Lipsen recently said “we have to tuck it into something” else, such as another “tax vehicle.” {emphasis added}

What better place to hide something like this than a 1,000 page bill?  Add to that the URGENCY that everything has to be passed NOW so that for those who want to read the bill to find these stinkers to oppose them there is no time before Nancy Pelosi rams that through.

It seems like it is us against them.  They have gotten into power and their top priority is to stay there.  Representing us?  That ended on election night.

Joe Biden hit the airwaves on Sunday to try to damp down the growing feeling that Americans have that their president is not Barack Obama, but Bernie Madoff.  Sold a bill of goods that the urgently needed stimulus package of $787 billion would cap unemployment at 8% and prevent it from reaching 9% in the absence of said stimulus, the American people are realizing they were fleeced.  Here’s Joe:

“Vice President Joe Biden said on a Monday conference call with reporters that it was “above [his] pay grade” to explain in detail the methodology the White House uses to estimate the number of jobs created or saved by the economic stimulus legislation, but stressed that there had been no “reasonable” challenges to the estimates.”

Biden used the same coy formulation as his boss used to answer the question concerning abortion and when life begins, i.e., “above my pay grade.”  Well, then let’s wheel in the person in the next pay grade up to explain it to you, Joe.  This is the guy who Obama put in charge of watching how the stimulus money is spent.  So as to really put you at ease, Joe added this gem:

“I’m sorry I’m not an economist,” Biden said as he was describing the methodology. “My background is foreign policy and the constitution.”

Just when you thought it was safe to believe that on the job training for President Obama might be working, his sidekick lets go with that thigh slapper. So who’s watching foreign policy and the constitution?  This president insists that $787 billion of your tax dollars are needed to boost the economy and it is left in the hands of a man who admittedly doesn’t know what he’s doing.

You Have to Spin It to Win It

45% of the American people, according to a Rasmussen poll, believe the remainder of the stimulus package should be cancelled.  Uh-oh, start the spin machine.  So Joe Biden says,

“Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that “everyone guessed wrong” on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration’s spending designed to combat rising joblessness.”

Everyone, Joe?  If I’m not mistaken every Republican Congressman voted against that odious bill and only three Republican senators, including Arlen Specter, who has moved over to your team.  So, Joe, you should modify that to “every Democrat guessed wrong, while the Republicans were spot on.”    And if that’s not bad enough, Rasmussen tells us that 48% of Americans do not believe new stimulus spending will create more jobs.  So membership in your “everyone club” is getting mighty lean.

Rubbing Salt in the Wound

If that’s not bad enough for Joe and his team, consider this: a new Rasmussen poll says that 51% of Americans favor an across-the-board tax cut for ALL Americans to stimulate the economy.  So much for soak the rich and class warfare.  Most Americans know that we are all in this together and we all need to pitch in to get out.  Tax cuts work.  Spending doesn’t.